Want a quick way to depress me these days? Show me my Steam library. I just picked up my 110th game. And to think, when I built my computer three years ago I thought I would never fill a terabyte hard drive. You know my addiction is bad when I feel compelled to check the daily/weekly/midweek/weekend sales every day at 1:00, and I’m actually relieved when it’s nothing I’m interested in. If it is a game I want, I feel bad buying it because I don’t have the time or the money ($5.00 or so a pop adds up surprisingly fast), but I feel bad not buying it becaue it’s ON SALE. And what if one day I say to myself “Self, what I really feel like playing is Prince of Persia Sands of Time. Too bad I didn’t buy it when it was on sale a few months back.” Sadly, I’m really not sure if this is a realistic scenario or not because I usually end up just buying it.

The worst part is that I knew this would happen. I refused to get a Steam account until that fateful day when Valve decided to give the original Portal away for free to celebrate their new Mac section featuring all of their Source Engine games. Best $10 they ever gave away. (Appropriately enough, I am writing this on the 6th anniversary of Portal’s release. Just an interesting Science fact.) After that, I refused to give them any money… until I happened to look at front page and see that the entire Star Wars: Jedi Knight series was on sale for 75% off. I mean, who could pass that up, right? A few months later it was another sale… and another, and another… don’t even get me started on the summer sale. Curse you, Valve, and your brilliant marketing!

At least something good has come of my Steam addiction; it has effectively broken me of console gaming. At least I’m only paying 5 or so dollars for a game (on sale) versus 40 or so dollars for a used Wii/PS360 game. And at least this way I get to enjoy a little bit of everything rather than only buying “safe” games that I already know I like.