This title might not be accurate, but I think it gets the message across.
I realized the other day that the only reason I keep video games I don’t want to play is that I don’t want to pay for them again if I change my mind. When I bought my Switch, I made the mistake of buying all the games I expected to play at once, rather than waiting until I was actually motivated and had the time to play them individually. This has resulted in me owning games like Animal Crossing (which I only bought because my Switch is the Animal Crossing edition) and Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which I had heard good things about and was kind of interested in playing. Three years later, I haven’t played either of them, but I unfortunately already opened the packaging, making them technically “used”.
It’s apparently very easy for me to turn life in a series of check-list style obligations, because some of these video games have actually weighed on me. I’ve written about this before: it’s bizarre – games are supposed to be for entertainment – but when you still have remnants of what is often called “poverty spirit” in you, you often feel you have to “get your money’s worth” from things, whether there is really any value using those things or not.
I rarely play solo video games these days because the industry has become extremely manipulative. It used to be that you could play through most games within a few dedicated weeks, and although extensive RPGs have been with us a very long time, every game now seems to be competing fiercely for your time.
I found a website the other day that assesses games based on how long they take to play through. There is the time it takes to complete the core story, the time it takes to complete the core story and all the side quests, then the time it takes to complete both of these plus get all the rare items/weapons/etc (the “completionist” approach). My personality is geared for completionism, but it’s never actually fun, since it takes a tremendous amount of effort and only pays out just enough of a dopamine hit when you get a rare item to keep you playing. Breath of the Wild apparently has a core + side quests completion time of around 100 hours, which leaves me thinking, “Fuck, are you serious?” Like…I know I was once kind of interested in playing it, but am I THAT interested in playing it?
But again, the only reason I keep these games is because I already paid for them, so there’s this idea that I need to get my money’s worth. This is not true – this is the sunk cost fallacy at work – but psychologically, it’s very real.
(I actually suspect this could be a form of pride, a sort of “I am good with my money!!” pride)
I think this is why people hoard possessions. Why does the guy several houses down my street have a two car garage absolutely filled to the brim with junk? Probably because he bought it all over time and is afraid to get rid of it. After all, it’s supposedly worth something, isn’t it?
And that’s kind of how many of us see it, too. Over time, I’ve taught myself to let go of things much more easily, but this is a luxury I can afford, having earned good money in software development. If I was barely making ends meet, I’d be concerned about letting go of anything that would cost me money to buy again. But again, that’s a state of mind you don’t necessarily grow out of. “I can’t get rid of this, it will cost me $60 to buy again!”, say some people with a spare $1,000+ per month!
(I know you can sell things, too, but online marketplaces eat a chunk of the sale price, and when you already have to discount it for being “used”, you earn hardly anything for your efforts, which is why I don’t usually bother selling things.)
And honestly, when I look back at all of the money I’ve wasted this past year, it has almost always been from things I would later realize I didn’t actually want, or things like books that I realized were not nearly as good or as useful as I thought. It makes me think there’s great value in delaying purchases!
But if you let this process build up over years, yeah – you end up like that guy down my street. So obsessed with saving money that you’re actually losing it, paying money to heat and cool junk in storage, having to park your cars outside because you need your garage to store a bunch of things you apparently never use. Getting rid of things has a cost, but not getting rid of things has a cost, too. If it’s not financial, it’s almost certainly psychological.
As for video games, I miss having games that were simply fun and relatively short. The sheer levels of commitment required to complete most games these days does not interest me. But also, I need to accept that I will never be as interested in video games as I was when I was a kid, and that’s okay. But that’s also why it’s important to not put myself in a position in which I feel I have to commit to them.