Backlogs, people. Backlogs.

[DiaborMagics]

How do you get through yours? It's pretty much the eternal question for me at this point.

I just added roughly 50 more games to my list... Which was already a few dozen games in size and while I technically also have a replay log of sorts.

I used to never have games and that sucked. Was forced to play the same tired thing over and over if I wanted to play anything at all. Now I have the games, but not the time. And often the money too, but that's not always the case. Though I'm pretty good at limiting myself when I really need to. However even if I don't I feel guilty easily. Yet sales and bonuses and... My problem of being easily impressed by a cover or/of a cute girl or badass monster is also something to consider.

Even now I already know about quite some games I'll want to buy. Heck even that I still want a switch, a ps4 and VR.
I've been doing well, holding off on them, but still.

I have had times where I forced myself to cross things off the list before playing anything I really wanted, but that usually ended up in needless torture. Why play a game when you're not in the mood?

Problem is, I always buy games I expect I'm going to like but I hate and avoid spoilers like the plague, so sometimes end up with a nasty surprise (that does make crossing it off the list easy, granted, but it shouldn't have been on the list in the first place in these cases).

So... All... I think about 100 games on my current backlog are games I want or wanted to play. Ok, almost all of them. But when you don't have that much time and keep returning to games you love and especially when you love games that already consume 100 hours on acerage per title, plus the fact that I know forcing myself to sit down and play things for the sake of getting my money's worth out of them is torture more often then not, it starts building up like crazy.

Most of these games I REALLY intend to play. But... Yeah... Heh. We all know how that can go.

So how do you do it, if not forcing yourself to make lists and go through them? How do you juggle new, old, long, short, replayable and favorite games?

None of my methods work apparently because the few times I've almost completely cut down my backlog, it absorbed the powers of a hydra and just got bigger than before I started.

[ReBoot]

My first step was to realize that i have a ginormous backlog so i can very much afford only pay attention to games i REALLY want. Helps that im hard to imoress as im experienced enough with life in general and video games in particular to know that skepticism trumps hype any day of the week. Not getting hyped is easy once you realize how stupid it is. And its even more stupid considering game companies actively try to manipulate us into gettimg hyped. Do you like being manipulated? Me neither, resist the manipulation, resist the hype!

That helps cutting off pointless purchases.

As for runnimg down the backlog, i do it from the gut. Scroll through my list, pick a game. If i find the game to be more slog than enjoyment, i hide it within an hour tops, lifes too short to waste time on bad games.

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by ReBoot:

My first step was to realize that i have a ginormous backlog so i can very much afford only pay attention to games i REALLY want. Helps that im hard to imoress as im experienced enough with life in general and video games in particular to know that skepticism trumps hype any day of the week. Not getting hyped is easy once you realize how stupid it is. And its even more stupid considering game companies actively try to manipulate us into gettimg hyped. Do you like being manipulated? Me neither, resist the manipulation, resist the hype!

That helps cutting off pointless purchases.

As for runnimg down the backlog, i do it from the gut. Scroll through my list, pick a game. If i find the game to be more slog than enjoyment, i hide it within an hour tops, lifes too short to waste time on bad games.

Problem is I rarely go with hype. But I AM easily manipulated by related games (the covers I uh.. Covered above) and sales (these around 50 new titles came from the steam sale, psn sale and denpasoft (VN) sale).

Also I have this collectors drift that often gets me to buy the full package of a series, or at least multiple entries, before I've even finished, or worse, played the first game.
This isn't true in all cases, like... I recently got tales of Berseria and no other one in that massive series. But if I see something that has 2 or 3 titles, all on steam, all on discount ohhhh they're mine.

Same happened with agarest, now... 1,5 or 2,5 years ago, I forgot which winter I bought them in. There was a nice sale for the trilogy for 20 euros, can't complain there. Also played the first for way more than my 1 hour per euro value rule... But I've long from finished it and it doesn't look like I'll do so any time soon, let alone games 2 and 3.... So they just keep staring at me. And they're not the only ones.

Or some visual novels. Often, the cute girls on the cover :P I buy a whole series, only to not have touched it even a year later.

