New Years resolution idea, not buy any games next year

At least for a good portion of the year. No Mans Sky is still coming right? Here me out.

I have gotten carried away with steam sales to the point where i think i have at least 25% of my library unplayed and usually check out something else before scratching the surface of what i was playing last. Its really a issue of too many games and not enough time, i buy a ton of stuff because its cheap and i like the look of it but never get around to playing any of it because im still buying and playing new stuff. Im going to attempt to not buy any games for at least the first half and just play what i have.

Not sure if i have the willpower for this but i want to at least play some of these games and get some enjoyment out of them, im not going to be crazy and force myself to play or finish crap i dont like but i'll give every game a good faith effort and play it until its over or im bored of it. Also i figure it this way.... i'll play a bunch of this stuff and enjoy it, then next fall if i worked my way through some of it i'll allow myself to buy a game or two i really want to check out. Honestly i think i actually have more in my library then i could feasibly play thoroughly in a year, but i will play what looks interesting to me and save some cash in the process.

Might even make a weekly blog out of it or something, though im a horrible writer so not sure about it yet. What you guys think?

I am actually thinking about not buying any games next year either. Obviously it's not gonna happen but I just have too many games I need & want to get to.

Just in the past week or so, I've bought like 5? games plus received 3 from members of the community. It's crazy.

If you do it and write a weekly blog about it, it'd motive me too.

I'm not going to be buying zero games next year but I've started a new policy where I have to reach a point with a certain amount of games before allowing myself to buy 1 game. Whether it's actually beating a game or reaching a point where I got out all I wanted out of that game, I've been aiming for a minimum ratio of 2:1 but wanting to do close to 3 or 4 to 1. Ignoring the Steam sale since it broke that policy, it was helping me focus on actually "finishing" games. Once I finish some games, I can reward myself by buying something I want and hopefully limit or eliminate any impulse purchases that have plagued the backlog. Something like this won't work for everyone but it's the best guideline structure for how I am personally by giving myself little mini goals to aim towards.

@instantryan: Yea, my only thing with this is i dont ever say i have to finish something because i get burned out on games, especially with some of the longer ones. I played about 30 hours or so of FF13 the past month and am up to chapter 11 where it opens up, but i don't know if im going to go back because i had my fill of the combat and the story ain't doing it for me. I got 30 hours of fun out of it though and i payed like 10 bucks for it so i feel i got my moneys worth.

Also, i have a lot of more free-form games in my library like racing and strategy games that you never really finish so i think i will play those here and there and see if they sink there hooks in me, play them a good week or so and move on to something else even if i still could play more. You could lose entire months to games like Civ or Project Cars and thats great, but i want to keep moving.

I'm actually going to try this out, not as a New Year's resolution, but since I've fallen into that habit of buying games on the cheap but not touching them much afterwards. So since my 1TB drive that I use for games is full, and I probably got the games that I wanted the most over the course of this year, I'm also gonna try to forgo any random Steam or Humble Bundle sale and try to put a good amount of hours into the games I have, at least until I buy some new drives and see what the prices are for the upcoming Pascal cards.

I'm trying to calm down on how many new games I buy, especially as I have a massive backlog that is nowhere near completion (Digital Devil Saga and GodHand just sit there on my shelf, watching, judging).

That being said, Dishonored 2 and Persona 5 are things coming out in 2016, so....

@sanity: For sure. There's no point in continuing to play a game you've reached your breaking point with. I never finished MGSV this year and don't plan on it. I reached a point where the gameplay didn't outweigh all the other stuff in that game for me to continue on. I marked it off as "Got my time in" and moved on.

Nah, just work on buying less. I used to buy every big game, occasionally having like 4 games show up on a Tuesday. Cut that down and now I can actually keep up.

Better to slowly build better habits than to try and go from 100 to zero. Gradual transition will help you keep it going after those 6 months.

Yea, i hear yea, no point in doing this and then buying 10 games afterward all at once when i feel i finished because i will be back where i started. Thing is though the first half of the year is always a bit slow with a few major releases here and there so its much easier to do this in January then in August.

