Out With The Old - Why Getting Rid Of Games Has Been The Best Thing For Me

Stephen discusses Gaming FOMO (fear of missing out), responsibilities clashing with free time and why culling your game collection can feel so liberating.

[Moonman]

Don't EVER sell your favorite games unless your life depended on the money. You will regret it (one day).

[ARESWARLORD]

I agree with you on that you can always go back to them my son is 8 years old now his first system that I started him on when he was about one-and-a-half years old and he used it until about four years old was the Sega Genesis and then I move him to the Sega Dreamcast and now he plays PS4 and PC. He's also got his hands on the Colecovision and the NES just for me having access to those still at this point he got to see what gaming was like going back to the very beginning which is rare for a kid of his age

[naruga]

is super idiotic generally to sell games, especially with the fluid situation that existis in game studios . you may never ever can replay a specific game from a specific creator if you lose the copy and be forced to pay 10 times more to rebuy it ...the only games i ever sold are the ones that i know for they will rereleased in the next months in GoTY edition including the all the stupid DLCs

[Movefasta1993]

i always regret it,i re brought both demon souls and dark souls 1 at least 5 times .But now i'll forever keep them.

[MilkMan]

Nah, I love my old games. Still having fun with them.

[InTheZoneAC]

Why get rid of games? Pick a game and enjoy it. I quit bs destiny and stopped playing other online games so that I can enjoy my backlog of games.

[ARESWARLORD]

Very good article I agree with what the author is trying to say as a family man myself you want to spend as much time as you can with the family as your kids will grow up faster than you can imagine and when you do game make the most of it and whatever way suits you best for me I'm at the age where I'm willing to spend some hard earned money on high end equipment like Pro or my gaming PC to have the best possible experience for the limited amount of time I get the play the Xbox Scorpio looks like it's going to be my next purchase because it's looking pretty fantastic I'm not meaning to ramble on here boys I'm just trying to say life is short spend time with your family and game on

[XbladeTeddy]

I sold Animal Crossing on the GameCube which had the memory card with it. I still cry about doing that every day.

[punishing1]

As a 45 year-old and father of three, I can definitely relate to that article. I can especially relate to FOMO. That said, I don't spend anywhere near that much on games yearly. As for culling - no way - I have only lived to regret it and end up repurchasing things I've sold. Within the last couple of days, I just declared that I will not sell any more of my gaming collection. It's the only hobby I spend money on. No jet ski, snowmobile, hot rod, etc. over here. Compared to my buddies and all their "toys", I got nothin' on 'em. Is it worthwhile? Not really. Should I quit? Probably. Will I? Nope.

[annoyedgamer]

Culling a collection is not liberating. Grow a pair, build a storage container and put it in storage.

[Tetsujin]

I still have some older games, and after the recent trends with gaming, I'll stick to physical versions.

Dreamcast - Boot up, game loads.
Sega Saturn - Reset clock (with a new CMOS battery), game loads.
PlayStation 2 - Game loads after reading memory card(s).
Current gen - Online required to get updates. Patch downloads, game installs. Some time later, error occurs and have to restart game.

Plays older Dreamcast game - Man this is fun! Oh sh-t, class/work soon. "Saves game, heads off to be an adult."
Plays current system - "This feels like a chore. Work/school in an hour, need to find a spot to save" 45 minutes later - Finally found the auto save spot.

Older games - Still loads after 10+ years of taking care of them.
Newer games - Servers are down, unable to load game. Offline only. Whatever is broken is still broken.

You get the idea...

[BrianOBlivion]

Priorities all messed up. Traitor.

[VJGenova]

On my steam account, I recently moved 5 games from my "will play" to "might play" and 20 games from "might play" to "not interested." Too many games, not enough time. Granted, unlike this author, I buy maybe 6 games/year day 1. The rest are humble bundles, steam sales, etc. I probably max out atound $700/year on software, instead of $7,000. I am looking to buy a 1080ti, but when I sell my 2 980tis its pretty much a wash.