#4. Impulse Gaming
I have done it: I have broken 100 games in my personal Steam collection.
How did I find so much time to game when I work a beyond-full-time day job and write books in my off hours, all while balancing a relationship and a social life? Simple!
I don't play them.
Well, that's not entirely fair. I have played perhaps 75 of those 100. It's just that, of those 75, I have only played about 50 for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. Of the 25 I haven't played at all, I knew, even at the time of purchase, that I was never going to play them.
It's not the same thing as link hoarding: I wasn't collecting them because I thought I might need them later. It's because they were only $3! $7! Only $10 for the whole collection, marked down from fucking $600! At that price, my brain says, you would be stupid not to buy this thing that you don't want and will never use!
This wouldn't be a problem if I were less picky or had more free time -- I might end up exploring some properties that I otherwise would never check out. But that's not the case: I have strict requirements for a game, and if even one of them isn't met, I will never play that game again. If it launches some bullshit third party thing -- Uplay or Rockstar Social Club, for example -- ye shall be banished from my gaming kingdom forevermore. If a game doesn't support independent audio controls, blasting out of my speakers at full volume every time I start it up -- I will never play it again. If a game doesn't support a controller (I know, I know, I'm one of those bastard console/PC hybrid gamers -- but son of a bitch, I spend two-thirds of my life in front of a computer, I'd like to at least sit in front of a differently shaped one in my down time), I will never play it again. If it turns out to have been published by EA, I will never play it again.
You'd think, considering my insane list of prerequisites, that I would ensure that a game meets them before purchasing. And I'm usually pretty good about my due diligence. Unless the game is discounted 90 percent or more. That's the magical number. If your game is a meager 85 percent off, you'd better meet my crazy demands or I'll start executing hostages. If it's 91 percent off, I will buy whatever crap you throw at me on pure muscle memory, and then shove it in a virtual closet like a digital NordicFlex, never to be seen again.