I just remembered about this thing.... its actually worse then i thought. I think instead of a resolution im going to make this into a challenge. See how long i can go without buying any games and see how much these numbers change between now and then. Should be interesting and steam calculator will help keep track of how im doing.

I guess technically I already bought Dark Souls 3 and Street Fighter V so I could probably not buy anything next year and that would be totally fine. Rebel Galaxy and Galak-Z Season 5 will eventually come calling though.

I'm gonna try this myself in 2016; my backlog is out of control as I have too much disposable income and not enough time these days (especially for big games like The Witcher 3, Xenoblade Chronicles X, etc.) We'll see how long my resolve lasts - probably until the next time I see a game I want on sale for super cheap, haha.

This is something that took me a while to come around on. I figure if I played a game for a few hours and gave it a fair shake, but I'm not having fun, no reason to keep wasting time on it. I'll still take it off my backlog (and probably sell it in the case of a physical game) in that situation. Last game I can remember like that was Army Corps of Hell on the Vita. I picked it up on the cheap, but it ended up being a poor man's Pikmin that very quickly became repetitive, grindy, and frustratingly hard to control (especially during boss fights). I couldn't bring myself to play anymore, so out the door it went.

Yeah, I've been considering doing this as well. The number of games on Steam I've bought and never played is somewhat embarrassing, and if you count PS+/Games with Gold on the consoles, those aren't looking much better. There are a couple of games I'm angling to buy still (XCOM 2, Quantum Break if it continues to look good), but by and large 2016 is going to my "pile of shame clearing" year.

...I say this now, but we'll see how much longer I hang on to that.

That Steam calculator says I have 739 dollars worth of games and 146 games. I've played most of them. To be honest, there's not much else I want. Managing a backlog is easy when most games are unappealing.

That's exactly what I had in mind. I haven't finished any of the big games (Witcher 3, MGSV, Fallout 4) that have come out this year and I intend to finish all of those before even considering a 2016 game. The one exception to this rule that I will break is for Persona 5. Everything else can wait.

My backlog's all on console. I think this year I've managed to maintain it rather than shrink it due to review commitments and PS Plus. I've got nothing til Dark Souls 3 so that's a window I can use.

This is an outstanding idea that I will immediately ignore as there are just too many things that I want to play, including some in the early part of 2016.

I'm weak, but strong enough to admit it. :D

Just learn to be a little more selective and smart with your money, as opposed to putting arbitrary limitations on something that probably won't solve anything in the long run. Like, when 2016 is over, do you think you'll be more selective with games you buy, or are you more likely to just fall back into old habits because you want to catch up on all the games from 2016 you skipped?

A better idea would maybe be, "never buy anything I won't play as soon as it's downloaded".

Even without steam sales and humble bundles, I can't help snagging Games with Gold games. So basically I'm doomed.

Are you crazy?

• XCOM 2
• Dark Souls III
• Mirror's Edge: Catalyst
• Mass Effect Andromeda
• Hitman
• Dishonored 2
• Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
• Crackdown

Let me rephrase that... are you crazy? It has the potential to be literally the best year in games ever for me.

Good idea because I have a huge backlog

Bad idea because XCOM 2

Not buying any games sounds a bit extreme but I'd suggest amending this to not buying any games made in 2016. That would allow you to save a shitload of money. I was just looking through my list of older games that I'd like to play (but don't own) and saw that Far Cry 4 is $20. That's literally the #3 game on this website's GOTY list last year on sale for a third of its original asking price. It got me thinking: why the hell do we buy games at launch? It's just throwing money away that you could easily save by waiting a year.

That said, there's no way I'll actually abide by this.

I basically did this for 2015. it wasn't a new years thing, just something i realized needed to change so i didn't throw money away. I didn't go overboard and say no games at all, but limited it to buying a new game only if its something i know i will enjoy (something like MGS:V), and ignoring the sales. It has worked out fairly well so far. I have played a good amount of games in my backlog, and by the time i am done i can get all the games i missed for dirt cheap anyways (maybe even a nice bundle). Since im working through my PlayStation backlog my strategy has been to fill up my hard drive, play the games, then delete them. So whenever i get the urge to play a new game, im forced to look at the games i have yet to play since there is no space for the new one. And with sales i just look at the games i want to buy and realize it will be cheaper by the time i actually get around to it, so i don't buy it.

