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Anyone else just given up on their backlog

I've set myself a personal task of completing at least 2 backlog games before buying a new one.

It's working alright. Cleared about 7 from the backlog so far. Currently working through gears ultimate. Great game
 
Don't feel bad about it!

Gaming is for fun in your downtime. Turning it into a checklist will just make it a chore. I don't have a massive backlog, but I still have quite a few games I've bought and will likely never play. Usually from Steam sales. I also have dozens I bought on sale, played for an hour or two, and will never go back to (Arkham City, Remember Me, Shadow of Mordor to name a few) - it's okay to let them go. I saved money by purchasing them cheap, and more than get my value out of full price game purchases I know I'll enjoy (almost 1000 hours in Skyrim, over a hundred each in The Witcher 3 and Fallout 4).
 
i've gave up too. on PS4 i'm not too bad. all those ps+ games i've accumulated i never really intended to play. just added them to my library for the sake of it and hey maybe one day i might want to play them. all the ones i want to play i have. for games i've bought i've played the ones i want and gave up on the ones i didn't like. now i have just a few games that have no ending like GTA V (story complete), fifa 17, star wars battlefront, rocket league. there is no pressure to finish them because i can't. i can just put in as much time as i like.

with steam i have a load of games i would like to play and i tried getting through them but i can't do it. i've found it difficult to start a game and sit down to finish it. i used to play loads of single player games where i could play start to finish but now i prefer games where there is no pressure to finish them. now instead of sinking hundreds of hours into games like gta v/fallout/witcher/skyrim etc i just play games like overwatch, rocket league, gta v, battlefield 4. if i do play a single player game it has to be short. something like <15 hours. rarely will i go over 30 hours.

maybe i'll go back to the way i used to play but i will make sure i don't feel like i'm putting pressure on myself. i play games for fun and like the user above me says it's not meant to turn into a chore. i will probably keep buying more games but really need to stop stressing out if i finish them or not. if i want to play them at some point then they are there to play.
 
Yeah, I've also stopped caring for whether or not I finish a game. I'll just play it as long as I genuinely enjoy my time with it. Most recent games simply overstay their welcome for me.
 
Rellik said:
Doesn't work like that on PC.

I gave up on my Steam backlog a long time ago. There's no way I'm getting through 200+ games.
Click to expand...

if you know you tend to spend money on stuff you are not going to use, then why not go to a PS4 or X1 and go retail?

why choose Steam/PC and their "sales!" as your gaming platform when you know you are gonna fall for it?

So a game is normally $19.99 but today it's $4.99, you bought it. Congrats, you flushed $4.99 down the toilet.

by the time you have, say, 70 games (which is alot, I'd stop buying at around 15 or 20), why not stop buying?? what's the throught process when you know perfectly well you own 150 games and you're about to click that button to spend money on another 3 games you don't have time to play?

serisously I don't understand some of you guys. And I am not trying to come off as arrogant or harsh, I just don't understand :/
 
Kind of in the sense that I just said fuck it and pared down my gaming shit including backlogged games I'd never play.

Ditched my portables (N3DSXL and Vita) despite having backlogs as I just never played them as I don't enjoy gaming on portables anymore.

Ditched my Xbox 1 and some I played games when I got a gaming PC.

Then spent the summer and early fall working through the physical games I owned and wanted to play on PS4 and Wii U and got that done last month.

So now my backlog is just some digital games I bought cheap in Steam/GOG, PS4 and Wii U VC. Those I don't care much about as they were cheap and are sunk costs since I can't sell them off like I did my physical games.

So I gave up on the backlog in a sense by ditching 20-30 unplayed games, but then plowed through the rest and am in a good place now.

I now won't buy a game over $10 if I won't play it either immediately or very soon after finishing a game in my current rotation. Under $10 I still limit myself to things I'm sure I'll play as I don't want a backlog of cheap games I'll never play, but I'm ok if it's a great deal and something I'll play in a month or two.

I'm not a collector or replayer, nor hardcore enough that I care about being part of the zeitgeist and trying to play every big release that interests me anymore. Also going full digital now as I'm tired of hassling with selling off games after I beat them. Easier to just wait for most games to be on sell for low enough that the out of pocket cost is similar to buying physical and reselling (I rarely beat games fast enough to sell before the resell price drops a lot anyway).
 
Hell no, I'm close to beating it. Got about 32 games left although a lot of them are RPGs I have neglected. Of course I don't finish them all, some games you can't beat (Sports, multiplayer), a few get too frustrating and I give up and some just plain suck, but I give them all a good go and finish most of them.

The main rule of playing through a backlog is having fun.

Steam is a different beast, I have so much crap on there that going through it would be insane. I only count the games I want to play from my steam library and put the rest in a folder never to be seen again.

I use Darkadia to track my backlog.
 
I've totally given up on my backlog. Now I just have a bunch of games I might play some day, but I don't beat myself over it and I feel much better about it.
 
Normally, I would focus on games that I like more and pretty much ignores other games that I didn't like (maybe someday I would to some).
 
