Are you in a gaming rut?

[Firsty]

I notice people enjoy parading their gaming set ups and collections, yet at the same time everyone seems to be in a gaming "rut." Personally, the more stuff I acumulate, the less I enjoy gaming. So, I decided to apply a little feng shui.

Feng shui is all about chi. Clutter causes it to stagnate, which is bad! Clutter is basically unused stuff sitting around or hidden away. It doesn't matter if it's tidy or not. Collections of any kind are clutter, and so cause stagnation. This can be a problem if you're stagnating chi around something you love to do. You'll have no time or will to engage in it and only become frustrated and lethargic toward it.

The art of understanding collections is to find out why you're doing it, learn from it, and then move on. Don't limit yourself. Make space for something new to come into your life. Don't be a collector all your life without realising why. This will give you insights into the qualities you are unconciously wanting to draw to yourself. It may take a while for you to integrate this information to the point where you genuinely feel ready to let go of your collection and move on, and even then, dumping all your games may feel like too much to handle in one go. It is very important that you allow this process to happen naturally rather than forcing it, so just gradually trim your catelogue as you feel able.


This doesn't mean you shouldn't have games at all. Recently I fell right into a gaming rut. I didn't want to play anything. I thought "to hell with them." Part of the fun of gaming is being good at something. MD started a topic in Retro about games he used to be good at, but not anymore. He's right, I'm nowhere near as good at games as I was several years ago. Last Sunday I decided to clear up big style. I packed away all the games I hadn't played in ages, as well as the systems I don't use anymore into a wardrobe. And what happened? I started playing games again, and getting enthusiastic about them!

Having noticed this I decided to take it a bit further and convinced myself to start selling stuff. I made my first sale thread in the trading forum and got pretty immediate personal results. I'm playing games whenever I can now. It feels so refreshing! I lose track of time. I'm finding I'm playing stuff I found totally impenetrable before. Games are fun again. I'm practicing every day on Street Fighter 3 and totally enjoying it. Animal Crossing doesn't feel like a horrible chore anymore. Majora's Mask is now one of my most time consuming games. Games are FUN again.

So if you're in a rut and have got a collection of games sitting around unused, why not sell them? Someone else will get way more enjoyment out of it than you, and it will make space for new things to enter into your life. Give it a go, I highly recommend it.

[Ex_mosquito]

I was in this exact same posistion a few months ago. I just got pissed of with owning a huge mound of games i NEVER touched, it seemed kinda pointless and pretty depressing at how much i'd spent. Now though I've offloaded pretty much 90% of my systems + games, and as a result playing has never felt better. Just focusing on maybe 2+3 games at a time (street fighters and 2D vert shooters mostly) for a few months and totally mastering them (well, try :x)gives a much more rewarding gaming experience than owning 373683 games or playing 487468746 games a week.

a gamer's worth is determined by his play, not his purchase.

Anyway, thats what i think

[Paul3704]

Good article and interesting point. I got rid of pretty much all my older stuff not too long ago, and feel great.

Still in a bit of a rut though, I'm only really enjoying Pikmin 2 at the moment.

[Bleeders]

I'm only really playing Fable and OutRun2 at the moment. Fable I'm enjoying immensley, although I can't help feel that the main quest will be over quite quickly.

I've just outed my SP and Dreamcast collection mainly because it doesn't get any playtime anymore and there's a lot coming out that I want, so needed to accumulate funds.

[Pij]

i can understand what your saying.

I had about 600-700 games a few years ago. I would buy a game for the sake or it, look at the box and put it on the shelf. I had games i hadnt played.

I now have about 70 games. 95% of those are games ive sat down and really enjoyed, and keep as i will play them again.

The others are games that ive picked up and started playing but not really got into, but as there mostly games ive payed ?5-?10 for second hand ill keep rather than selling as i might get into them.

I would on average spend 1-3 hours a week playing games and that was heavy play, now ill sit down and play for 10 hours or so a week if not more.

