I was born in 1982. I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember being first introduced to the hobby by my dad who let me play the Atari 2600 when I was a toddler. Eventually my folks got my siblings and I a NES which really instilled the love and passion for the hobby. Eventually we got a SNES, later a Genesis, even a Sega CD that we got second hand from a friend I knew. Hell I even asked my parents to buy a Sega Saturn. My only reason being I favored Sega over Nintendo at the time... don't judge me I was young and stupid then. Last thing my parents had gotten for us was a Nintendo 64. Each console brought a lot of joy and great memories that I cherish to this day. Even during the 16-bit era my dad got a home computer and I was then introduced to Wolfenstien 3D which was the first PC game I had ever played.

By time I was 16 I started buying video games and hardware for myself. First console I bought with my own money was a PS1. As years would go buy and my jobs would change video games would eventually become my greatest money sink. If it was a major console I had to have it. Dreamcast, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, DS, PSP, Game Cube, PS2, Xbox, 360, PS3, Wii, and a capable PC if it played games that people were talking about, I felt I had to have it. At the time during all this cash wasn't really an issue. I had no problem still living with my folks, I worked a decent factory job with benefits where I had been fully trained and even trained people myself. Life was good.

However in 2009 things would change drastically. I'll spare you the depressing and boring details but let's just say the job situation changed. Money wasn't as plentiful as it was. I had sold off my NES and SNES collections. The Genesis well... no one wanted it along with the Dreamcast so they went into storage. Sold my Gamecube but kept the games since they could be played on my Wii. Same for my PS2. My original Xbox just eventually died out since the disc drive on it went to hell so I had gotten rid of what games I could. Even sold off my Gameboy collection which was rather small. My GBA and games I still posses as I couldn't part with them as well as my PS1 library of games that I still have. PC games... let's just say one shelf isn't enough to hold all of them.

Things got stable in 2011 when I got a new job. Things were good and I went back to my game buying ways building up a pretty well sized library of 360, Wii, PS3, PSP, and DS games. All while still holding onto my PS1, PS2, GC, and GBA games. However now, as I look at all the stuff I have, coupled with how things are going with the video game industry itself. Things like On Disc DLC, Day one DLC, Draconian DRM, publishers rallying against used games. I look on all this, all the things I have and how little time I have for it all and I wonder... does it really make me happy? Do owning all these games and holding onto them really make my life better? Is it even fulfilling anymore? I thought a good long while about this... and I honestly couldn't give myself a straight answer.

A lot of the games I own I haven't had the time to finish. I bought them well ,cause they had good reveiws. Don't get me wrong I had a lot of fun with some of these games like Silent Hill 3, Red Dead Redemption, Metroid Prime, Crash Bandicoot, Golden Sun, among many others. But I've only finished about less than half of them and maybe revisited a few here and there. Being a man of 31 I'm feeling like I need to focus on things that are more important. I love gaming and I feel I always will especially with all the indie stuff that's come out which is fantastic! But as times become a bit harder and I get older I feel that I have to some changes. Hell if I ever decide to move I don't know how I'd take all this stuff with me and if it doesn't make me happy any more why lug all this stuff around?

With a lot of thought I finally came to the conclusion that I need to cut back on my game spending. I shouldn't buy something just because it gets high praise. I should buy it because I really like it. I don't have to own every console or handheld. Hell since I got a smart phone my DS has only collected dust and I used to play that thing on a daily basis. So I decided that while I can, I'm going to sell off some portions of my gaming collection starting with my PS1 and PS2 games. There's a lot of great memories here but I think going forward it's time to simply let them go. Maybe to someone who can maintain such a large collection or just wants these old games. I'll admit, I'll probably try to hold onto my Wii for as long as I can with as many VC games as I bought for it. And I'll always need a PC so I can pay my bills, get all my news, entertainment, etc. Not to mention a vast Steam library of Triple A and indie titles.

