Topic: Self-imposed ban on buying games

Very good question. It is a question I am now asking myself, as I happened to find a copy of it on my shelf this morning. Gonna try and cancel that one...

I got Pikmin 'cos I've never played it and want to experience the evolution of the series.

@gcunit I tried Eledees a long time ago, but it went back on the shelf. Maybe I'll try to beat it this year.

And Pikmin is good. The Wii versions are probably the best version of the game due to the addition of motion controls. 1 and 3 are my personal favourites.

@Octane I'd heard Eledees was fairly unique, and people have spoken positively about it. Anything even half decent gets a place in my Wii collection if it's novel enough.

@gcunit It's a weird hide-and-seek FPS game, with a time limit, which I remember being fairly annoyed by.

I'm three weeks in a couple days. Still hanging on. I've come close to cracking, but I haven't. I think the worst is over though. Haven't thought about buying games at all. Helps that I'm staying out of thrift stores and there aren't any new games coming out right away that I really want.

I cracked. My birthday was in January, so I treated myself with a couple discounts, on Pokémon Red Rescue Team and Yoshi’s Story for the VC in the Wii U. Wasn’t that much, though - just over ten dollars.

I’m getting tempted by Bayo, but I won’t buy anything full price until I get a job at the very least. I hope I don’t fail again. I hope really need to save some money.

The amount of time I’ve put in Odyssey lately has helped. That game has a ton of content.

@Pahvi Just couldn't resist the lure of the bonsai, huh?

If you made it over a month then you didn't crack, you won - good work.

@gcunit I kinda wish to join you, but I'm not strong enough. I don't earn much money, but I keep a 10% of my earnings to myself, the rest being for my family, now a 3 member one, and I started an Excel last year to see how much I was spending compared to the income, and it was a disaster, even considering I sell a lot of stuff I don't want anymore (video game related or not), which is an unpredictable income because you never know when something is going to sell. In short, I was spending more than that 10%, thus suffering losses every month.

The thing is I've always bought too much, and that's too much money spent, but also, as you say, it's impossible to keep up with the backlog, and I decided to be more conservative this year. I want to have surplus every month, so I plan on buying only one retail game per month, which is still a lot, looking at my backlog. If I don't buy anything one month and the next I buy 2 retail titles, that's OK, as long as I don't buy more than 12 games this year. I will be much more selective. For money, space and time reasons.

I want to spend time on my consoles, Switch-Wii U-3DS-Xbox One-Xbox 360 as the usual ones, but also on my retro systems. And I have to stop buying -or significantly slowing down- and start enjoying.

I hacked my Wii U yesterday so that I can rip all my discs to hdd, which should hopefully give me enough distraction to get through a month now. That and Skyrim should do it. Just gotta keep off ebay (my problem spreads to hardware buying too).

The Next Penelope being on sale is currently my biggest temptation, plus a couple of ebay items I'm watching.

@gcunit wouldn't it make much more sense to give yourself a weekly or monthly budget, like yours truly right here?! If I'm interpreting this correctly (and pardon me if I'm wrong), your goal is not really to save money nor to catch on with your backlog is it, but simply to develop an healthier relationship with buying and playing games, correct?

Well if quitting cold turkey does not work (and it almost never works), then consider giving yourself a budget. Something that is enough to scratch a few little itches but still requires you to think any purchase twice. I can do miracles with 20 quid a month.

@spizzamarozzi I appreciate the thoughtful advice, but this isn't about quitting outright, it's just resisting for a month to break the habit I've gotten in and test how much control I've got over this habit at the moment.

I'm only a few days from one month.
I did "crack", I guess. I bought a brand new blue dualshock 3 controller on ebay last night. But I've been in the market for one for a very long time because my other two are starting to crap-out on me. I don't know if accessories count, but if they do, I cracked.

I found the best way to not buy more games is to stay off the computer and to stay out of thrift stores. I have gained for appreciation for the games I own though and now I'm even starting to make a mental list of what order I'm going to play my backlog.

Like a lot of people I have no worries over money for games but certainly no where near enough time to play everything I'd like to. Recently I've started a sort of personal achievement list as a guide to when I'm happy I'm 'done' with a game. So for example in BotW I've completed the main parts of the DLC, and beaten the game in hard mode. That means that while I've not found every shrine or collectable, I've finished the game to my satisfaction.

By having a sane number of goals I can have a backlog which isn't ever-increasing and isn't impossible to complete. It gives me a nice list to remind me why I don't need every new game. It also means I can buy new games whenever I tick off goals.

I've only been doing this a few months, so we'll see how it goes

I did it.

Go me.

(lmao i probably wont buy a game for another month too)

Okay, one month today! I did it (not including that PS3 controller). I'll probably keep going too.
Thank god I did though, because I had some other expenses this last month that ran me more money than I expected.

Good way to not buy games a lot is not be on nintendolife.....where they talk about new games all the time xD Just play the ones you have instead

I don't need a self-imposed ban, I just need a long-lasting game (e.g. pretty much any decent JRPG, or a strategy game like Crusader Kings II)

Well done to the guys who have crossed the line clean.

I think I'm resigned to having to concede that I'll never be able pass up a sale on a game I'm interested in.

Buying games at £5 is not a concern (provided they are games I wanted anyway), so I'm gonna cut myself some slack with those types of deals.

Well, well, well... it took them 20 years, but I've finally been caught speeding. I don't know the consequences yet, but I'm fairly sure I'm looking at a sweet £100 fine minimum.

So my self-loathing says I need a punishment and some way of 'recouping' that money, and seeing gaming is where nearly all my personal spending goes nowadays, I guess I need to impose a proper ban.

Given how deep my addiction is however, I need to be realistic, so it won't be an outright ban, just a cap at £10 a month for the next 3 months, and then I'll review the situation.