I should have known that history would repeat itself. I cut my teeth as far as modding/hacking when I got my first Flash2Advance cart for the original, non-backlit GBA. By the time that handheld was officially dead in the water, I had hundreds of games on my hard drive, but had only ever played a handful of them.
Same thing when I got my first PSP. By the time that system hit the end of its life cycle, I had hundreds of games, but played less than 40% of them.
Then, again when I got my first DS, but that was even worse. With smaller games than the PSP, and MUCH MUCH MUCH more shovelware, I wound up maybe playing a quarter of the games I acquired.
Now that I have a Gateway 3DS, here we go again.
I've probably spent twice the amount of time fiddling with my ROMs, copying new ones to my card, then replacing it with a different game ten minutes later when I get bored with it, than I have actually PLAYING any games on my 3DS with my new flash card.
The newest Zelda and Phoenix Wright games are the only ones that really managed to capture and keep my attention. Even though I now have pretty much the entire library of games that I could buy at GameStop, I usually can't be arsed to even bother playing most of them.
I wonder how common this phenomenon is. Is anyone else here essentially a ROM hoarder, but not really that much of a hardcore gamer?
Neo Draven, this is a fantastic topic.
Your situation really affects me the same way and I know exactly where you're coming from. I have a few things to add:
Game Binging
As has already been touched upon, the real issue here is
game binging. The more games in my collection, the less likely I am to play of them. It's very similar to the situation where parents will buy their child a single gift for Christmas and he is likely to play with that gift for a long time because he has no other choice. Next Christmas they decide to start gift binging and giving several presents at once and the child might try a couple of them for a while and then might end up bored of all of them and start playing with the wrapping paper instead. I feel like this is a human tendency, like a psychological resistance to having
too much choice or having your attention divided over too many things.
Hoarding Games is an Addiction
I'm totally guilty of piracy hoarding. Attached is a picture of my PC games folder. The vast majority of those games are pirated. I've only ever played about 50% of them, and only played 13 of them for more than 10 hours. Hoarding free games is an
addiction, one that is often more powerful than the urge to play the games. Also, tinkering with and organizing your collection simply adds more layers to the addiction. Sometimes I'll spend forever customizing the graphics settings for a PC game like Tomb Raider until it looks perfect, only to play it for less than 1 hour total. I once spent weeks modding the PC version of Oblivion with the perfect mods, only to play it for 5 hours and then get bored. The real fun and enjoyment was actually in setting up the mods to all work together.
The downside to this addiction is the deep sense of regret I feel when I end up not enjoying the fruit of my labors. I think you will know what I mean when I say there is a feeling of regret when you realize you spent a lot of time and effort and the payoff doesn't seem worth it.
Money is Not the Problem
I can say with certainty that cost has nothing to do with it, at least not for me. There are plenty of games I have paid full price for (GTA V, The Witcher 2, Dishonored) that I played for a few hours and then moved on. Likewise, there are some free or pirated games that I've played for dozens of hours.
The Bad News
The bad news is that this only gets worse with time. I first started pirating games on my PS1 when the swap trick became widely known and I burned ISOs to CD-R discs and played them for free. History repeated itself with the PS2, PSP, DS, PC, and now my latest game piracy device: the 3DS. I can say it only gets worse because hoarding games has gone from a part-time hobby to a full-on addiction for me. It's at the point where I visit Metacritic daily to see what new PC games have come out that got an 80+ score, then I immediately visit all of my trusted piracy sites to download it. It's sad, actually.
Are We Growing Out of Games?
I think part of the problem (at least for me) is that I'm slowly starting to grow out of playing games. Video games have been a huge part of my life since I was 5. Now I'm 28 and I'm starting to realize that games are not as fun to me as they used to be. I'm no longer a hardcore gamer. I'm also far more critical of games, and with sites like Metacritic where I can easily find reviews for every game, I feel like I don't want to waste my time with anything except the best games. I think this is part of the process of growing out of games and slowly trying to accept that it will never be the same as when I was younger.
The Good News
The good news is that there is still hope for people like us. There are still those few special games that get us excited and keep us playing until the end. Like Neo Draven, I also played and enjoyed the new Zelda game until the end. Recently, after 7 years of on and off play I finally beat Okami on PS2. I need to hold on to these moments and realize that they are exceedingly rare and also accept that the majority of games I hoard will not hold my attention for very long. Realizing and accepting that my tastes are changing and that I am addicted to hoarding games more than actually playing them is an important step to not feeling so shitty and frustrated about it, as I often used to. Lately I have also enjoyed reading gaming-related industry news, watching online shows, and other media as a way of participating in gaming without actually playing games.
Hopefully some of this will lend some insight to the discussion. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only one with this problem.
P.S. Neo Draven, you shouldn't dismiss all indie games as being bad. A lot of the best experiences I've had this generation were from indie titles. Just like AAA games, it's about finding the right games that appeal to you. I feel like our taste in games might be similar, so PM me if you want to discuss this further.