I've tallied up the games I beat in 2015 and that's a respectable 391 hours. Bloodborne, Dark Souls and MGSV making up a huge chunk of that. Also, this is the year my buying habits have definitely changed. I don't bust a gut for something at launch unless it's something I want to buy for review purposes or if I have the clubcard or loyalty points to take the edge off. I want to play Dark Souls 3 on release and play it blind. By the time that release comes around, I'll probably have the points to cut a tenner or more off.

I saw this thing on TV today that looked at how to actually come through on a 'New Years Resolution' list and not feel like a failure at it. Apparently, it has a lot to do with willpower. I remember that it was suggested to have a buddy with you so you're not doing it alone. You know, like a 'walking/running buddy', but this time with resolutions. So your topic is interesting to me for that reason, but also because buying games that we don't play is like buying food we don't eat and just throw away. What's the point, ya know?

When you mention that it's more of a 'challenge' really got me thinking too. Football players who go through two-a-days usually have a coach that drives them all the way (unless we're talking about Walter Payton). A challenge coach I think they call them now - someone who holds you accountable. A video game website like Giant Bomb is not really a good place to find people who are totally committed to not buying 'any' games next year, but I do think you'll find more support if you write that blog you talked about doing. Seriously, chronicle your journey for the first 3 months. Start off small, and then work from there. If you like it still after March, then go for another 3 months. An analogy would be to 'walk before you run.' You get the idea.

With all that said, I binged since November and bought something like 9 games. It was like I ate a whole container of Rocky Road icecream before coming up for air. I feel kind of sick about it too. Even though I like what is coming out early next year, I'm heading into new bills next year (like student loans) that are going to eat my lunch. I mean, I gotta be responsible about this whole adulthood thing. So I'm going to try and not buy any new games like you are, but I think I'm going to try for a 6 month stop starting in January. I do have some giftcards to use, but instead of buying games, I'll buy something like music (maybe new vinyl), but not sure yet. I think anytime you want to change a habit, you do need a lot of willpower and motivation. It comes with other habits too, like heavy drinking, smoking 4 packs a day, etc. Our livers and lungs can only go so far before they break down.

Maybe next July I can say I've saved some money, too. After all, some people in this world don't have anything to eat, they don't have shoes to wear, or they've never been able to afford healthcare. I gotta learn to help other people more than I have in 2015. Maybe that's my New Year's Resolution, now that I think about it.

Have a safe Happy New Year everyone.

What I told myself last year.

I told myself this ages ago, when I first built my PC. I said "Don't be stupid about this." But you know, I had to buy Crysis, just to see if it would work, and that led to another thing, and THAT led somewhere else, and now I've got over 600 games, probably about half of which I've never played...

@instantryan: Yeah I'm doing the ratio thing too. I think I'm going with a 5:1 ratio and see if that works.

I just plan on buying less impulsively and stick to the releases I want to play instead of dumping a bunch of money into steam sales and humble bundles filled with games I'll never touch. 2016 has way too many games I want to play for me not to buy any, but cutting down a little and getting through my backlog is definitely a big focus for me this year.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to cut back on the amount of games I buy this year. I bought a ton of games in 2015 that I never finished or even started playing for that matter. Codename Steam and Majora's Mask 3ds are still in the goddamn packaging.

The good news is that looking at the 2016 release schedule, there honestly aren't that many games I'm genuinely excited about (maybe 5-6 games total) so, hopefully, I won't have to exercise much self-control because there won't be a lot to tempt me in the first-place. On top of that, those handful of games I plan on buying come out far enough apart that I should be able to also squeeze in a few titles from my backlog.

Of course, it could all go horribly wrong mostly thanks to a lot of games that have yet to be announced that I might be interested in, but we'll see...

I worked out an agreement with someone that I would only buy a game after I beat one, thus not adding to my already enormous backlog.

