DVD Obligation

On The Society, the forum that came up with the idea of trying to survive 2013 with as few gaming purchases as possible (ideally none, but in my case I'm allowing myself The Last of Us), the impetus for a lot of the participants was a backlog of games they'd bought previously but never managed to play. Some of the worst offenders include people who've yet to play BioShock or Grand Theft Auto IV.

I don't have much of a "stack"; while there are a few Dreamcast games that I've never gotten around to finishing, I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed. (I should probably get rid of a few of those, to be honest; I still have every Dreamcast game I ever bought.) I've been pretty good, this generation, about trading in titles that I've either not played or lost interest in rather than keeping them around, and have also been making a conscious effort to limit the amount of stuff I actually buy for a while - having a LoveFilm subscription that included games helped immensely on that front.

At the moment, I have more unwatched Blu-rays and DVDs than unplayed games; stuff I got for Christmas or my birthday, or just picked up at release. Most of them - Looper, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Lockout - I saw in the cinema so it's not like I'm missing out completely on any big-hitters among them, but it seems like we're never in the mood for any of them.

Watching a film that happens to come on TV is one thing; there's no sense of commitment when you start watching and even less when you find one partway through. If I pick out a disc, though, I'm essentially agreeing to dedicate the next two hours (or more, in many cases) to that choice. It feels like weakness to have to pause or, worse, abandon it; you've got to have everything in place so you don't leave the sofa until the credits roll. Or is that just me?

I don't know why, but even watching a DVD of a TV series is different. I don't have the same sense of obligation when I've put in a disc of Futurama or Red Dwarf - and I'll often watch that for at least as long as a film would take. The episodic nature probably helps; thinking "I'll watch one more" is different to "I have another 30 minutes of this film to go before I can move".

I don't think I have a point in this, except I need to stop being such a wuss about watching films at home - or at least, about having to watch it all. Maybe just deciding to watch as much as I can would be the nudge I need to get into the story. There are a lot of films I'll hang around for once I get into them on TV - I should take that same approach to home media.