Do you prefer having a large or small game collection?

[Doom972]

There are very few games in my physical collection that I'd be willing to get rid of. I'm happy that Steam exists because if I had all the games I bought since 2010 in physical format, it would've taken too much space. I rarely buy physical copies anymore.

 

[Johnny Impact]

Depends what you mean by large. I have a PS3 with about 25 games and a Steam library of 150+. Much of the Steam stuff is bulk I got in holiday combo bundles. Maybe 50 of the 150 are games I actually played or intend to play someday.

For me the trick is staying with one game at a time. I've got like eight games going right now, and I know from past experience this will lead to me not finishing any of them.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

I'm not really a collector, but I rarely, raaaaaaarrreely trade in something.(The fact that I, a Zelda fool too, traded in the DS Zeldas is a testament to how horrible their controls were.) I buy what I know I'll like, which is not much for this and the last gen. I just rarely buy anything outside of Steam and not often there, too. Out of Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, PS1/2/3, GC, Wii, GBA, DS, 3DS, and PSP, I have a little over 100 physical games. Add in all the 360 stuff I permanently loaned to my sister and the few physical PC games and that's maybe close to 120, so about 10 games a system.

I might sell some old stuff someday, if I can trust that Sony, Nintendo, MS and the other "collection happy" publishers don't try to sell us the same games they just spent the last several years reselling us. My cart of Super Metroid is still getting sealed in a UV opaque, helium filled case, though.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I prefer a large collection of refined and varied genres that I want to play, so when I feel like racing, then I can race, when I feel like shooting, I can shoot.

 

[Treeberry]

[small] Seriously though I don't know if I should trade in my Xbox I've had it for so long and spent so much money on it I kind of love it a little bit is that weird but ohgod do I need a PS4 by the time DA3 is out...[/small]

Well, if you leave it for a bit later you could probably get DA:I and the PS4 at a discount and presumably some other RPGs as well. You're lucky to have a gamer partner, the few gamers I've known in real life have been rude or highly solitary types.

Depends what you mean by large. I have a PS3 with about 25 games and a Steam library of 150+. Much of the Steam stuff is bulk I got in holiday combo bundles. Maybe 50 of the 150 are games I actually played or intend to play someday.

For me the trick is staying with one game at a time. I've got like eight games going right now, and I know from past experience this will lead to me not finishing any of them.

Interpret it as you will. My question could have been phrased better. Regarding myself, I was mainly referring to my physical collection but it's interesting to see people bring up digital collections too.

I can empathise with you trying to stick with one game. I'm a chronic re-starter.

 

[Batou667]

As a distinguished gentleman once said, "Quantity has a quality all its own". It's not the big game collection that's the problem, it's the damn backlog it represents. It depresses me to think how many critically-acclaimed games I have just sitting there.

 

[G00N3R7883]

I guess it depends on your definition of "large". The last 2-3 years I've bought 30+ games per year. I tend to play one game at a time, finish it, then move on to the next. I'm fortunate to have enough money so that I don't have to sell old games to buy new ones, so I just keep everything I've bought. I've got PC games in a drawer from the 90's. I do sometimes play older games when there's a gap in the release schedule for new games.

If I had a "small" collection, lets say 5-10 games in a year, I'd get bored, even if those games were amazing. I like variety.

 

[sageoftruth]

I'd go with large simply because of the joy you feel when you pick out an old game you haven't played for a long time and re-experience it like it's brand new.

 

[L. Declis]

I have a large collection.

About 20 games for the Super Nintendo.
About 10 games for the PS1 (Final Fantasies...)
About 20 games for the PS2 (Final Fantasies and Metal Gears...)
About 100 games for the PS3
About 10 games for the PS4
About 190 games for the PC (thanks Steam).

I honestly wish I had a small collection.

When I see my Steam list, I don't think "Oh yay, more games to play!". I think "Oh dammit, I have to play all these games" before I go back onto Civ or Rome 2. You see, not only do I have a lot of games, but the games I tend to be tend to be the 20 hour long campaign RTS or TBS games which you can replay, so they can each suck 200 hours of your life quite easily.

Everytime I load up my PS4 or my PC, I just have about 20 minutes of internal worry about which game to play. If I didn't have so many, I'd probably stop worrying so much and play more (it'd be easier to pick as well; you should see me with a menu. Takes ages to order).

I decided a few months ago to simply stop buying games until I get through this backlog (as I have more important things to buy, and generally, new games just are not worth £50 each. More like... £15).

Combine this with becoming busy and... I just wish I had less to get on with, because I have a crop ton of the classic games which "everyone should play" which I know I need to get around to.

Sigh. What a first world problem.

