I wouldn't consider my addiction on the level of a "World of Warcraft" obsession! I haven't neglected my wife, lost my job or gained 20 pounds. However, I find that I always have it in my hand or nearby, and when I don't, it is in the charge station. First, to rewind: I received my 64 gb 3rd gen touch since January of this year and mostly used it for compiling my huge music library. I got a few of the essential games such as Doodle Jump and Words with friends and played somewhat sparingly. That all changed due to two things: (1) I won a $100 itunes gift card because of having a high score on a game, and (2) I tore my ACL in my left knee playing soccer. Since then, I have built an insane collection of games. It would take me an hour to name them all! Name your top 20 games, I likely have them all. It feels like I am a kid collecting baseball cards. I have so many that I don't even have time to play them all!! Therefore, let this be the thread to talk about addiction to touch gaming, cuz I know I am not the only one!! Here are some of the causes of my addiction, please add yours: - the price, with games from 99 cents to $10, you can get so much bang for your buck! My $100 itunes card bought me probably 30-40 games. - The community. Never have gamers been so interconnected with the developers. We can use this forum to talk directly to them! - The satisfaction of all the sweet game icons in your library! - Competition and achievements. It is a blast to get the high score -The ability to pick up and play 5 minutes, or crash with a busted up knee and play til the battery dies!
I've purchased 425 Apps (98% of them are games) since April 2009, when I got my first iPod Touch (the 2G). My wife & I worked out how much I had spent up to June of this year and it worked out to about $1400. Trust me, you're not alone in your addiction. Lately I've become accustomed to using AppShopper to stay up-to-date on all the recent FREE games, because I find that MOST games go free eventually. As long as you can control your urge to buy and wait at LEAST a month after a games release, you'll be surprised and how many of them will go free for a day at some point or another. It saves a LOT of money doing this
I know that I LOVE games, and could easily get addicted to them, and this is one of the reasons why I set a limit on my spending. $20 a month, and that's it. No more. No less. It's good to set boundaries for yourself, especially in the Apple universe where there are so many goodies!
I think we can all agree this all is in large part due to the app store. Until the app store came along we'd have to drive down to the local game stop to invest in one or two games that we hope are fun for systems like the DS and PSP. With the app store, we can browse thousands of games and quickly play them within seconds and at such affordable costs. This has lead Sony and Nintendo to switch their distribution model to a digital distribution model like Apple's and play catch up. The addiction is from the insanely quick purchase model of the app store and the sheer amount of apps you can download from it.
My app buying seriously used to be out of control. Once I realized how much I had been spending, I completely stopped buying apps for a few months. Eventually, I began cautiously making small purchases, and now limit myself to $4 a week. For example, this last week, I bought Plunderland ($3) and Super Mega Worm ($1). I would say that I've spent about $350 on apps ever since buying my iTouch in late 2008. It's my favorite way to game on the go: lots of smaller games to play for a few minutes at a time instead of one large game being the only thing that you can play.
I don't fight it anymore its fun I need to add my receipts again but I'm sure I'm over $3000.00 by now i do buy a lot of music apps and other stuff that usually is more than your standard game prices. But I have no problem with my problem.
Maybe I am buying on the AppStore , GOG, Steam, GamersGate, My Collection of games has risen dramatically. But my Apps have outraced them all, 843 as of the moment I am writing this. Yet I would not call myself addicted - just dedicated. I have a clear vision of what I games I want to play and which not and no bargain in the world could change that. And sometimes I really get tired of apps gaming and want to do something completely different (NO, NOT PC GAMING). The ONLY thing I´d like to change is, that I am not playing 20 games at once. This really kills the immersion of most games. So I decided NOT or rarely start any new games besides the ones I have on my iPod NOW. Well at least I could try.
I as well has gotten a bit addicted to App buying, mainly games. I got my iDevice back in june and I'm already up around 160 games, a few of these are free though. Started to use appshopper now so I can grab titles when they go on sale or free.
I was used to be addicted but not anymore now. I realised that I'm not really into iphone casual games. RPGs on iphone are good though.
What I find amazing is that with all of the apps I have, I still haven't spent a penny of my own money money for them. I got a few gift cards for Christmas and I have received a couple as gifts for helping someone with a computer problem. It's amazing to be able to get so many quality games for the price of 1 or 2 console games.
Man, I totally agree with everything you said. Could actually have been me who wrote that! I am totally addicted and have around 500 apps (almost all games) and only keep my favorites, deleting them out then adding others every day! There's hardly a day that goes by where I don't get on itunes and here at Toucharcade as well. Married and got a full-time job and a kid as well and it's definitely not my whole life, but I love games and I actually got rid of my xbox and PS3 and my ipod touch is my only gaming device now! Wish I had more will-power, though to wait 'til prices drop as they do with time, but I go for it right away most times and figure since 2008 and three ipods ago, I've spent around $4,000.00 in itunes! Not complaining, though! Money's not a problem and I enjoy it thoroughly!
+1 probably equal or more than the price of my 2nd and 4th gen ipod touches combined on the appstore already. rock on 400+ paid apps
I agree I spend way more time on TA than playing games in my phone. I don't comment much but I stalk the shit out of you guys all day long
