As of the first of November 2016, I have 289 unique games in my steam library, all the currently launcher compatible Blizzard titles, 2.48TB of Anime and maybe 2 TB of free space across the 8 and a quarter Terabytes of storage I have in my personal computer. It is probably safe to say that I am something of a hoarder. In real life as well but that is a whole other story… because I hoard books.
Until 2011 I had maybe 15 games on steam and I hardly ever launched anything that wasn’t World of Warcraft or League of Legends. But something changed, something tremendous and dangerous beyond words, I got enough disposable income to buy games, when I wanted them.
I will admit, I have played maybe half of the games I own, and beaten maybe a quarter of that number. So about 20 games. It is a bit depressing to consider, the hours upon hours of glorious entertainment that I have at my finger tips and yet never anything to play. A big problem for a lot of hoarders is impulsiveness, the feeling that maybe, one day, they will need to have that one, very particular, thing easily on hand.
I am a lot like that, only with digital medium. Books, Comics, Shows, Movies and games. I have a treasure trove of them all. Sites like humble bundle only make my addictions worse, buying a PS4 was possibly one of the greatest mistakes of my adult life, the PS Plus monthly subscription for free games is tailor made for someone like me. I will, every month without fail, make sure to add a game I will probably never play, to my ever-expanding PlayStation Digital library. Most of these games probably won’t even be available on the next gen console, but I must own them all the same.
The addiction is inexplicable and when the guys at my local EB ask me what I am playing now, my answer is invariably “World of Warcraft”, so why must I own nearly 300 other titles. Why must I continue to get sucked deeper into the pit of digital hoarding?
I often excuse it off as a form of retail therapy, but most other people buy clothes, TV’s, iPhones or various other, normally useful, items when they commit themselves to retail therapy. I just spend a large chunk of my weekly paycheck making sure I own ‘Obscure title #63’ on Steam and UPlay. Collector’s edition is only $5 USD more? Why not? OST for $1.99 USD? Sure, add it on. The cycle never ends.
To be honest I am not overly worried about my spending habits. I have in the past month only committed a handful of impulse game purchases, also I spent probably most of my normal budget on Loot Boxes in Overwatch.
I am, at the end of the day an unrepentant digital hoarder.
And let’s admit it, you probably are too.
You can find more from Phill on Twitter right here @Moritynz and also more of his work on his website Mildly Awful Gaming right here.
