I may not completely have stopped buying games, but I'm doing fairly well in restraining myself. I didn't get a single game from that silly Insomnia sale. It also helped that I couldn't be bothered to stay glued to GOG's homepage.

While I've added a few more games to my wish list that look quit good to me, I can hold off on them until I'm ready and (as a bonus) they may offer a better price.

On the non-PC side:

I am contemplating finally picking up the newest Fire Emblem for 3DS. I love those games, even if I'm not fond with this splitting of campaigns and storylines into three parts with this iteration. I very much doubt I'll buy more than one version.

As for my XBone I haven't bought a single game since Christmas time and I have yet to be tempted by one. Getting all these great games with the Gold program surely helps. Hell, even if one isn't into online multiplayer that $60 provides for a lot of and varied gaming. Now this is a games as a service system I can get behind... That said, even there I'm starting to have a backlog of titles.



I've only spent $21.50 this year. Well, add another $40 for Fire Emblem (possibly today). With all the overtime I've been doing lately I deserve to splurge at least a little on a game I really want. :) Now I just need to find the time to play more. ;)

I'm building quite a large Android backlog. Bought Dead Synchronicity yesterday.

I bought NOTHING.

Hurray I beat the insomnia temptation.

The Breakdown:

Steam: 114 (111 unique, 3 also on GOG)
GOG: 83 (2 freebies)
Origin: 7
Uplay: 13 (12 part of a Humble Bundle)

Total: 214 (unique)
Total Completed: 23
Total Started: 33

Just started gaming last year but I think I definitely have a problem. XD

*grabs a chair*
Hello,
my name is mchack and I have a game purchase addiction.

It started christmas 2014 with a gift for my wife (nice adventure drm free, pretty nifty page that gog.com) then there was the christmas sale and I was like oh wow that's great games Baldur's Gate oh and Quest for Glory and uh even new Indie games that look and feel like the classics like Quest for Infamy, man let's just stack up while it's so cheap and play them all someday.)

Then there came a time with no big sales and I got afraid that I should've bought many more games in that winter sale while I had the chance, since they are all so expensive now ... and then the double insomnia hit and I reached a critical mass in my library (some 400 games) that made me want (and think I eventually could) buy all of them. I encountered the twitch channel and spent a lot of time there trying to win raffles (fun fact: with one of those I even got crawl in my library, hope it gets released someday ;) and I discovered the Forums with all the giveaways and game trading.

I started with giving away and getting gifted leftovers(/double buys like wasteland 1 or the bard's tale) and I started trading games not currently discounted for games on sale right now. Then there were games I couldn't get like the old fallouts but wanted to have and play and so I started using steam to get the games I couldn't get on gog. And with that came the bundles and the gaming deals thread.

I diligently builld up my libraries and had a lot of fun doing so, but with that I spent a sizeable amount of my money and time. My wife was getting angry with me and I got all defensive about it and spent even more time on the forums starting to play mafia (greatest thing on the gog forums for me. It was fabulous but truly time consuming) and started to even build friendships.

A year later I have around 2000 games and that is way more than enough. I need to stop now, and I think for that I need to get away from the gog forums, too.
I'm sure I'll buy the odd game from time to time, but my resolve now is, that if I buy another game I need to play it right away and that I need to cut the time I spend on gog to a minimum (let's say an hour per week instead of every waking minute that I can afford ;) so I unvafourited all those threads that I used to lurk in.

The thing is while it's great fun to be here, I have quite some AFK Issues that need my full attention (like my second daughter that'll be born in may and with that the need for a bigger apartement and with that the need for a new workplace (because bigger apartements are not affordable in the city) so I'll try everything to not be compelled to check back on gog all the time in the hope that I'll spend my time on things that really need to be done instead.

So my resolve now is:
-No more games at all (I do have enough) - If I should feel the need I have to play something right now, I may buy it (and report here) but have to play it immediatly.
-Much less time spent on gog. Let's say once a week check up on pms I might have gotten maybe browse the forums a bit and say hi but the other days just don't even open
the page so as not to get pulled in again.
-If I got my life in order again and have a lot of free time and get bored, I'll be back to the forums and play mafia :) (but not the game buying, that really has to stop now. For good.)

Thank you ;)

Congratulations!

For me my second kid pretty much killed gaming. Only now that he's close to 6 he's gaming more seriously himself so I can get some co-op or second hand gaming (watching my son and daughter play LEGO Marvel Super Heroes together).

NNOoooooooooooooo

XCOM is here. I must be strong. I must be strong.

*group chant*

Welcome, mchak!

*group chant end*

Thanks for sharing in such depth, what a great first post. This is exactly the kind of participation that makes this group therapy so interesting. I'll get back to you in more detail, at present I'm strongly limiting my forum time and trying to reduce my internet time in general but I have a longer post planned to share in detail how I managed to beat this addiction. There is no 100% guarantee that I'm on the safe side for good but I think I've made very significant progress, not just by perseverance but with a variety of strategies that might be beneficial to others. We're in this together so we can beat it together, as well!

So much detail in one post. Thanks a lot for sharing, I mean it ;)
The thing is that, well, possibly the future generations will enjoy your games, and I ain't lyin', pal. 2000 games is more than a normal adult can possibly enjoy. But hoory for your stupendous courage ;)

This "new" psychological problem is called the limbic cortex aka lizard brain and it is trying to trick you into relapsing via all kinds of excuses. Beware the lizard brain for it is most crafty.


That's a lofty goal, I hope you can achieve it - but I also hope that you won't see it as a fail if you don't manage a perfect one year streak. After all, this isn't technically about staying clean for as long as possible before relapsing, it should be about self development. To get to a point where you won't need sheer willpower to resist because you replaced having cravings with positive new habits, something that gives you slower and deeper satisfaction than the quick hormone rushes from compulsive purchases.
In that regard I don't see my day counter as the most important tool, it's the replacement behaviors that I put into place in RL that count most.