One strange thing is i always get the urge to play more in the Autumn/Winter.

[anephric]

I like chaos and I like clutter: I have absolutely no belief in Fhleng Schwing at all....

Mess is good. It promotes creativity (in me at least).

I also like having a pile of games knocking around that I picked up for pennies that I can just dip into if I'm bored: the main reason I don't game as much as I used to is that I have to work.

I'm not an obsessive collector, mind. At least not of games (perhaps of dvds). There's no way I'm rationalising my film collection.

[RyoHazuki]

I need to tell my friend to read this article, and apply it to not only games but to DVDs as well. You wouldnt believe the amount of games we have in our house, we managed to get 9 Xbox games in the first week of owning an xbox . We have also got about ~ 99999999999 dreamcast games.

So Mr Sands, if you read this article listen to the good advice!

Thinking about it, maybe I should take heed of it as well.

Good Article!

[Yoshimoto]

I agree with what you're saying Firsty, but i don't think its really necessary to get rid of your games.

I've got far too many games and used to have nearly all of them on display and ready for easy access. A few months ago i bought a load of airtight plastic boxes from Staples and packed them all away other than whatever game or two i was playing at the time. Since then i've gone from playing probably less than 10 hours a week upto easily over 20 most weeks. I don't know why but not being easily able to get to your collection makes you focus much more on what you're playing at the moment. Its definitely improved my game playing time no end.

I don't think i'd ever consider selling my stuff but locking it all away somewhere is a fantastic compromise.

[Commander Marklar]

It's simple really, just pick up a handful of games and play them. Got something you haven't played? Make the effort to play it, get good at it!

See, the problem with MD's thread is that while I used to be good at <whatever>, it was only 'cos I used to play it all the time because I wouldn't of had much else to play. I can go back to many a retro title and see the game over screen; doesn't much happen with new stuff so I'll sit down with a title (damn you, Psycho Fox!) and play it to death until I'm good again. Or play a game I haven't really got into yet, etc...

No need to sell, no need to pack anything up. I'm never in a gaming rut.

[spagmasterswift]

Move into my neighbourhood, the crackheads will soon help you cut down on your games collection!!! They have kept my gamming moving on as I'm always reluctant to buy games again and replay through. Super Mario Sunshine, Pikmin and Vice City would have kept me going for ages but a couple of break-ins soon took care of that pesky problem!

**** Feng Shui, come live in Brixton!!!

I have, as a result, kept my collection to a minimum, selling games/trading as soon as I tire of them. With the November onslaught I expect they will all go to make room for a cheeky Xbox purchase (been putting that off for ages - and, like my widescreen TV, it will probably be too heavy for a crackhead to steal...)

[Lyris]

I can't disagree with this, I got into a HUGE gaming rut back in 2002 when I was snapping up Dreamcast games for 5 pounds each.

[anephric]

Five English Pounds? I was lashing out an average of 99p-?2.49 on most DC stuff...

Admittedly mostly pants stuff but hey... it's 99p.

Also curse the ?1.99 N64 game. I've got stacks.

[roobarb]

The ability to store games on a HDD doesn't help with this at all either - quite often when I boot up either my xbox or PS2 and look at the list of 20 or more games to choose from on each, it's actually quite depressing because it's really difficult to drum up any enthusiasm for any of them. Even though I supposedly only keep the games I want to play on there at any one time...

[anephric]

Conversely, the more decent films I own on dvd the happier I am.

This is mostly because:

a) I'm a film geek
b) they require significantly less investiture of time to appreciate
c) they look nice on my shelves
d) I'm a consumerist

[Firsty]

I was just applying some basic feng shui to games. It works wonders with everything else too. I'm going to have to start selling so many things! Never keep anything that you hate or dislike. And NEVER keep anything "just in case."

Oh and I didn't think I was writing an article. I was just handing out some advice.