Playing and Collecting as two different hobbies#

It’s a common joke among collectors that these are two different hobbies. It’s possible for someone to spend more money on games than they have time to play them, and this is quite true for me as well. That doesn’t mean that I don’t intend to play my physical collection at all, but that my intention of buying something is usually driven by an interest in owning that piece of media. There are several games I’ve received and played for free through Epic Games Store giveaways that I’ve enjoyed, like Minit, Toem, Monument Valley 1 & 2, and LumbearJack. Of those, I might be interested in collecting Toem, though I am sort of hoping for a cheaper double pack with Toem 2 down the line.

That doesn’t mean the other games don’t have value, but rather that I personally didn’t want to spend upwards of 35+ USD to own them physically. There are also other Switch games that were released physically that I was unsure about, and decided to buy and play digitally instead, like Lonesome Village. I did enjoy the game, but I’m glad I didn’t FOMO buy the game just on the chance that I might love it.

I bought my Switch 2 in August of last year, and I’ve only bought two games specifically for the console so far: Fantasy Life i and Pokemon Pokopia. Fantasy Life i was unfortunate, since I bought the Switch 1 version before the Switch 2 edition was announced; I ended up buying the upgrade pack digitally for that one. Pokopia is my first Switch 2 exclusive game, and I bought it “physically” even though it was a gamekey card.

Gamekeys are a cure for my FOMO#

Gamekey cards have put a severe damper on my enthusiasm for collecting games, but I think if I really wanted to play a game, my choice between digital and gamekey would have me purchasing the gamekey version, just for the ease of selling or lending. I think of collecting the game cases as somewhat akin to collecting cards or novelty coins, not really something that has any use other than to be pretty to display.

It’s disappointing that it’s turned out this way, but I will say that I am thankful for the chance to slow down and actually focus on playing games. I don’t worry too much about limited releases or missing the preorder periods for them anymore. The spell is broken, my shelves are full, and I have lots of entertainment to choose from. If something really does draw my eye like Pokopia, I’ll buy it if I want to play it. Otherwise, I’m not too worried.

The only unfortunate thing is that if there are lots of other people who feel the same way as me, our spending on games will decrease drastically (I know mine has). The companies who will be hurt by this the most are smaller devs and publishers who were profiting off of FOMO on indie and niche releases like Limited Run, iam8bit, Strictly Limited, and more.

The gravy train was going to come to a stop at some point, and this was my chance to hop off.

I’m still going to buy games that have true physical releases for Switch 1 or Switch 2, and I’m looking forward to them! I’m still planning on getting Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, Dusk Index: Gion, Shuten Order, Until Then, Please Be Happy, Lil’ Gator Game and Tiny Bookshop.

But I’m done feeling rushed to open my wallet.