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Minimizing the Gaming Physical Footprint of Your Home and Life

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lolmonade:
Anyone here listen to Player One Podcast?  One of the co-hosts talked through selling-off and getting rid of a massive physical game collection he acquired through the process of working at EGM as well as just general hobbyist collecting through the years, and it's an interesting take of someone who had such an attachment to a pile of games that he admits were mostly in a storage unit and never touched that he panicked when he realized he accidentally sent his GBA collection to the re-seller when he meant to keep them, and how he forced himself to let it go along with the other games he got rid of.


If any of you have moved from home to home, it pretty quickly puts into perspective how much stuff you accumulate stuff and how long it takes to go through all of it, unpack, and sort through things.  We moved from North Carolina to Illinois in 2016, and we STILL have a good two dozen boxes and bins to go through in our basement.   A good half of it is a collection of decorations for various holidays, there's maybe 2-3 boxes of clothes we haven't unpacked that we're just as well off to toss or donate, maybe another 2-3 boxes of old toys our kids wouldn't miss if we gave them away since they outgrew them. 


And then there's my collection of video games.  It isn't a massive collection that's completely unwieldy, but it's sizable enough given how many systems I own (Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, Switch, 3DS, Vita, NES, SNES), 2+ controllers for each of those platforms, and anywhere between 3-15 games between each platform.  That also doesn't take into consideration the Skylanders craze my wife went through, the Amiibo gluttony for year one, NES and SNES classic, and other accessories related to those systems.


It's not hard to passively collect games/accessories/collectibles to a point where walking through a used game store BECOMES the game rather than play the game itself.  I found myself buying games not because I planned on playing them right at that time, but because it was a good find at a right price and thought to myself "I'll find time for this later".  This mindset feeds into the growing backlog of games I have that quickly outpace a well-rounded person's ability to make time for.  You start getting into weird math equations breaking down your spare hours and thinking "ok, if I have 3 1/2 hrs available each night after the kids go to bed, and I don't want to completely neglect my wife, I probably have about 18-20 hours a week for dedicated me-time gaming."  I've found compartmentalizing my spare time like that brings more stress about a hobby that should be about nothing but enjoying my spare time when we have no plans, but it's something my mind starts wandering towards given my propensity towards maximizing the output for the time I have.

I've had in mind the ethos of the "Marie Kondo" method of organizing lately.  For those unfamiliar, the abridged version is "Ask yourself if an item gives you joy.  If it doesn't, get rid of it.  Once all you have left are the things that bring you joy, find an organized space for those things and display them prominently".


With that in mind, last night I started the process of organizing all my game stuff and going through each game, and sorting them by 3 different measures:


1) Games I have an attachment to either due to quality or a fondness for.
2) Games I earnestly want to try or play through before deciding what to do with.
3) Games I bought on a whim and didn't ever actually think about playing, beaten and will never play again, or have tried and don't really care for it.


And you know what I found out?  I own a lot less physical games in category 1 than I would have thought.  So my plan is to excise the games from category 2 and 3, sell them off, and then only buy a game moving forward when I know I will play that game. 


Maybe I'll end up regretting it in the long run, but I suspect it'll bring more relief to simplify my hobby and show constraint up front rather than turn it into an obligation to sample everything I have. 

lolmonade:
In addition to this, anything y'all can suggest on how to efficiently organize controllers and cords would be appreciated.  That stuff takes up space, and I'd like to figure out how best to organize that stuff in a non-cluttered way.

Order.RSS:
Great thread right here!

With gaming being such a time-demanding hobby it's pretty nonsensical to maintain a large collection; even if you get to everything within your lifetime there's still a lot of discs sitting idle for years taking up space. So yeah, if you don't get great satisfaction out of displaying them nicely, organising and cataloguing a personal collection or even saving them for some sort of historical preservation goals... I'd say trimming the fat down to just stuff you like and will return to or actively want to play is probably a good move.

Will you regret it? Possibly. I still kick myself every now and then for ditching my pile of gaming magazines. But I think if you really fall into the trap of seeing the backlog as a mountain that must be scaled, it's probably worth it for the peace of mind alone.

The calculations we make in our head ("one hour of gaming a day will make it possible to clear the backlog in 2 years time!") will utterly fall short in reality. It's a hobby, so will you really want to game daily? What if something more pressing comes up, or you're in the mood for something passive, or going outside? It also completely fails in factoring in new purchases, since if you think of games as a daily obligation, buying a new one will not just be exciting but also guilt-tripping yourself ("that's another month of daily grinding").