I have a rule to buy new games every month no more than games I finish the previous month.

That said,I broke it last month. Bought a couple too many PS2 games.
 
Oh I always have hope that I eventually play every game that I have a vested interest in, but I'm a fucking fool. A bloody idiot. My backlog is so goddamn large with massive time consuming games that it is humanly impossible to get through it. I'd need maybe 5 years of zero game releases that interest me to get through half my backlog. Even then I'd try to find new games among the non-interesting game releases to take interest in because apparently my mind is designed to fuck myself over.
 
I wrote some off.

Spec Ops because it was FAR too shite to play through, despite it having a good story. Blacklist never made it digital on console and it's too much hassle to play on PC, and finally Ace Combat games... I'll play them if they get a remaster, but I don't want to deal with emulation and that would be my only way to play them (analogue buttons is important).

I do, however, keep a OneNote of my Current, Back and Forward Logs

Current:
ReCore
Forza Horizon 3


Backlog:
Ace Combat 4/5/0* if remastered
Undertale
Life is Strange
SMT Devil Survivor 2


Forward log:
Titanfall 2
Final Fantasy XV
Scalebound
Crackdown 3
Ori 2
Wolfenstein 2
Click to expand...

When a game releases, it either hits my Current, Backlog if I can't afford it, or I remove it. Usually because of bad reviews or fleeting interest (like Quantum Break).

I will put games for systems I don't even own.

Currently doesn't include all games I'm playing, though. It will never include games I am replaying or games I don't feel a "need" to see through. Like when I replay Lost Odyssey for example or Gears of War 2 with my family.

It's there to remind of games I should finish while I have spare time so they don't end up in my backlog.

I will remove a game from Current or Backlog if I play "enough" of it. Which is usually the campaign/story or enough to feel satisfied like with Forza Horizon 3. I just want my Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VIII MR and drive for a bit, then it will be out of my current.
 
Im just going to get through the list and purge all the games I know are bad but I put them on the list just because I wanted to play them. Its like Colin Moriarty says, Im a grown ass man with lots of responsibilities. I have no time to play bad games anymore.

With that said, maybe I should've been further down my backlog by now if The Witcher 3 wasn't so fucking long!
 
I've given up on my backlog over a year ago. Having too many games than I can play and finished. Luckily I stopped buying games that slightly interest me roughly a year ago. I pretty much pick and choose which game to buy now day more carefully. Sometimes I wait for the price of a game to go down before I buy it. I do this so I dont buy a new game and end up not not getting very far before buying another game. Perfect example of this for me is Dark Soul 2. I bought the game played about a couple hrs, but stopped to play another game. Never went back to it even today still.
 
I gave up about 2 years ago.

The bulk of my backlog was on my Steam account, but there's also a lot of PS3, Wii U, 3DS and some X360 games yet to be played.

And now I bought a PS4 and already have more games to play than time to do it.

I even used to keep tracking of my backlog and completed games at the howlongtobeat.com, but I don't even remember the last time I had been there.
 
I have a 250 game steam backlog, but only because I've been buying humble bundles for years. I have no intention of playing every single one of them, but it feels great to have a huge selection.

Also I never buy AAA games at full price. I always wait for sales, and only if I intend to play right away
 
I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never finish every game I own. And that's okay. I don't even really want to. I just play a game until I feel I've gotten my fill and then move on.

My backloggery is mostly just a list of games I own (very incomplete because I'm a lazy sod) and games that I have beaten. I just don't fret about it.
 
Yes and no. I don't care about my backlog anymore but I've also accepted that I was not ever going to get through even 20% of all the games I owned. Gaming isn't my primary hobby anymore.

So I listed almost all of my consoles, handhelds, and physical games on eBay. I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of games and 10+ systems. I only kept the PS3 and PS4 and I'm considering getting rid of the PS3 as well.

I just don't have time to play all these games, I'd rather turn them into cash then have them sit there, never being used.

It felt good to unload all that unused stuff.
 
Just divide them into two lists.

1. Games that still interest you, that actually want to play more,
2. Games you just happen to own.

If they end up containing more or less the same games, then you haven't put enough thought into #1.

And #1 should be something you care about, otherwise you might be a bit to random with your purchases.
 
Not Spaceghost said:
Treating your video games as a chore you have to get done is kind of a waste of energy.

Just treat them like a big bag of candy, pull out which ever you feel like playing.
Click to expand...

It's a great analogy. Games are fun. It's OK if you won't get to them all. People can't read all of the books in the world, TV shows, movies, etc. and they don't stress about it.
 
sphinx said:
if you know you tend to spend money on stuff you are not going to use, then why not go to a PS4 or X1 and go retail?

why choose Steam/PC and their "sales!" as your gaming platform when you know you are gonna fall for it?

