I’ve been looking for some advice on how to deal with it and explore more my libraries.
Feel free to share your tips and tricks with us on how you deal with avoiding buying too many games, be it full price or during sales.
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Remove CC details from your steam account then hand the card over to someone you trust to hold on to it and provide it to you only when you need it, make yourself justify to them why you need any particular game you desire.
If you don’t have a CC and use steam wallet credits bought somewhere else then don’t buy those, do not have money loaded on your steam account. Make yourself have to go through the hoops of buying credits from a 3rd party at the time when you have a plan and a good reason to buy a game on steam. You might miss out on short deals if it’s a troublesome physical location you need to access for the gift cards, but that’s probably a good thing anyway,
Remove sources of temptation, like if you have an account at isthereanydeal.com or similar set up with wait lists and alerts and stuff. Those serve as a “call to spend” that intrudes into your life unnecessarily and does not help your money spending resilience.
Something I try to do myself. When you are about to buy a game ask yourself if this is something you’re actually interested in installing and playing right away, if it isn’t going to the top of your queue and gets played in a day or two, don’t buy it.
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Hmmmm. I’ve heard that there are people who like planning vacations more than going on vacation.
Maybe you like buying games more than playing games?
An idea may be something like, if you finish two games in your library, you can buy one game.
Or you can have a list of chores you have to do in the real world. If you finish those chores, you can buy one game.
Or you can go on the high seas and go fishing for retro games to play.
Or you can pick up a physical hobby that doesn’t need electronics like sewing, crocheting, leathermaking, blacksmithing, etc.
It is tough having an addictive personality. The only way to stop is not to start. But that doesn’t help if you’re already in something.
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The real root of the issue I think is the good deals we can find on the games. When there are sales with a game at something good like 75% off (sometimes more), it’s easy to rationalize purchase of a game that you might play later. If you can snag a game at 75% off and there’s a 50% chance you’ll play it, it feels like you’re coming out ahead.
The other thing that happens a lot is the bundle deals, where it’s cheaper to get the game in the bundle than by itself, and then you end up with a lot of extra games that you might (that is, probably won’t) play. This is less of a problem really, you still got the game you wanted.
I’m no stranger to any of this, myself. I have more games in my library that I’ll never play than games that I will.
I think the only thing for it is to just decide to limit yourself to games you’re excited to play right now. No subscriptions, no “I should get it now while it’s a good deal but actually by the time I get around to playing it the game will have gone on even better sale”. Do you plan on playing the game immediately after purchase? Get it. Do you plan to play the game “sometime”?. Don’t get it.
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@Fraggles Thanks for the advice. I’m thinking of getting Yakuza Like a Dragon however I won’t play that anytime soon. I guess it’d be wise to wait and complete the Yakuza 0, Kiwami and Kiwami 2 before buying it, so skipping it to get it later should be the right choice.
I also already removed mostly sources of “temptation” from my e-mail, and I removed the last one today (Nuuvem). This should work.
@GDBringer That’s some good advice, thanks! When I’m not on my PC I like to write my stories on my phone using the Microsoft Word app. This helps me “free” some anxiety, stay calm and focused.
@BlivetWidget Thanks for the advice, I appreciate it. IMHO the one games I wanna play right now are the “Fuga” Duology and Black Myth Wukong. That’s it.
And I’ll make sure to save LaD for later until I finish the games needed to be played before it.
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The yakuza games have a LOT of game to them, it seems unlikely to me that anyone would go through them back to back. Even if you end up loving the games so much you’ll start on kiwami right away they’re still 150-200h titles so there’s absolutely no need for you to pick up more than the three you’ve got before you even start zero.
I finished Zero some time in autumn of 2021 and I’m still not super eager to get into Kiwami myself yet.
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I see.
I’ve checked a few reviews and it seems that the game is hilariously fun, much like Saints Row The Third was for me in a distant past, and you can sink many hours on it and don’t get bored. So yeah, I guess I’m pretty much covered by now with it and the Kiwami games.
Since today is an international holiday I’ll check it out, and see how it goes.
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Hope you have a good time, let me know how you like it.
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I have these small notebooks for gaming, i use them for planning characters, writing down hints and solving puzzles etc. Jot down stuff i will forget.
In 2016 i started writing down the games i buy and play in a year by year list.
2016 bought/played 51/49 games
2017 78/38
2018 66/71
2019 30/37
2020 27/77
2021 35/57
2022 13/22
2023 11/16
2024 5/13 (so far)
There are inaccuracys in this, as i have written in pre-made bundles as one purchase (itch.io Racial injustice or Palestine bundles, the Wadjet eye humble bundle etc.) and several games i started playing but drifted away from is not registered as played as i never felt i was done (like Satisfactory last played in january.)
I also try to only buy games i intend to play right now (doesn’t always work.)
The number of bought games have decreased.
New for this year i started a play list in Playnite to get me to play all those games i’ve been intending to play.
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Have you considered using Backloggery to track this stuff? I’ve been using it for years to do all of these tasks, it’s been pretty convenient. I don’t add everything to it though (for example, I don’t typically add games I don’t intend to play, such as most of what I might get in a mega-bundle).
More on-topic: I’ve been dealing with the issue of game buying by making a general rule that I won’t buy a game unless it’s very cheap and I intend to play it within the next couple of weeks (ideally, immediately). So, even if a game’s on a good sale, I won’t buy it unless I know I’ll have time to play it. If I have time to play something but nothing’s on a good enough sale, I do my best to pick something from my backlog, though most of the time I end up replaying some perennial.
Backloggery has been good for guilting me into getting fewer games, because it shows your annual “progress” as (finished games) - (new games), so if you’ve been buying more games than you’ve been finishing, you get a negative number.
PayPal has also been unintentionally helpful with limiting my spending, because most of the time I have no money there, and that’s often enough to dissuade me from buying anything even if technically it can pull money in from elsewhere. In addition, PayPal makes it a hassle to download your transaction history (something I do monthly, need it for accounting/taxes) so I usually add all those transactions manually and I prefer to avoid making more work for myself.
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@blomvik Thanks for the advice! I’m also only buying games I wanna play ASAP, and it has been working so far to me.
I’m also right now uninstalling games on Steam and only leaving those I wanna play or have conditions to play at the moment.
@eishiya Didn’t know about this site but I’ve made one on HowLongToBeat, which I forgot about, heh. 
Anyway, I registered myself on Backlogger and I’ll add the games accordingly. Thanks! 
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I have no tips. I have given up! 
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@delenn13 Yeah, I could see on my activity feed.
But I hope those advice above can help you out.
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My pun about tips:
Some friends asked “Do you want to go cow tipping with us”?
I said “Sure. How much money should I bring to tip the cows”?
(for those who don’t know what “cow tipping” is):
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I have started watching my “bundle buying” because they have almost tripled in price. I think 3 or 4 times if I own half the bundle already before buying. I can’t see paying almost 30CA bucks for 7 games and already owning 3 or more of them…
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We tried cow tipping at my grandmothers’; she had about 30 cows. We were drunk and made too much noise. Kept waking them up.
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@delenn13 Which’s why only buying games you wanna/can play at the moment is the best instead of resorting to bundles. Instead of doing so just get a few specific games you want.
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