As the author says in this article, it’s not their original idea, but this is the first time I’m hearing about it.
It basically boils down to play a game from your backlog for a bit, and whether you liked it or not, or kept playing it or bounced right off, you now have permission to remove it from your backlog. It sounds very freeing.
I take perhaps a little too much pride in having a very small catalogue of unplayed games (not because I play games a lot, but because I am dreadfully cheap and hardly ever buy anything lol), but even an old miser like me could probably benefit from a little tidying.
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It’s an entertainment option, not a self-imposed obligation. Should I be trying to systematically polish off my watch list too?
I added them because they seemed like things I might like to watch when in the right mood. It’s not a to-do list.
I have a library of games. There is zero obligation to play any of them. They are all simply there as options for when I feel like gaming.
Exactly… But these are the kinds of people who often feel the need to “platinum” every game they play. Almost seems like a compulsion.
Congrats on not being a completionist! I don’t suffer from the issue either, but I know of many many many people who do, and this is for them.
I’ve actually grown to love having a sizeable backlog personally. Almost everything that ends up in it are purchased at about the lowest price they will ever be, and it’s pretty great to always have a new title I’ll probably enjoy which I can jump into when I want.
That’s a fun way to look at it. I do have a weird sense of minimalist-adjacent purity fetish with my library that is undoubtedly unhealthy.
That’s kind of how I view the internet–there’s always something interesting to read of watch.
The problem is that this is pretty much where you enter a restaurant with 100-page menu and after endless searching you leave the restaurant still hungry.
This has been me lately and I’m trying to do better
I find the backlog phenomenon bizarre.
When I buy a new game, I’m excited to launch it and play it ASAP. The idea of buying any game I don’t care enough to play ASAP is… unfathomable to me.
Especially in a world where most games hit their historical low at least once every 3 months. It’s not like it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to buy them for cheap or something.
Steam sales and bundles
yeah, i still only buy whatever i’m going to play right then.
For me it’s mostly games from bundles I bought years ago, I wanted that one game, but got 3 others, a sweet deal, but they sit there and accumulate. There are also games I played, but stopped. I consider those still in the backlog because I haven’t finished them
That and Steam Families becoming a thing our backlogs keep getting bigger and bigger.
Just to echo the other comments about bundles, look at Humble Bundle right now, choice is $15 and has Persona 5 Royal and 8 other games, and P5R’s historical low is $20. I think some of the other games on the bundle are cool too, but I’m probably not going to play most of them right away, of at all. Likewise for Fanatical build your own bundles, sometimes one or two games makes the bundle worth it.
And there’s also free games from EGS and occasionally GOG and other stores. I haven’t spent a penny at EGS, yet I have hundreds of games and have finished maybe 3.
I only buy a game when I want to play it soon (next month or so), but sometimes it’s cheaper to get a bundle than just that game. I don’t spend a ton on games, but I have a ton.
Yeah, after the first couple of Steam sales I realized it was the same frenzied want that department stores try to inculcate in shoppers, and so I’ve tried to be much more conscious about my purchases.
ever since i stopped buying games from steam i’ve been playing only my backlog on there, and it is indeed very freeing. love the quick dopamine hit from checking something off a list.
keeping an updated list of games like on this blog looks like a fun idea, might start doing it in Obsidian.
Speaking of checking off lists, I had an old co-worker who just had this great big huge spreadsheet of games he’d played or wanted to play. It was an interesting phenomenon when I’d play a games and think I wonder if Michael’s played this – I think he would like it and then realize I could just consult his public list lol.
I feel like it would be good to remember how you felt about a game, too.
I have over 6000 games… I’ve been doing this for 2 years and am down to 1300 to try still. Maybe another year yet, depends how dedicated I will be. Problem is even after culling I’ve got over 300 turn based rpgs I want to play and a similar number of 2d platformers and I still will not physically have the ability to play them before I die.
6000 to 1300 is massive.
Do you ever think about writing off a game without playing it? Or maybe like putting it in a “B pile” if the description doesn’t 100% grab you?
Yeah… I’ve come to realize some things just done appeal to me anymore. Anything that I see is multiplayer ONLY I just toss. I just cant get into competitive multiplayer anymore. Some games if they look boring I won’t try, like the 20th ww2 rts/greand strategy game. I just dont care about certain games anymore.
Conversely sequels to games I already played and enjoyed automatically go in the play queue.
I just cant get into competitive multiplayer anymore.
Big same.
I used to eat MP up, but now I just get tilted because my reflexes aren’t what they used to be (that, and I can’t devote an entire weekend to honing my twitch skillz).
I like your approach. I made this post actually mostly because I’m curious about trying it out myself. I feel like it might actually get me to play more games, rather than just scrolling through what I could play and then not playing anything.
Yeah, I’ve found some real unexpected gems within my own library that I never knew I bought. Mostly through bundles. My absolute favorite discovery is a small adventure game named Little Misfortune, and I find myself quoting it often. Yikes forever.
This is another reason why I pirate anything I’m not 100% sure about and buy it if I like it. I don’t want 299 shitty games still in my steam library
You can still buy them from Steam and refund them if you don’t like them and you have played them for less than 2 hours
There’s a limit to how many times you can do this per year btw.
There is a 2 weeks limit as well, fyi. You cant park it indefinitely
Indeed, but it’s possible to try it and see if you like it or not. I wish this time limit was a bit longer and it was 3 or 4 hours but it is what it is and it is better than nothing.
time limit is rarely enough for me. work is all over the place and can’t give me a reasonably regular schedule unless its just constantly busy
Yep. I just like to point this out since i have burned myself on it previously
I love my backlog. I’ve got probably 30 games purchased at all-time lows sitting ready as a 5-star menu ready to browse whenever I finish playing something. I get to scroll through it as if running my finger across the backs of great novels lined up in an extensive library, looking at them one at a time and thinking “hm, what am I in the mood for right now?”. It’s an additional pleasure on top of just playing the game for me. Even just thinking about it from time to time and knowing I have it ready for the future, like Metro: Exodus that I will get to one day. I am a pleasure delayer.
I group my games by interest:
- probably never - games I disliked or games in genres I don’t like (mostly from bundles)
- maybe later - no intent to play, but there’s a chance
- soon - games I’m excited to play
- playing - up to 5 games I’m “playing”
- done - played enough that I’m satisfied and don’t intend to touch again
- replay - game still has replay value, but I’m done with it for now
- sequels - something in soon or playing must come first
This helps a bit with deciding what to play next and works well for me.
The funny thing is I play less than once per week, but I own so so many games I am ashamed of confessing that if I tried this approach, it will probably take me decades.
Maybe you need to edit the approach. Like, you consider every game, then decide whether to keep it on your backlog or remove. Could even just be done by glancing over your current backlog and rejecting anything that doesn’t jump out at you.
You can always go back and find something you dismissed initially if you really want to.
That’s mostly what I do with new games. Whenever there’s an offer, I ask myself “Am I going to play this for at least one or two hours right now?” If the answer is no, then I don’t buy it.
That’s not the same for local cooplayer games, though I have way enough to fulfill two lifetimes, and recently we’re just playing through the Wii catalog.
(I didn’t want to be dismissive of this approach, I was just airing my grievances)
