If you happen to be within the 75% of the population within developed countries that is in a functional, working to middle-class family, once upon a time getting a videogame was an experience all on its own. Getting such toys was an event that only happened at least once or twice a year (birthday and christmas, possibly on other sporadic occasions).
To me, asking for one game was a decision that carried its fair share of responsibility: your pick would decide your entertainment for most of the year.
Make the wrong choice and you'd be limited to the games you already had which, while not a dramatic turn of events, would mean threading new ground and having to come up with your own rules to make older games appear fresh.
This was a time when finishing a game almost up to 100% completion wasn't so rare. Games were overflowing with content, secrets, side-quests and easter eggs. In my case, the modern internet was in its infancy and while there were plenty of legitimate guides out there, there was also plenty of misinformation. My position has always been to never look at guides until I finish the game or am completely lost for an excessive amount of time (6 months).
Around 2014, a weird soundbyte began to spread: "Donkey Kong 64 killed collect-a-thons". This awful opinion soon became canon. This game is full of content and made precisely with the mindset I describe in mind. Buzzwords aside, it's a standard 3D platformer with a straighforward progression and difficulty curve. It will keep you busy for a few months and the extra content can make the game last a year. There's plenty of room for criticism but only the kind of stat-obsessed dotard who speeds through games to tick another line in their checklist-backlog will knock the game for this.
I'm not a unique individual in this regard. This is not a "does anyone else?" moment. This is how most people my age acted towards videogame purchases. And videogame developers operated accordingly, packing their games with as much content as possible. However, as market demographics aged, so did purchasing mindsets.
In this fallen age of wanton data mining, videogame developers were surprised to find that an overwhelming majority of buyers don't go further than 20% completion of their games. This in turn has changed the way developers approach their craft: why bother creating worlds when your clientelle will stick to the guiding arrow?
But why does this happen? What leads so many people to buy something they don't even get to use?
As xkcd is the root of all evil in the internet, so is valve the root of all evil in videogames. I'm not going to give Newell's gang more credit than they're due: their position is wholly due to the fact that they won the race to the bottom. Were circumstances different, I'd be talking about someone else.
By hyperfacilitating game purchases, a demographic that now had begun having their own money was bound to go on the digital equivalent of eating candy and pizza every day. Periodic game sale discounts along with aggressive marketing campaigns have fostered a population that forgot the value of money and, consequently, the value of ownership.
If an audience doesn't know the value of the content they're consuming, creators are keen to produce ever worse content. The videogame industry thus devolved into yet another well-oiled conveyor belt of mediocrity.
I'm not saying anything new: countless are the people who complain of having vast videogame libraries but "no time" to play them. Others are a bit more honest and admit to having no motivation. The mystery of where the motivation to buy those games in the first place came from is a subject for some other time. Pirating games is not immune to this, and is probably worse since there are no financial restraints. This conundrum is the text-book example of "the trap of plenty". Having such easy access to so many things one enjoys will lead to procrastination, until lack of motivation hits and it all drifts to the back of your mind... Just in time for a new cycle to begin and frantically buy buy buy some more.
It's a problem with such a simple, elegant solution: scale down. Be a gamer, not a hoarder.
The boss is your self-restraint. It's easy to master.
If you wish to recover the child-like wonder of videogames,
you must begin by buying them like you were a kid again.
Investigate the games. See what the gameplay is like. Story. How many hours will you be getting out of the main game?
Is there extra content (DO NOT MISTAKE WITH DLC)? How much does the game cost?
Finally, approach the stand and pick the game's box. Hold it in your hands. Turn it around and read what's on the back.