Steam sales are tempting, but I find that just taking a look at my backlog is enough impetus to install and play at least one of them before adding anything to my cart.

In general, though, I think the other responses are correct. Be more mindful of your spending but don't make it a rigorist exercise.

Overwatch and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided are the only 2016 must-buys for me right now. I won't have time for multiple games with huge single-player parts since I'm planning on doubling down on college; replayable games with reasonably short online matches and tight, mission-focused campaigns are the perfect size for what's going to be my life for the next few years.

I would like for NMS to be the only game I buy this year. Even so, I would probably spend all that extra money on Gunpla.

I wouldn't be able to cut them out entirely, but I'm going to try to stick to a strict "one at a time" rule, in addition to just spending less time on them in general. As my frustratingly talented and increasing successful friends keep saying, if you're going to start making things, you can't spend all your time consuming things.

I haven't bought anything yet but half-off Suikoden 2 and 3 sure looks good on psn!

@sanity said:

I just remembered about this thing.... its actually worse then i thought. I think instead of a resolution im going to make this into a challenge. See how long i can go without buying any games and see how much these numbers change between now and then. Should be interesting and steam calculator will help keep track of how im doing.

Sorry if I missed it, but do you have a link to this site? I'm morbidly curious to know for my own sake and also to see if I can actually see a list of all the games I've never even touched.

I've done this in so much as swearing off things like Steam sales but it never curbed the problem too much. It's a bad case of having just enough disposable cash that game purchases are easy to justify and not enough time or interest to start new games.

My "goal" for this year is to work through some more of my backlog after buying and not touching a bunch of stuff in 2015 (there's still a certain Witcher-ing RPG I need to get to), but of course I just bought Undertale and already have the special edition of Fire Emblem Fates pre-ordered, so I'm clearly part of the problem.

@jthom252: https://steamdb.info/calculator/

My backlog is becoming unwieldy, and it's a great idea in spirit...but XCOM 2 comes out in 2016 soooooo ya.

Also, the PS4 line up looks ridiculous this year as well.

Maybe 2017 :)

I've bought 5 games in the last week. I buy based on what I want not what's fresh. I will buy games this year but not full price.

I could never not buy "any" games, but buying less and playing what I already have is a good goal for the new year.

I removed all of my CC info from game-buying platforms. Just an effort to save money really. I can come up with better things to do with it. I have 300 games in Steam I've never played. I'll not buy anything until June with the exception of Dark Souls 3.

I've actually played more of the games I own than I thought!

I feel pretty good about my account value to total cost with sales ratio now XD But... still a lot of freaking games that I'm buying for the funs of it. My resolution started over the winter break when I decided I have an impulsive issue with playing games so I had started to launch games that I've never launched before, played them for a bit, and proceeded to delete them. Before that, I would say 95+% of the games were installed... just sitting there and waiting for the apocalypse to come. I'm down to 19 installed games that I've decided to keep around but I've made a decision to remove all and to never buy time sinking rpg games again (looking at you FO4) as I can't trust myself to not play them to self-destructive levels. I had to resist buying FFXIII during that holiday sale.. and I don't even want it! It's just that my impulses tell me that I can't pass up a good deal! Stupid brain!

The only game I know I 100% want in 2016 is Uncharted 4. I'm sure I will pick up other things but that is the only game that I know I will buy in 2016 so far.

That's not a bad idea. Now you can sort through the games you have and play them, and you'll save money and appreciate the games you have.

I know how it is. I've bought so many games for PS3 that I feel like I can never get a PS4 because I have games to play for a decade at least. Got about 50 games to play and a kid on the way so not much time. Not to mention Vita and Steam...and most of them are long games like JRPG's and such. I almost wish they stopped making games so I can focus on playing the ones I have I will never catch up!

Stop looking at me that way, dragons dogma pc version.

I commend your effort, but I'd add a safe-guard for your sanity. Sometimes I like to buy a new game to distract myself, focus my curiosity and relax. If you are like me, let yourself buy one once in a while when you sincerely crave for something new to play, not just to have on hand, and effectively play what you buy.