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積みゲー tsumigee
Games bought, never started.
What does tsumigee mean?
The unplayed pile. Sales are irresistible, time is not infinite, and the stack keeps growing. Confessing your 積みゲー count is a bonding ritual among players.
Example
セールで買った積みゲーが十本ある。
I have ten unplayed games from the sales.
Vibe
Who you can say this to, and how it lands.
Friends only Casual. Natural with friends, out of place at work or with strangers.
Culture note
Modeled on 積読, the older word for buying books and stacking them unread. Japanese has a real soft spot for naming the gap between our ambitions and our free time.
The story behind tsumigee
積みゲー is modelled on a much older word, 積読, which describes buying books and stacking them unread. That pun has been around since roughly the Meiji era, so Japanese has been laughing at this exact failure for well over a century, long before a digital sale could put nine games in your library in one evening.
The family is large: 積みプラ for unbuilt model kits, 積み本 for the paper original. There is even a term for working through the stack, 積みゲー崩し, which sounds encouragingly like demolishing a wall. Announcing your count is a social move, half confession and half boast, and the correct reply is always to name a bigger number.
Video
Get tsumigee in your pocket
積みゲー is one of 308 words in YABAI, a Japanese culture snack for Android. Every word comes with its meaning, an example sentence, a vibe check and a story like the one above — in 13 languages, read aloud by your device. Paid app: no ads, no sign-up, no subscription.