Financially, even if you end wanting to rebuy a few you sold off, it's pretty likely that this will only be a fraction of the ones you end up selling right? So it wouldn't be too great of a loss I don't think. Rarity could be a factor with older stuff perhaps, so maybe hold on to those for a while longer and beat them first if you want to. Idk how often you return to beaten games, I rarely do, but personal tastes apply here.

Some people try to avoid the clutter issue entirely by transitioning to a digital collection only, but for me that doesn't work. I still wanna beat every game I buy and digital has been my downfall in some ways; by effectively letting a store with frequent sales move into my room I wind up making more impulse purchases that still feel like "I need to finish these to reclaim the already lost value."
Textbook sunk cost fallacy of course, but yeah. Just saying your mileage may vary I guess if it's just about getting rid of clutter. Digital clutter can still feel suffocating in the same way, at least for me it does.

For cables and controllers and the like... You mentioned Marie Kondo, so you're likely already aware that it's pretty dumb to first invest in a bunch of storage solutions first (tupperware's sole purpose in life is to sit unused half the time somewhere). That said, maybe just dedicated one box or drawer to it and see if it's possible to make some compartments in it maybe? I'm thinking of 3 shoeboxes in a drawer and dividing them up per console perhaps.

Last thing I wanna mention about the KonMari method thing... It's perhaps a bit unfeasible financially. If part of your reasoning to hold on to games has been "some of these will net a decent price if I can find the right buyer", I think it's worthwhile to pursue that sale.
Selling everything off in bulk is more expedient when it comes to reducing clutter, but you're bound to lose a lot of potential dollars there. Depending on your personal finances, maybe consider a slower, more methodical way of clearing them out? Of course this presumes you don't need to imminently get rid of them. It'd be ideal I think if you could just have a bunch of listings online and wait for people to buy them, maybe trade everything that hasn't moved in at a store every 6 or 12 months?

I'd be curious to hear how you end up going about it regardless though, if you're willing to share here every now and then.

lolmonade:

Thanks.  Just trying to spark some new discussion.

Fortunately I think I already got the impulse to say "I'll just make my collection an all-digital collection" beat.  I went through a few years when I first got a decent gaming PC scooping up any humble bundle or steam sale items just because they were cheap.  You describe perfectly that looking at that entire list of games I technically own is both exhausting and becomes a whole different "list" to manage that you don't even have the value of returning or selling-off if you decide you no longer have use for them.  I got to a point with my steam list that I only show visible a few folders - Multiplayer games I consistently come back to, 1-2 indie titles I want to play in the near term and already own, and 1-2 bigger single player games I think I want to play.  It's the only way I can manage such a queue.  I've similarly had to bucket digital games on the consoles into folders and only show a few icons at a time, otherwise it just feels overwhelming and I end up being indecisive over my exhaustive options, even if a lot of them are games through PS+ or one-off things that don't interest me.


I'm sure there'll be pangs of regret here or there.  There are times I regret selling-off my old Sega Genesis and 40+ games about 10 years ago, but then again, I look and realize I have half those games back digitally in some form, and the other ones aren't likely to be games i'd revisit anyway.  I suspect if I take a hard look at most of the games I own, at best a lot of them i'd never be likely to revisit once I beat it, and some I've played for 3-5 hours and realistically me jumping off the game after that should have been what made my decision in the first place.


Regarding the selling of the items - I've informed my friends i'd be doing this and have basically offered to let them take one or two things I'm sitting on if it's something they're interested in taking.  I'll probably make an itemized list of the games/accessories I have and try to price-out them individually.  Then it'd be a matter of determining if the additional time and transaction fees for posting in individual spots would be worth the extra money from an eBay/Amazon sale vs trade-in.  You know how it goes - a decent number of games that aren't some form of limited release or console exclusive basically sell for $1-3 each online, and I imagine there'll be a small list of games I'm better off just trading in for scraps at my local used game store than trying to resell. 


When I get through making that list, I can share that here.  As well as update on what I sell, how much I get back from doing so.  I doubt it'll be anything remarkable, but I've mulled-over whether I'll end up with enough to cover for a PS4 Pro.  If not that, then I at least expect it'll be enough to hold onto until I find that game I KNOW I want to pick-up and play next.


The cords/controllers/accessories bit - I do have a few tupperware style drawer sets that I'm currently using in my kids' bedrooms, but they aren't really being used.  I should probably start by maybe putting one of those in a closet on the main floor and centralize all my wires/plastic there as a start.  Could at least be an interim solution until we figure out what we want long-term.

ShyGuy:
I regret selling my NES.

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