Late in November of 2024, I challenged myself to stop buying videogames until I complete (at least) five of them, and I joined a little channel in a discord server with other people dedicated to this very goal, named #Gaming No Buy 2025—hence the title of this blog post.
My goal was to be more mindful of my purchases throughout 2025, and to have a smaller backlog by the end of the year. So, after beating five games, I would be allowed to buy one, and from then on, I’d have to beat one game to buy another later.
I’ve been playing dozens of different games, but… I’ve only managed to beat four so far. They would be:
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist
- God of War: Chains of Olympus
- World of Goo
- TOEM
The truth is, this little experiment was doomed from the start, and I have already purchased a couple games on the eShop and Steam. 😬
So, in case you are curious, here’s the list, mistakes were made…
- 1000xRESIST - With the amount of praise I’ve seen everywhere, buying it for Switch when it was on sale seemed like a no-brainer. I haven’t played it yet, I am a little afraid of it for some reason, but the itch is still there, I’ll definitely beat it this year.
- Runbow - A completely justified and calculated decision, this is not a game I bought for myself, but to play with my friends, since it’s a multiplayer platformer for up to 8 players. I would never buy it otherwise—I have better single player games to go through. It was my way to use up my remaining Golden Coins from the eShop, so I only spent 50 cents total.
- Dungeon Antiqua - I initially gifted it to a friend, I saw some praise for it and thought he would like it. When I realized it was built on Python and ran on my Anbernic RG35XX SP, I instantly got it and transferred it to my handheld. I have played and enjoyed it a lot ever since.
- Dicey Dungeons - I already had it on Switch, but I got it for my Android phone too. Honestly, I’ve played it so much more I’m not even dissapointed, it was a great purchase!
- Humble Heroines Bundle - Getting this made no sense. I had managed to survive unscathed from a lot of Humble Bundle deals. I failed this time. It was so close, a little friction would have stopped me. My payment method gets blocked every other day, but it went through on my first try. Before I knew it, I had a bunch of Steam keys to my name. At least the price was right, but was it? These are the games I got:
- Pseudoregalia
- Thief of Thieves
- Kill the Crows
- Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous
- Darksiders 3
- Beyond: Two Souls
- Control Ultimate Edition
Even though I already “failed”, I think that, in the grand scheme of things, I am still doing pretty well. I’ve only spent 25 bucks in total, not bad at all for three months, going to the movies with family has been more expensive than all the games I’ve bought this year!
Besides, I have achieved quite a few feats, if I do say so myself:
- I’ve gone to my local gaming store, and left empty handed, more than a few times.
- I’ve visited AliExpress and Play-Asia pretty often, but I still haven’t fell into any traps!
- I have gifted (other) games to friends without buying for me in the process.
- And, I did not buy any games during Steam’s latest sale season.
Amazing, yay me!
There are some things that also helped me to stay focused on not buying games:
- I’ve read more manga! and (some) books!
- I’m going to the gym pretty often!
- I’ve played more tabletop games with friends!
- People have gifted me videogames!
- People have given me Steam/GOG codes!
For the sake of transparency, here are some of the games I’ve redeemed or acquired without spending any money this year…
- TOEM (completed!)
- Dredge (in progress!)
- UFO 50 (in progress!)
- One Step from Eden (in progress!)
- Chrono Trigger (Had the rom, now on Steam)
- Risk of Rain 2 (Had it on Switch, returned it, now on Steam)
- Copy Kitty
- Cassette Beasts
Overall, I am still pretty happy with how this challenge is going. Many games have tempted me throughout the year, Dragon Quest III HD-2D, Monster Hunter Wilds, Suikoden I & II remakes, Xenoblade Chronicles X, the upcoming Trails in The Sky remake, among others!
The Nintendo Switch 2 is still not released, once it does I will only consider getting Metroid Prime 4, maybe the new Mario Kart as well. Other than that, I will stick to the backlog as much as possible.
Not sure why I made so many lists in this blog post, but it made sense to me.
This is day 40 of #100DaysToOffload
