I've been wanting to talk about this with some people for a while and I had an experience a few hours ago that kind of kicked my desire into gear.

Before I get started, I want to state that when I'm given a (non-requested) game by someone as a gift it is not that I'm not appreciative... but more often than not the game I receive is something I'm just not interested in. For every one person that totally gets my tastes - like the one member of this board I trade with occasionally - there are about ten other people that completely and continuously miss the target. However this only half of what I want to talk about.

And it's not that I don't get it. I get how if you really like a game you want to share that experience with EVERYBODY that has an interest... hell, I'm guilty of the same thing at times. I actually love this about gamers.

Yet with me there is another part of the equation - at least when it comes to me. While I will flat out admit that I love games and all the trappings that comes with them it takes A LOT to even get a game into one of my consoles or handhelds. It's not that I don't have the time but its kind of like the right mood has to strike... even if I've previously enjoyed the hell out of the given game on the docket.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't come off as complaining... but I was just wondering if anyone else feels this way. Again, it takes a lot for me to even get one of my favorites into rotation but when I'm given something I'm lukewarm on it feels even more like a long-shot of ever getting around to it and the people that give you games in this fashion usually want your opinion on it back in short order.

I know I should just be more proactive in trying games out but gaming is just something I can force myself to do for the sake of doing it.

Yeah, I guess I'm kind of in the same boat.

I always make sure to ask for very specific titles though, so I generally don't get games I didn't ask for.
I do remember when I was a kid, a friend of my mom's gave me a copy of Kid Icarus, a game that I had never heard of at that time and was therefore initially disappointed/disinterested in, but that I did end up being really into. Played through that game SO many times.
So people can surprise you with something you didn't know you wanted sometimes!

That was when I was a kid, though, but nowadays I already have SO many games to play, so if someone gives me something I didn't request, it's likely to end up on a pile of "maybe I'll get to this someday."

Yeah, I don't like getting video game as gifts either. I would think that anybody who knows me well enough to want to buy me a gift would know that my collection is carefully curated and that I already own all the games that I want. On top of that, I dislike the obligation to play something just because it was a gift. My game time is so limited these days that I barely have enough time to play the games that I really want to play. I'm getting older, and sooner or later I will be married and have kids. My gaming days are numbered, and that makes the little game time I have left that much more precious.

This. I actually just pruned a bunch of games off my collection so it was more streamlined and my backlog wasn't so soul-crushingly huge.