Overchoice; The negative aspect of an amazing collection

hmmm, what to play…

Have you ever sat down for a gaming session, stared at your collection and mumbled; “What am I going to play?”  You may decide to divert your eyes away from your shelf of titles and instead concentrate on deciding which console to fire up, but this can further antagonise the situation resulting in said gamer screaming “I have nothing to play” with a tone reflective of their ark nemesis Frustration surfacing!

It doesn’t matter if you’re just starting out and buying up large lots of games, or if you’ve peaked and buying the odd title to get your fix, as collectors it’s likely that we can all relate to suffering from choice overload.  Herein lies what I believe is a contributing factor; we often consider ourselves collectors, not gamers…

What is overchoice/choice overload?

It was in the early 1970s when Alvin Toffler first introduced the term overchoice, relating it to consumers and indicating it takes place when; “The advantages of diversity and individualisation are cancelled by the complexity of a buyers decision making process.” by replacing “buyers” with “gamers” we can identify that diversity could be an underlying issue..

So let me get this straight, diversity is bad?

With such a range of gaming genres and systems available, most of us are likely to have a diverse collection and consider this an aspect that makes us proud of our collection.  Now, I’m not going to tell you how to collect, but instead be mindful of what you have, what you want, and your end goal.  In reality, everyone is different and every gamer/game collector is different, but I think there is a lot of merit in identifying an end goal, as having no end goal is likely to result hoardish activity and more time thinking about what to play than actually playing!

There’s no right or wrong way to go about retro-game collecting, but here are some points to consider:

1. Be realistic

Buying a game, or keeping all the games you’ve bought in a lot simply because you don’t own it/them is only worthwhile if you plan on playing them all, or completing the collection for that specific platform.  And let’s be realistic, many platforms have close to or in excess of 1,000 titles with many considerably expensive “rare” titles, which can mean the game is utter sh*t and f all were manufactured, extremely popular and hard to find complete or mint, or if you’re really lucky a combination of both which is guaranteed to see you pay through the nose.  Instead of keeping a title simply because you don’t own it or because someone says it’s rare; put it up for trade and get something you’ll actually play and enjoy!

2. Quality vs Quantity

When I first started buying and collecting games I would watch YouTube videos and come across people who had big, beautiful collections.  I was in awe watching videos and seeing pictures of game-rooms with shelving units that reached the roof along with TV units housing every console you could think of, plus ones I had never seen.  The envy was strong and I soon found it was these people who were inadvertently pushing me to exponentially increase the number of games I owned.  It felt like if telling someone I owned X number of games, or sharing a picture of a half filled shelf would mean I couldn’t be part of the “cool group” and recognised as a true enthusiast.  This resulted in me having games that I never played and simply serve as filler on my shelf!

In reality people within a community or group rarely talk about the size of their collection.  You’re more likely to find people discussing the merits of a specific game, and if you don’t own the title being discussed, emulating or using an everdrive is often an easy way to be part of the discussion and assess whether you should fork out for it.  A true enthusiast doesn’t actually have to own the game; they’ve just had to have played it!

3. Identify an end goal

As I earlier mentioned, having an end goal really does have merit.  If your end goal is to own a complete Mega Drive collection that’s fine. Well, in my opinion its fine as long as you have enough disposable income to throw into your collecting, the space to house it, and of course the time to put into not only hunting out games but also playing ‘em all!  As I think there are very few of us that can meet these points, here’s some suggestions on how you could keep the collecting aspect of your retro-gaming passion under control:

Collect subgroups

If you really must complete something, try completing subgroups.  This could be as small as collecting all the Sonic titles for the Sega Mega Drive or as large as collecting all the beat ‘em ups on a Super Nintendo/Famicom.  This is likely to save shelf space as well as result in greater satisfaction as you will more likely actually achieve the goal as well as enjoy playing what you own.

Make a list

I’m fortunate enough to own a jail broken PSP which is filled with roms from a range of 8 and 16 bit platforms.  This enables me to play games before buying them, really allowing me to get a feel as to whether I would enjoy playing it on the actual system and whether I should add it to my list of must haves.  Lists of game titles for specific platforms and genres can be easily found through searching online, and if you are one of those who refuse to touch an emulator you can always watch someone else play it on YouTube.

Impose limits

This is something I tried and failed out, but has worked successfully for others.  I can see this working well if you have a range of consoles and limited space.  Setting a limit of X number of games per console makes you be selective about what you buy which is likely to ensure that you will buy something you will actually play.

At the end of the day you should just do what makes you happy.  If having a massive collection of games that rarely gets touched brings you enjoyment then more power to you. (However I am assuming you gain more enjoyment from buying and staring at your collection as opposed to actually playing games).  But, if you’re one that likes spending time with the controller in your hand, and you do find yourself facing the problem what to play consider ways to limit your choice.  There’s nothing wrong with being a collector, but if you’re a collector of games try and also being a gamer!