Exactly!

And it's highly unlikely that OP is playing 100% new-releases, especially w/ that 200+ installed games, so they're probably getting a bunch of those well below store price (i.e. through bundles and whatnot). I have several hundred games, many of which I haven't played, and most of those came in a bundle that included a couple games I did play (and the total price was significantly less than the retail price of the games I did play).

I'm guessing that's OP's case, and given how many they claim to have played, I'm guessing they have a lot of time to play games.

Sure the post is a little fedora-lordish but why not add meaningful input by discussing the value of games and their stories like the post suggests, rather than bashing a stranger for no reason other than hypercriticalism?

Because the post doesn't suggest anything. It's a random stranger gloating about spending thousands of dollars on games they barely play. No interest in starting any meaningful conversation whatsoever. OP did not say anything meaningful or specific about their favorite "stories" or "moments" in games, and did not show any interest in learning about yours or ours.

It's not a crime to enjoy something. Just because someone has a differing view does not make it a wrong view. And honestly if I get downvoted, it kinda proves that lemmings just critisize others and hate when someone is critical of them. Hypocrisy at its finest.

You or OP can do whatever you want, but if you gloat about your senseless consumption habits online while showing zero interest in starting any meaningful discussion, don't throw out the pikachu face when you get clowned.

I too have chosen to spend a good chunk of my money on games, and came to, you know the "games" lemmy instance, to talk about them. That's not hyper-consumerism, its me finding happiness in a world where there's not much to be happy about. Like op said, it's a way to escape, explore, and lose yourself.

Talk about them then. No one's stopping you or OP—although I imagine it's hard to talk about thousands of games they haven't played 😂

Let me demonstrate: one of my favorite moments in gaming was S ranking Furi's first boss on Furier.

IDK why, but for some reason I didn't know I was actually capable of improving at things. I had this silly idea that people are either born good at something or they aren't, until I picked up Furi in 2017.

I heared the game is most fun on Furier, I find a code that unlocks it, and I start my first playthrough. As if that wasn't enough, for some reason, I decided my first playthrough will be a challenge run: beating bosses is not enough, I will not move on to the next boss until I S Rank the one before them.

Now, Furi has nothing but boss fights and walking segments between each fight. Nothing to fallback on if you suck except your response time and pattern recognition skills—no weapons or skills to unlock, no shop to buy consumables, nothing. I shit you not: it took me 35 hours to S rank the first boss, and the moment I did it, I genuinely felt like a different person.

It was mind blowing. Like, what else can I do? What else can I get better at? I know it's a video game, but my experience is indisputable proof I can improve at least at one thing and maybe even pick up new skills I don't already have.

This lead me to re-examine and rebuild my idea of who I am and what I can do, snapped me out of my chronic depression, and eventually lead to a career change.

I still carry that feeling with me. Every time I pick up a new action game, I get excited about the learning process, and what I can accomplish after 35 hours.

What about you? Is there any moment you always carry with you?

Now, that wasn't hard, was it? Wouldn't it have been nice if OP did this instead of generically gloating about amassing a huge library of games they barely play?

Wrong. Not ignored—not played yet.

Say what you will, every game I’ve bought—I can still play. And I’ve been buying Steam games for over a decade.

Meanwhile, none of my GameCube discs work on my Switch.

But the vast majority can be played without steam. Mostly by force coughcough but still. I know, still no legal ownership.

Yeah, I have far fewer games and have played a lower percent of the ones I have. There are just so many bundles that have one or two games I do want and I just add the rest to my library.

not finishing so many of your games shows some kind of problem

If they've played 23%, that's a lot of games, as in, well over 1k. Thy said nothing about how many they've finished, but I don't think "finishing" is all that important.

What I'm more interested in is how much time they have for playing games. What's they're lifestyle like that they can play nearly 2k games while also accomplishing other life goals? It's not an unreasonable amount, just sufficiently high that it raises some eyebrows.

I feel like it’s an obligation for me to finish a game unless I don’t like it.

If OP isn't finishing any games, yeah, I agree. But there are a ton of games that I don't find worth finishing, in any sense you define that, but that I still find worth playing.

For example, I didn't finish Brutal Legend because I really didn't like the RTS bits at the end. I still love that game and recommend it, but I only recommend it w/ the caveat that the ending is quite different from the rest of the game and it's okay to bail. That type of game isn't going to have an amazing ending, so the risk of not seeing the ending is pretty small (and I can always look that up on YT or elsewhere if I want). I did the same for Clustertruck because the ending had an insane difficulty spike on the last level and I just didn't care enough to finish it.

However, other times I have pushed through, such as Ys 1 Chronicles, which has an insane difficulty spike on the final boss. I am happy I pushed through, because I really liked the world and the ending, which feeds into the next game (in fact, on Steam, it automatically started Ys II after finishing Ys 1). I ended up not liking Ys II as much (still finished), but I really liked the tie-over from the first to the second.

So yeah, I don't fault someone for not finishing games, but I do think they're missing out if they never finish games.

Why should anyone be compelled to finish a game?

Nah, finishing games is overrated. By the time you're halfway through a game, you've seen a lot of what it's going to offer in terms of style and gameplay. For sure, you'll miss some amazing stuff if you don't get to the end, but it's hard to believe you miss as much as the new other game you could have half-completed in the same time.

There are exceptions, and I defintely think completing at least a few games is important. But if I had the choice of only having fully played 20 games in my entire life, or 40 halfway, I'd defintely have learned more, experienced more and enjoyed myself more with the half-assed approach.