khalfroyo games

*Disclaimer: this post is lengthy and will be different in both tone and content than what I intend to write about moving forward. I felt that context is important and wanted to explain the reason why I’m trying to complete this project 🙂

The link between hoarding titles and the birth of this project is rooted in my need to figure out certain long-standing issues I’ve had to deal with personally. Betcha weren’t ready for THAT, were ya?! The idea of having a backlog is pretty commonly meme’d and referred to by gamers with collections great and small. What was it that caused so many of us to want to collect these games and leave them untouched?

Previous Consoles

It wasn’t always that way though, was it? I remember when I had my original Gameboy, I had Tetris, Super Mario Land, and eventually Pokémon Blue.

I next had an SNES: Super Mario World, Super Mario All-Stars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time, and Mortal Kombat 3.

Nintendo 64: Goldeneye, Starfox 64, F-Zero X, Perfect Dark, WCW vs. NWO Revenge, Jet Force Gemini, NBA Courtside, and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

I played the hell out of these games, and loved them all. Some of my favorite memories growing up include my best friend and I playing through multiplayer modes for hours and hours. My next console (Xbox) was also gifted to me, along with Halo and the Jet Set Radio Future/Sega GT 2002 combo disc. I also secretly got a couple pirated games for cheap during an overseas trip (NBA Inside Drive 2003, and Project Zero/Fatal Frame). I remember thinking I had never heard of Project Zero but hey, it looked cool (it really was a great game) and it was super cheap so I’ll pick it up. Sound familiar?

Of course, these were mostly given to me by my parents. Like most spoiled kids (I own it, lol), I had begged for the newest, latest, and greatest…but in my case, my parents were steadfast and often denied me. By the time I was old enough to work and buy my own games and consoles (several Xbox 360s, a PS3, PC, Xbox One, and a PS4 came after), I recall thinking “I’m going to buy whatever game I want now that I can”. Oh, and I did. Subconsciously all the begging and subsequent denial as a child resulted in a complex of sorts, and when I was unleashed, I was free to exert my consumerist desires wherever my little greedy heart pleased.

The Psychology of Sales and Discounts

If you’ve ever sold something to someone, you know there’s more at play than simple supply and demand. It’s all about appeal, purpose behind the sale, and a sense of urgency. Steam and their season-based sales has this down to the literal science. Their virtual storefront takes on a festive design, and hundreds upon hundreds of games get put on steep discounts.

Appeal: the games you’ve been wanting forever are now hugely marked down! Purpose: let’s celebrate the changing of the seasons and Halloween/Christmas/hell, even spring cleaning! Sense of urgency: you’ve already waited this long, and the game is marked down FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY…you should really get it now. Get it. Get it now. NOW.

Throw in all the normal tricks like manipulative pricing, creating the illusion of a greater discount (-$10 off $100 is the same as -$10 off $20, you just place more value on one over the other in your mind), and you can see how they’ve been wildly successful with this model.

These strategies work to differing extents on different people. For a man who never processed his inner child or resolved a sense of understanding from needs/wants lessons growing up, this worked like a CHARM. Horseshoe wrapped in a double rainbow with four leaf clover glitter sprinkled all over. I snatched up every game I could, and it didn’t take much convincing that I NEEDED IT. Even if I had never had interest in the franchise or concept before, if the reviews looked solid, into the cart it went.

This was the rabbit hole I fell into for years. Sale, cart, pay, collect dust. Rinse, repeat. By the time I had the realization that I was in a vicious cycle with no perceivable end (I had a good paying job and a career trajectory that would only get better, barring any major problems), I had accumulated so many un-played games it was dizzying. I would spend time just looking at Steam, deciding what I wanted to play, but then going back to the same 2-3 games I had been on at the moment.

Continued in Part II…