 

[ghalleon0915]

Well, if we're talking physical copies here....then I have a fair-sized collection, it takes up about 2 book cases ( 4 shelves each). However, most are old games i.e. Nes/Snes cartridges, Sega games ( yes even the Master System ) and Gamecube/PS1/PS2 games. My PS3/Xbox 360 collection isn't that many because I usually ended up either selling/giving them or trading them in once I was done. I suppose I just don't have quite that attachment to them as I have for the older games ( I don't see myself ever selling my Super Mario Kart cartridge or my Earthbound one, or my FFVI)

My girl asks me why I don't sell some of them, since games like Suikoden II or Valkyrie Profile can fetch a pretty penny. I just can't, there is still a part of me that likes having physical copies of a game that I enjoy.

The one thing I don't have a problem with is backlog; some folks here seems to have that problem but all the games in my collection have been completed at least once. I guess it's because I never bought games I didn't like, and I rented a game before I bought it.

As well, I think with my transition to pc gaming digital download has become more prevalent for myself so my collection has suffered for it. I'm ok with that, since one of the drawback of having a large collection is the constant dusting and I hate dusting.

 

[mysecondlife]

I don't trade in games so my collection will only grow larger. Thankfully I'm pretty careful about buying games and I rarely buy games on first day at full price so it'll only increase at slow rate.

I do like to keep a small sub collection of games I know I'll definitely play again. Rest goes into my closet.

 

[Kingjackl]

I miss the having small collections. It was so much easier as a kid, when the only games you'd get were from Christmas's, birthday presents and washing the car enough times so that your parents would buy you that one game you really, really want. Even if it turned out to be garbage, you'd play it all the time anyway because you didn't have anything else.

Now, thanks to a combination of frequent game sales, enormous back-catalogues and disposable income, I have heaps of game that I pick up cheap, then never get around to playing because I haven't got the time. I bought a bunch of PS1 classics on the Vita more than a month ago that I still haven't touched. I don't even know if Metal Gear Solid on the Vita will actually work, and I've had it long enough now that I'm too scared to check.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

I traded my old collection in a few years ago but i've still got my old PC wallet full of old discs...which i'm finding more entertaining than most modern games i've played over the last 10 years. I've never had a problem with backlog because i finish everything i buy, and almost everything i've rented and borrowed, but my desire to buy games has dipped recently since i refuse to purchase digital download trash. I like to own things i pay for and value them much more because of it!

 

[ultrabiome]

Large... so much so that at some point my wife will probably want me to sell some part of it. Back at my parents place, we have 50+ Atari games, 50+ NES, 30+ SNES, 30+ N64 and even some Colecovision games. My personal collection is the more recent acquisitions, including 7 PS1 games, 30+ PS2, 20+ PS3, ~10 GCN, 30+ Wii (including 6 guitar hero and 2 rockband - plus 2 guitars, 2 drums, a mic and keyboard), 8 Wii U, ~20 DS + 7 3DS, 10ish GBA plus a few dozen VC and PSN purchases. Oh, and a few dozen steam games and the entire diablo and starcraft series, plus some older PC stuff. (If it isn't obvious, this has been a lifelong collection process...)

I guess I'd rather keep the systems and games as long as I can, but I usually buy new, but cheap, and almost always go through and beat each game, with a minimal backlog (notable exceptions have been MGS3 and 4, have tried 3 at least three times to stop - and Star Wars Bounty Hunter - the difficulty and my obsession over finding the optional targets...). I feel like I'd rather have them for my kids than sell them for large losses and loss of content that I may or may not ever get to play again.

 

[CitizenM]

It's not how big or small your video game collection is, but how you use it

Seriously though, I can confidently say 95% of all the video games I own I have played through to completion and would do so again. You can't do that unless you have a modest collection (or maybe you can, but IMO that's not much of a life). Currently I only own 59 video games in my Steam library, but because I'm such a long time gamer much of what I actually own is pre-Steam (I got onboard for Half-Life 2 back in 2004). Although I'm primarily a PC gamer, I own 6 consoles but again, only a few games per console. Then of course, I have all my emulators for the arcade games of my youth.

Most of my friends have Steam collections that number in high-hundreds or approaching a thousand, mostly thanks to the infamous Steam Sales and Humble Bundles. I admit all that "dead weight" might bother me a little, but you cannot deny that the games are good deals for cheap. But like music and movies, I prefer a collection of media in which I truly appreciate each and every title.

 

[Kotaro]

I have way too many Steam games, with a bunch I know I'll never play (thanks a lot, Steam sales and indie bundles), but I like to think I'll get to all the best ones eventually.

In general, I like having a sizable collection, but I make sure to only collect good games. Even just counting console games, I have well over 100, but they're all games that I'm proud to own.