What do you think of when someone says “addiction”? A couple things come to my mind. One is of that character from Chapelle’s Show that has cocaine all over his face. Another is of a character named Pooky, played by Chris Rock in New Jack City. Then there’s the World of Warcraft episode of South Park.

Typically you imagine someone who has lost control of their life, with this one addiction being their highest priority. They may know it is bad for them. They may know that they need to regain control. Yet at the end of the day the question is which is stronger. Their psychological and even physical need to satisfy their addiction, or their willpower to fight it and learn to live without it.

I am not addicted to playing video games. Hell, there are plenty of moments in my life where I have to force myself to pick up the controller and remember why I find it so fun. I am not the sort of person to ignore my need to eat or dispose of bodily waste, nor will I ignore the pleas of my niece as she asks for nourishment. I understand the role video games play, and that is to serve me, not vice versa.

I fear, however, that I am addicted to buying video games.

Any rational person would look at an unopened game on the store shelf and think “No thank you, I already have thirty or so games left incomplete at home”. Thirty! That’s an awful lot of games to burn through. Considering my current rate of completion, that could potentially outlast the year for me. Especially considering a number of the games are built around the concept of long hours of play, such as Fallout: New Vegas and Dragon Age 2. Throw in additional DLC for Mass Effect 2 and there’s even more to pile up and keep me occupied.

Yet for some reason I just cannot resist myself. Even when I don’t have a game already embedded in my mind as a must-have, the simplest thing can trigger my impulse to purchase.

Today, a friend of mine posted the following image onto his Facebook.

It took me a moment to understand the humor of the image. Not because I thought it was complicated or just didn’t get it, but because I was too pre-occupied with the new Deus Ex already being $35.

Seriously! This game isn’t even a month old and already twenty-five bucks have been chopped off the sticker. That’s almost half-off! That’s 35% of a hundred dollars! That’s cheap for a brand new game that’s been getting fantastic reviews!

I check Amazon, half-hoping that I didn’t miss the price drop, that it wasn’t some small temporary sale. The other half of me is hoping I did miss it so I don’t spend the cash. Oh, fate! The game is still cheap, and I can purchase it right now!

I know I have a friend willing to lend me this game when he is done, but I can’t help it. I add it to cart, and after fifteen minutes of arguing with myself I proceed to checkout and complete the purchase.

That makes what…thirty-three incomplete games on my pile now? Thirty-four?

I can at least take solace that I am not the only adult suffering this condition. A most active train of threads over on GamersWithJobs are dedicated to “The Pile”, where gamers tally up their purchases and start crossing off games they’ve completed. It certainly provides a sense of progress, given that you can regularly keep up with the hobby.

Yet my progress has been slow, and games keep on piling up faster than I manage to knock them down.

So what keeps me coming back to buy more and more? Is it a genuine addiction? Is there something about owning games that gives me a feeling of satisfaction? Or is it the excitement of an all new purchase?

Part of me feels that my adult sensibilities haven’t quite caught up with the reality of my situation. Working forty hours a week is rough. Add in time to commute to and from work, plus time dedicated to exercise, and then throw in any requisite social obligations, and gaming becomes a luxury. When I was a child and teenager I’d often become bored after playing the same games over and over due to how much time I had on my hands. In College I had enough disposable income to buy games regularly while playing them to completion. I could beat a single game in a week, maybe less.

Now, however, an eight hour game can take anywhere between two to three weeks. Oddly enough, a lot of the games I’ve been playing have been closer to twelve to twenty hours. Games are getting shorter? My ass. I miss a simple eight-hour romp that I can have put away after a few days, easy to get back to on a simple bored afternoon. Games are a genuine investment now.

Yet my habits are still the same. I see games that I want to play and I feel the urge to hoard them. I may be able to resist them at a full price point, but so many Amazon lightning deals and sales have passed that I’ve been unable to resist. Even games that I’ve heard little about, such as Radiant Historia, become an instant buy.

It has given me further reason to consider that, as time has progressed, I’ve grown outside of that typical “gamer” I used to be. It is not unusual for me to want to do something other than play video games in my spare time. Yet I still keep up with the news, the industry and the new releases as I had as a child, when my only thought of using spare time was in gaming. Do I write about games out of habit? Do I discuss them because that’s all I’ve ever allowed myself to know?

I’m not sure. In truth, though, there are few topics that get me going like video games. No matter what my mood is, talking games energizes me. I could be contemplating suicide and a good discussion about games would convince me that life is worth living (despite DRM, day-one DLC, piracy, Activision…).

It could be that, somewhere deep down inside, part of me wants to revolt. I have work, exercise, and all around me people trying to tell me how to live life, including “expanding my horizons” well beyond video games. When I get depressed, playing video games is one of the biggest struggles.

Yet when I do play, they are a joy (unless, y’know, they’re a bad game). I couldn’t have an active social life physically while I was unemployed, but I spent a lot of time playing online with friends, shared a lot of thoughts and ideas. No matter what there’s always something in the industry to discuss.

It could just be years of habit that keeps me buying all these games, but maybe deep down inside I’m trying to tell myself something. Maybe I’m trying to tell myself to stop caring about what other people think and what they believe I should be doing, and just do what gives me great joy.

That or I just have crap for willpower.