Also I feel maybe it's time I take a month off from gaming. Honestly I feel like I'm playing less for fun and more so just to satisfy whatever OCD fueled needs of unlocking things or keeping up with friends. There are times I feel like I lost my reason to keep playing games. Like I didn't know what was fun about it anymore. However there are some titles I was able to pop in and remind myself why I fell in love with this hobby. Still doesn't change the fact that since I'm not some game critic or writer, I can't hold onto everything. If I ever want things to get better in life, if I ever want to be happier, I've gotta part with some things. Especially since I hope to move someday, somewhere there's more possibility to have a better career. Seriously if you look up the job market stats for Henry or Defiance county Ohio you'll see some pretty sad results. It's where I've lived all my life and it just seems like nothing is getting better around here.

I hope I can make some decent cash on Ebay selling off my old games, and what I can afford to keep I hope I can enjoy for a good long time to come. I hope doing this will mean making my life better. Might even get into better shape which is something I've been struggling with for a long time. I hope that no matter what happens, that I'm making the right choices and that I can find what makes me truly happy. If giving up this large extensive library of games meant having a better life, how can I say no to that?

I enjoy a good multiplayer game from time to time. Granted I'm not always that great at a lot of games but I play video games for recreation. After all that's what video games were created for. To have fun and enjoy yourself. Even if I lose I still have a good time. I believe in being a good sport and having fun so that everyone can have a good time. That's what matters to me the most in every game I play. Halo: Reach, Mass Effect 3, League of Legends, TF2, etc. Yeah I put in as much effort to win as anyone would but I don't freak out at all in the middle of a game, or shun people because they aren't as experienced as I would be play the game.

However often times recently I keep running into people online that only care about winning and they don't care who's having a good time or not. For example last night (at the time of this writing) I was playing some Super Monday Night Combat (which is a fun game btw). Halfway into the match our defenses start going down and things aren't looking so good for our team. One fellow in particular happens to have a head set on and is barking orders at people and constantly yelling at us to protect the lanes, spawn bots, get on the anihilator ,etc.

Needless to say the dude was getting on my nerves to where I finally just typed into the game chat saying "Dude, chill out it's just a game" and that merely opened the flood gates for him to start spouting off how I'm such a noob and that I'm not playing the game right. Okay if there's one thing I really can't stand is when someone tells me I'm playing the game wrong. I think I speak for a lot of folks that when you have a game that's online only and you're just figuring things out, yeah you're gonna make mistakes and you shouldn't get on someone's case because they don't know as much as an expert would. Lighten the fuck up.

But how about when you can't even get into a game at all? Couple nights ago I wanted to play some Mass Effect 3 multiplayer. I had a level 5 Vangaurd that I wanted to get some XP for so I decided to use him. Since none of my friends were online I had no choice but to use quick match to find a group. Not once, not twice, but three times in a row I was voted out of groups. I even set my quick match settings down to Bronze level challenges thinking maybe I'll find a more accepting group of people who don't mind playing with a low level character. Nope, same friggen result. I mean I couldn't belive it. People cared that much about winning that they won't allow anyone below max level to play with them? It's like what crime against video game multiplayer did I commit? Basically I said screw it and went back to playing ME3 Single Player

Finally last week, I wanted to play some League of Legends. Now I've been kinda out of touch with the game since I hadn't loaded it up in a while but I wanted to jump back into it to play a few games for fun. To make a long story short it was something similar to what happened in SMNC, but with my whole team bitching at me instead of just one person. With constant game chat messages in all caps saying "STOP FEEDING" or "WHY DON'T YOU HAVE THE RIGHT GEAR" I mean jesus christ, I'm sorry if I bought the "recommended" equipment from the store and that I don't play the game like I'm trying out for the friggen MLG or something. I stayed in the game until we finally lost to which I was kicked from the game lobby very quickly. I mean... damn.

Stuff like this needs to stop and I know not everyone online acts like this but I wish there was a way to tell these folks that winning isn't everything and a game is supposed to be about having fun. That's why it is called a "game" not life and fucking death.

But that's my two cents folks. Play to have fun, not just to win because as long as there's competition there's always going to be a loser but it doesn't mean you have to be a sore loser.