Issue 362

Dialogue

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I don’t want control of you

Why do I enjoy (re)installing games more than actually playing them? I’ve been pondering this one for a while. Due to past Steam sales with aggressive discounts you can’t refuse, and free games drip-fed into my library through Epic and Amazon Games, I now ‘own’ over 800 games. Frankly, it’s an amount that a younger version of myself would have drooled over as he was replaying Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone on Game Boy Color for the 13th time.

However, now my nights are spent trawling my treasure trove of titles, debating whether I want to put in the effort – and the bandwidth – to install any of them. Like a hoarding dragon, I’d much rather sit on my mountain of playable digital wealth than actually enjoy any of it. Andoccasionally I’ll find one: one potential game that will spark my fancy (that I’ve probably already played) and I’ll commit myself to the download, buffering my girlfriend’s Netflix stream in the process.

Once the game is in my hands, I’ll sit back, relax and probably play it for about five minutes before remembering why I uninstalled it in the first place, or that I’ve already completed it and won’t be able to capture that feeling that I got the first time – the feeling that made me choose it again. I’d like to hope that this isn’t just me, and that there are other game hoarders out there – clutching onto their spoils and insisting that someday they might need their copy of Sim City 2000 again. Hopefully one day we can get together and unpack why we’re like this.