It’s that time of year again, where I spend a bunch of words reflecting on the previous year. Mostly in the form of what video games I played in said year. Also, there’s a bunch of statistics in this post! Whoo, statistics!
First, let’s take a look at how many games came into my possession throughout 2018. The grand total adds up to a whopping… 102. Wait, really? That seems low. *checks spreadsheet again* Yeah, it’s 102. Slightly more if you break up games like Mega Man X Legacy Collection into their component parts. But for the sake of keeping the total number lower, I’m going to classify any collections that all exist as the same piece of software as a single game. I was hoping to keep it under 100, but then Xmas hit and between gifted eShop cards and lots of games on sale… Maybe next year!
To break that number down further, only 57 of those games were actually paid for. No, I didn’t steal/pirate any of them. The other 45 games that I tracked at a cost of zero were either legitimately free, given to me as a gift, purchased with money I received as a gift, or games that were free through PS Plus. It’ll be a shame to lose those last ones when I stop subscribing, but between the ones I played and the dozens of online hours I logged in Monster Hunter World, that $70 annual subscription was absolutely worth it.
As an aside, I only got eleven games on disc/cartridge last year. It seemed like a surprisingly low number to me at first, but the percentage (11%) is actually on par with those of 2017 and 2016 (13% and 8%). I guess I’m a digital kind of guy after all!
What really brought my total games number down is that I only bought one bundle of Steam games last year, which was a Leisure Suit Larry bundle for $5. I’d say it was worth it. Although I haven’t made time to play any of them yet… I also only paid for DLC for a single game in 2018, and that was the Fighters Pass for Super Smash Bros Ultimate, which was an absolutely necessary expense.
On the less responsible side of things, I purchased exactly five games that I already own. You know, that’s actually not too bad! (Last year it was a staggering 18!) But I’d credit that restraint entirely to the fact that Nintendo and Sony have more or less stopped re-releasing their classic games on current consoles. Virtual Console and PS1 Classics are dead, and so less of my money goes towards re-buying the same games over and over again. I was never not going to buy Dark Souls Remastered on Switch, though. Pretty sure I would have died without a copy of Dark Souls I can play anywhere.
As far as per-system numbers go, here’s the breakdown: Switch obviously has a massive lead with 46 games, and PS4 with a respectable second place at 31 games. PC rolls into third with a more humble 16. 3DS, PS3 and iOS have a three-way tie for last place with a meager three games each.
And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: let’s find out exactly how worthwhile it was to amass all of these video games! In numerical terms, anyway. I played some real stinkers last year, so quality is not a factor.
I played… an impressive 66 of the games I got in 2018. That’s 65%! Not a bad number at all! But it may be slightly misleading, because it’s just counting any game that I booted up at least once. There are at least a few on there that I played one short session of and never got around to coming back to. For example: Space Dave!, which is a really cool game, but I guarantee that I’ve spent less than 5 minutes total with it.
Of those 66 games, I beat 42 of them, which gives us a nice, healthy 41%. “Beaten” means that I’ve played a game all the way through to the end. “The end” generally meaning that I got to the point where the credits rolled, or the game gave me a congratulatory message, or something like that. The point where the game made it clear that I was free to stop playing it and wouldn’t lose any sleep at night over unfinished business.
More nebulous is the “finished” category, which rolls in at 36 games, or 35%. Finished can mean all sorts of things. Sometimes it’s because the game has no ending and I decided to stop playing it. Sometimes it’s because the game was not to my liking and I decided to stop playing it. Sometimes it’s because there was so much more game to enjoy even after the ending, and I continued to play until I’d had my fill. Sometimes beaten and finished are exactly the same thing! In any case, it basically just means that I made the decision that I was done with a game.
And because no discussion of statistics would be complete without a chart full of numbers… here’s a chart! It’s full of numbers! (Keeping in mind that the 2016/2017 played/beaten/finished numbers have continued to update through 2018.)
| 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |
| Games Obtained | 102 | 148 | 184 |
| Purchased | 57 | 122 | 171 |
| Free/Gifted/Etc. | 45 | 26 | 13 |
| Games Played | 66 (65%) | 88 (59%) | 83 (45%) |
| Games Beaten | 42 (41%) | 50 (34%) | 48 (26%) |
| Games Finished | 36 (35%) | 45 (30%) | 50 (27%) |
| Switch | 46 | 36 | 0 |
| PS4 | 31 | 33 | 17 |
| 3DS | 3 | 15 | 30 |
| PC / Steam | 16 | 40 | 86 |
| Other | 6 | 24 | 51 |
Full List of Games Beaten in 2018
2018 Releases
- Monster Hunter World
- Kirby Star Allies
- Part-Time UFO
- Into the Breach
- Agatha Knife
- Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon
- Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn
- The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
- The Messenger
- Mega Man 11
- Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate
- Picross S2
- Kemono Friends Picross
- Hollow
- Slayaway Camp: Butcher’s Cut
- WarioWare Gold
- Marvel’s Spider-Man
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country
- MechaNika
- Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu!
- Super Smash Bros Ultimate
- Iconoclasts
- GRIS
- The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories
Previous year releases
- Xenoblade Chronicles 2
- Rhythm Thief and the Emperor’s Treasure
- Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls
- Mr Pumpkin Adventure
- Uncanny Valley
- RIME
- Thimbleweed Park
- Knack
- Shantae Half-Genie Hero: Pirate Queen’s Quest
- The Count Lucanor
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
- Horizon: Zero Dawn
- Beyond: Two Souls
- Fran Bow
- I Am Setsuna
- Tales of Berseria
- Heavy Rain
- Batman: The Telltale Series
- Final Fantasy XV
- Mega Man X7
- The Silver Case
- Bayonetta
- Metal Gear Solid V: The Pahntom Pain
- Burly Men at Sea
Replays
- Mega Man X
- Super Mario RPG
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
- Yoshi’s Island
- Mega Man 4
- Mega Man 10
- Mega Man 8
- Mega Man 5
- Mega Man
- Mega Man 7
- Mega Man 2
- Mega Man 3
- Mega Man X2
- Mega Man X3
- Mega Man X4
- Mega Man X5
- Mega Man X6
- The Legend of Zelda
- Mega Man X8
- Mega Man 9
- Mega Man 6
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D