Congrats on resisting Insomnia. During my first Insomnia sale, I literally stayed glued to the GOG homepage, lost sleep over it and even thought I was having fun when all I was doing was being lazy, bathing in cheap dopamine releases.
I haven't fearfully avoided any major sales since starting my purchasing abstinence project because I don't believe in hiding from a problem. On the contrary, I looked at most sales to see if I had cravings and if I had cravings I try to observe those feelings in a detached and almost amused way rather than trying to suppress them. By now, I've come to a point where I don't look sales anymore at all and the cravings are almost entirely gone. Only game that managed to create cravings was the new Wadjet adventure (Shardlight) which I intend to buy and play at some point (have stopped playing games but an occasional short adventure is not a waste of time imho) but I want to be sure that I do that only once I can make the purchase free from any feelings of compulsion.


Congratulations Gnostic! I wonder if it is due to improved willpower or because you simply had everything from the sale already? If it's the latter, you still need more therapy :P



If it bothers you, it is a problem!

Taking inventory is a great first step, this shows you that you already have an abundance of unplayed games and don't "need" to buy any new ones for quite a while.

As with all therapies, it would be unwise to compare your numbers to the numbers of others who have more or less games, all that matters is whether you feel you need to cut back or not. Since you posted here, I assume you want to cut back.

Well, that was then... *whistles innocently* I couldn't resist the 2K stuff though. X-COM, Pirates! and the greatness that is Railroad Tycoon? No, I couldn't pass that up. Oh well. I merely ended up having them trade places with a single $40 3DS game I was going to buy, so I guess I came out on top still. *shrug* Or at least I try telling myself that.

Still, these are games I've been waiting on for some time - I actually pretty much gave up hope for 2K to show up here - so it wasn't exactly an impulse purchase.

Hey! I actually went to check them out again after your post ;) (they came out the day I posted here, which prevented me from insta-buying them) Now I thought about getting them while they are still discounted, but then I remembered that i have enough to play for the next say 100 years so I didn't get them ;) but it was close.

Anyway feels good so far, though I have not bought a game for myself in one week :)
But I already have one "Game" (the new baldurs gate dlc) that I know I want to have eventually, but I promised myself to only get it once I'm through with Baldur's gate 1 and on the verge of starting 2 so I can play the dlc in between. so until that happens I won't buy it. :D

So what replacement behaviors are those?
I recently quit smoking too (it's been around two month now) and now I really need to start thinking about fun things to do with all my new found free time (when I usually was sitting outside, smoking and checking out the gog forums compulsivly ;)
I for one will hopefully start running again (I did half-marathons 10 years ago but haven't really been at it earnestly in the last 8 years) and will play more games (maybe I'll join the gentlemens backlog club).
Aside from all the RL stuff I need to get done of course....

I wouldn't blame you for giving in to X-COM. If you're going to relapse, might as well do it in style - with one of the best games of all times (still a personal favorite of mine). Ideally though, you won't relapse at all. Don't let your brain trick you into thinking any particular game in existence is worthy enough to slow down your self development. No game is! Plus there is no immediate need for you to get X-COM right now especially considering you're doing so well with an increasingly impressive clean streak.

Planned purchases are definitely better than impulsive ones. However, imho the optimal way to truly come out on top is when you get more satisfaction from managing to pass up a good game deal than from making the purchase - without feeling you are sacrificing anything.
Nothing wrong with adding X-COM, Pirates and Railroad Tycoon to your collection but do you need them right at this moment? Probably not, plus they'll go on deeper sales before long. Ultimately, every "relapse" (I prefer the term temporary slowdown of progress) re-enforces paths in your brain that you are trying to sever and reconnect in more purposeful ways. In that regard, it doesn't really matter what you buy. It's doing the same thing to your neural network.

My main replacement behavior isn't an emergency tool that I use to stop myself from relapsing when I'm about to cave in (like running into another room and doing pushups), it's something I do in RL every day. I've been drawing from life for more than 15 years but have slacked off last year. In December 2015, I started to draw people from life every day and I at the most allow myself one day off every week, ideally none because one is going to have unplanned off days occasionally so there's no need to schedule rest days.
Drawing can be brutally hard especially at an experienced level because leveling up becomes an increasingly rare achievement. Drawing doesn't give me any cheap & easy hormone rushes like buying a game does but the satisfaction is overall deeper and more lasting. Anything that you are passionate about and that gives you purpose can serve as a replacement habit. It can be something you're already doing but not doing at a dedicated and consistently frequent (!) level.

I also took up meditation, joined an outdoors fitness group and slowly try to increase RL time and decrease online time. There's better and worse ways of spending time online but even the better ways aren't as good for you as doing something active in RL. Instead of just sticking to my main interests (fine arts & martial arts) where I'm continually trying to push for more skills, I've been trying out other RL activities just for enjoyment without pressure or expectations, to switch things up. I always thought trying out stuff leads to loss of focus but one can see it as expanding your life experience so it's not a waste of time.
Still can't leave this forum as I have a number of giveaways that I still need to make to atone for my relapses but I'm on my way out, quietly and purposefully :)

Thanks for explaining what you meant by replacement behaviours. :) It's an interesting read, though I can't quite compete there. But taking up running again would be enough for me.

Anyway, I did not buy a single game (any store) in the whole of april :) So that's something!
So gave up smoking in Febuary (check) Gave up buying Games in March (check) next up: giving up eating so much sweets, start running again, etc... Bright Future indeed. ;) (let's see how it turns out)