I really thought that 2022 was going to be the year that I purchased fewer than 50 video games. Got close, but those Q4 sales are killer…
Anyway, here are a bunch of numbers related to video games I purchased in 2022. I’ve included the figures from 2021 and 2020 for comparison.
| 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | |
| Total Games Purchased | 56 | 71 | 73 |
| Purchased Games Played | 41 (73%) | 58 (82%) | 56 (77%) |
| Purchased Games Beaten | 37 (66%) | 49 (69%) | 44 (60%) |
| Purchased Games Finished | 32 (57%) | 44 (62%) | 36 (49%) |
| Physical purchases | 5 (9%) | 7 (10%) | 8 (11%) |
| Digital purchases | 51 (91%) | 64 (90%) | 65 (89%) |
| “Free” games | 12 (21%) | 18 (25%) | 38 (52%) |
| Nintendo purchases | 25 (45%) | 32 (46%) | 44 (60%) |
| PlayStation purchases | 19 (34%) | 15 (21%) | 18 (25%) |
| PC purchases | 10 (18%) | 20 (28%) | 3 (4%) |
| VR purchases | 2 (3%) | 3 (4%) | 7 (10%) |
| iOS purchases | 0 (0%) | 1 (1%) | 1 (1%) |
The entire point of the exercise of keeping track of all my video game purchases (which I’ve been doing since 2015), is not just to share this fun data. Nor is it to cut down on game purchases in general. This is my way of trying to reduce the number of games that I buy and never play. It’s been going on for far too long now and needs to stop! What a waste of money! Sure, it’ll be great if I ever magically become rich and don’t work anymore and have nothing to do but muscle through my backlog, but let’s be honest… that’s never going to happen.
Just to clarify, all of the percentages above are only related to the games that were purchased in the same year. So, for example, while I played 41 of the 56 games I bought in 2022, I did not play 41 video games in total. I tried to make that clear in the table, but I feel like writing it out is still helpful.
Another clarification: The “free” section includes several things… PS+ games, free-to-play games, games purchased with gift cards, and games purchased with birthday/Xmas money. Really, any situation where a game acquisition doesn’t actually hit my bank account or credit card statement.
Sadly, I don’t think that there’s any meaningful insight to be gleaned from these statistics. Which kind of makes them pointless? But hey, look at that total figure! It went down a lot! That’s good! Good for me. Good for my bank account, at least.