Your last point is a really good one... I drop games I end up having absolutely no interest in very quickly, too. But I hardly get that feeling. Either I like the gameplay, or the story, or simply the characters. Or if I've already spent an X amount of time in the game and by then I'm not interested anymore even though i was before that point, then I can't make myself put it down anymore because I still want to know how it ends and generally, not look up the ending (though I've started doing that every now and then indeed to cut down on games that waste my time otherwise). Even if playing more of it feels like torture too. Berseria as example again, I loved the first 20 hours of it, then that completely turned around for no apparent reason. Love the story and characters, can't take another step or fight another fight. That's a game I've resorted to youtube for starting yesterday, to see all cutscenes.

And I finished ff13 myself even though I can't even put into words the kind of torture that was. Yet I strangely enough loved ff13-2.

[ReBoot]

Stop getting hyped. Covers dont mean jack, theyre designed to get you hyped! Case in example: Demomicon. Cover has some nice artx the games 3D art is lame. Caee in examlple: Plunkbat. The cover is the literally only original liece of art in the whole game, everything else is from asset stores. Covers are DESIGNED to manipulate you. You dont loke being manipulated, do you?

As for sales, remember that even if you have the money, you may not have the time. Whats the point on buying something you wont get to enjoy? And its not like the games will run out. A particular game you dont buy right now will still be there for you 3 years later and likely way cheaper, than it is now.

Finally, my buying addiction was, partially at least, a result of my depression. If you have a buying addiction, then its possible that it stems from deeper problems. Addictions often do that. In therapy (for the depresion), ive met several addicts. For one, it was family issues for another, it was stress and the inability to escape it. If your buying addiction seriously bothers you, digging deeper may be a good idea.

If a game isnt fun, drop it. What do you miss about the ending of a crappy game? Your games are there to serve you, not for you to serve them! If a game is torture, why not drop it entirely? Who cares how it ends if its crap? You are the most important thing in your life, not the games. If a game doesnt serve you an enjoyable time, why slog through it? Drop it, forget it and most importantly, understand that youre serving yourself dropping a bad game and that you habe the full right to serve yourself. It is your life, your time, your enhoyment! You dont have only 2 games anymore, you can afford to drop some!

[DiaborMagics]

Again making fair points...
And it's true that I am heavily stressed quite often. I happen to have a first appointment today with a professional.

Maybe these things are indeed related.

[Crazy Tiger]

This used to be a major problem for me, backlogs. Get the next big title I wanted to play, while I still have X games that I haven't touched because I bought them in bundles or sales.

I decided to purchase less games. I nowadays only purchase the games I simply can't wait to play and it turned out, that are very few. At sales I buy a few I was eying for quite a while, but it's a lot less nowadays.

I used to have a backlog of 70 games across different consoles and steam. It's now reduced to 22, while I have been purchasing a few games in the past two years. But I've reduced my bakclog significally.

The downside is that my wishlist exploded.

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by patje.lol:

The downside is that my wishlist exploded.

Ohhh man I get that.

So how do you handle that particular thing? A big cleanup every once in a while that you later regret because you know there was something you shouldn't have taken off the list, yet you can't quite remember the name of it?
That's how it goes for me when I decide to hold back for a longer time. Something I can't keep up forever, it seems.

[SpunkyJones]

I just keep telling myself I’ll get to it when I retire.

[ReBoot]

I only add stuff im REALLY interested in. My wish list is 9 right now. Used to be 30, but not more. I dont add games based on "maybe is interesting". I only add games i REALLY want to play. Having a huge backlog helps: Why wish for a maybe-interesting game if i wont run out of games the next 5 years? Right, no point.

Thats my anchor: I have enough games for years to come. Heck, maybe even a decade. I can always look for new games when i run dry.

[Aahzmandias]

I let them sit there, play the games I like, and use them as excuse not to buy any new games for full price, before I played them all. That works pretty well for me. :D I only buy GotY editions on deep sales.

And if I am totally bored, I play one of them. :D Pulling a random game from the pile.

At least that way I don't put much more on that pile of unplayed games. And the games I add, don't cost too much.

With that tactic I was even able to avoid games with microtransactions as whole. These games would only make my problems bigger. Games as service wasn't invented for me, so I pass on that. Too much to do, too little time.

Originally posted by SpunkyJones:

I just keep telling myself I’ll get to it when I retire.

I am in early retirement ... it changes nothing. ;) The pile grows. More slowly now, but it still grows.

I found out something interesting, though. I am returning to some games periodically. So I think, in all these unplayed games I am only searching for similar games, that I can return to, too. It's not alone the search for new interesting games, it's the search for games I am willing to play for more time than once, that drives me to buy all these games.

So don't try to play them all, to reduce your backlog by force, do what you want, and try out sometimes some new (old) game. Don't loose the fun to play games. Never let it be "work".

Originally posted by ReBoot:

I only add stuff im REALLY interested in. My wish list is 9 right now. Used to be 30, but not more. I dont add games based on "maybe is interesting". I only add games i REALLY want to play. Having a huge backlog helps: Why wish for a maybe-interesting game if i wont run out of games the next 5 years? Right, no point.

Thats my anchor: I have enough games for years to come. Heck, maybe even a decade. I can always look for new games when i run dry.

That comes with a big backlog. The length of my wishlist is 3. And I don't see many games, of the new games this year I even wish to add.

I really do not need the next iteration especially of triple ay crap, like of Assassins Creed, COD, Battlewhatever. Shadow of MoreGreed, Fallout Whatnot or what else they are throwing at us this year. It's always the same 3rd person stealth game ♥♥♥♥, with slightly changed graphics and controll. Nothing to write home about.

And I am not willing to search the garbage bin called Steam shop for Indie games any longer. Maybe I have buyers fatique, or I simple too old for this crap. Or I already have seen anything possible in gaming.

I would be in for a game with a new story. I have hopes for Cyberpunk 2077, because the Witcher 3 did not disapoint me. But I think I have no other reasons to buy a new game at that point than an new "interactive" story. Like wanting to read new books.

For EA's CEO and CFO single player games maybe "dead", but for me is it, as a matter of fact and in my feelings, at this moment the only reason to even consider to buy a game at all. I think gamers with big backlogs have the same thoughts like myself, searching for something new, even if it's only a new story told to us.

[DiaborMagics]

Hm. I think I'll start with trying to divide the games in most excited about playing and least. Two categories. Try to see what is more important and what is less important. Then choosing something from the piles every now and then might be a good idea.

I need to learn to hold off on some games for this to work though. And to stick with it and not just let all that discipline go once the mountain has become a hill.

Retirement is likely going to take a while for me, whether it helps or not, so that's not really an option haha

[gusgreco7]

Well, i think you are all taking this thing too seriously. Look at my profile and imagine the backlog. Play time is from idling for cards. I mostly try the new games like demos and only if i find something incredibly good gameplay wise i continue playing it. Book of demons is the last game in that category. I mostly collect games like some people collect stamps or others buy music cds (at least in the past) or clothes etc. Buying bundles is a way to grow your library, usually with games you will never play, but as i said i collect them.
The depression comment was right and it's definitely a thing in most buying habits. But most people have a habbit of buying/collecting something. Maybe it's just a strong habbit. I have many friends on steam that do the same.
As for backlog, i usually make shortcuts of the games i think i want to play and add them in a folder (in categories according to genre , i usually include 1-2 games for each category for variety issues), ignoring the rest of my steam library. When i'm ok playing them, sometimes even finishing some of them (usually small adventure/horror games) i add more. This would take many lives to clear the backlog lol, but i don't really care or think about it. But now that i have thought about it, i hope one can play games in the afterlife, im sure the graphics will be awesome there haha.

[Start_Running]

How? SImple.

Step 1: Slow down Buying. Decrease the rate at which you accrue games.

Step 2: Be systematic.. Start at the top of you games list and see which games you've never or can't remember playing. Install it, and play it. Repeat next week and you'll eventually work your way through.

Step 3: Profit.

The key part is to just stop buying. It's a rather in built consumerist reflex many have and its rather hard to shake but just tell yourself. Itw ill be there later. We're used to dealing with finite supply, not infinite supply.

[Mikoto]

Darts and pieces of paper work.

[DiaborMagics]

Originally posted by Shadow Blazer:

Darts and pieces of paper work.

Best tip 11/10

Some drinks too? ^.^

[DJCaseyD]

The age old question. Still haven't figured it out. I do buy less games now than I used to. I won't buy bundles anymore unless there's a game as part of that bundle that is on my wishlist and just too good to pass up. Other than that, I'm just trying to pick a game, play it to finish (don't care about achievements that take forever to get) and then move to the next one. Very difficult. I tend to get hooked on a game and nothing else gets playtime until I'm done with that.