So a game is normally $19.99 but today it's $4.99, you bought it. Congrats, you flushed $4.99 down the toilet.

by the time you have, say, 70 games (which is alot, I'd stop buying at around 15 or 20), why not stop buying?? what's the throught process when you know perfectly well you own 150 games and you're about to click that button to spend money on another 3 games you don't have time to play?

serisously I don't understand some of you guys. And I am not trying to come off as arrogant or harsh, I just don't understand :/
Click to expand...

At one point I had an epiphany that I'll only buy a game if I wanted it and intend to play it for >3 hours literally that day. So I don't buy too many games now and never preorder, which is good. I also avoid bundles and only add games to Steam that I actually, genuinely see myself playing to completion. This even goes for games people give away in the Steam thread.

Before that, I had an epiphany that I'll only buy games that I'll play in the next few weeks. Ended up thinking I'd have far more free time, and things like work or a book or a TV show would get in the way. Less free time as I grow older. At one point, I was making a little bit of money on Steam cards, but now those aren't worth as much. So, previous game purchase behaviors don't really work - that results in some surplus game purchases.

Before that, I bought literally anything I had even the remote interest in, because PC game sales were new and exciting and bargain priced. (This was from 2009-2011) Holy shit a full AAA game for $5? I'll take all 20. Humble Bundle? It's for charity - each game is like, what, $1? Might as well subscribe to PS+ in 2011-2013 too - dozens of AAA PS3 games delivered right to my console.

You don't think about how the behavior is going to scale. It's not like this has any real consequences, you think to yourself, you just have more games now. The money spent is a pittance compared to amassing a collection in nearly any other hobby. They were practically giving games away.

Your suggestion of physical buying and selling doesn't solve the problem, if the problem is you're buying too many games. It's the mentality. If you buy a game, don't play it, then sell it, you're still probably out quite a bit of money - usually the amount the game cost on PC. So you spent the same amount but with nothing to show.

Getting rid of the backlog is actually the bad move here. That's also not a bad thing, either, to suddenly realize you own 200 games that by all indications you would enjoy a lot. It's freeing in a way. I'm currently playing Batman: Arkham Asylum GOTY for the first time on the PC and having a grand old time. It's a great game! Not as polished as something recent, but that's OK. I'll play it until I'm done with it (which may not be the ending of the game). I'm also playing Bioshock 2 and it's solid. I'm surprised I never got around to it, but hey, it's a fun game and it's there. Why would I let Gamestop rip me off on those?

Once you start delving into your own backlog it kind of feels like a perpetual Christmas. You're always satisfied and happily surprised. I really enjoy just sampling a game for an hour and moving on - but it's crazy when a lot of those games you like to sample stick around forever and some of them are really fun, you just have to make time for them. That can be overwhelming, which is why people joke about their own backlogs with anxiety tinged words.
 
Luckily, new games don't really appeal to me, but I've still got a huge backlog of PS2-era games. Shadow Hearts, Shadow Hearts 2, Persona 3, Trails of the Sky: FC (I hope I don't have the need to go through the whole series), Fatal Frame 1, Fatal Frame 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Siren, SMT: Nocturne, Grandia 2, etc..

It helps to try to immediately drop something when you're becoming bored with it. I wish I would have done that with Final Fantasy 12 a few months ago. Once games become boring for a few hours, they rarely get better. I need to learn that.
 
CecilRousso said:
Just divide them into two lists.

1. Games that still interest you, that actually want to play more,
2. Games you just happen to own.

If they end up containing more or less the same games, then you haven't put enough thought into #1.

And #1 should be something you care about, otherwise you might be a bit to random with your purchases.
Click to expand...

I ascribe to this belief. Owning something does not make it worthy of completing. I have a large catalog of games, but only a few dozen I want to beat.

As for beating those gamee, best thing I ever did was sign up for the 52 games/year challenge. I've beaten a lot of stuff in my backlog over the past 3 years, including some NES and SNES games I thought I'd never get to. The challenge retrained me, from being someone who only gets excited about playing new games to someone who has a strong desire to finish games. Actually, I have a hard time enjoying games today that can't be finished (I still play MP FPS, and usually consider them beaten after finishing some major goal that takes 60+ hours).
 
It's all about a change in attitudes, OP! It's not a backlog, it's a collection. Not all the stuff in a collection ever gets used.

I will say the video game digital age has sort of changed the game -- most of my collection is physical and much easier to get rid of, so I can see the mounting frustration from owning a bunch of digital games purchased on sale but not having the time to play them.
 
Yeah, I had the realization a year or so ago. Instead of giving up on my backlog, though, I just cut wayyy back on my game purchases.
 
Between my 9-5 job & my current game backlog.. I've only just recently settled with the realization its never happening lol..
 
I haven't completely given up but i'm not stressing about it. And considering i'm not buying as many games as I used to, then i feel like yeah maybe one day i'll finish it.

Earlier this year I had a goal to finish at least one game per month. Hasn't really worked out. Plus things have been even more hectic with school + work.

So if it happens, great. If it doesn't, well i got to play some of the best games and that's good enough.
 
I don't really have a firm idea of what my backlog is, tbh. The most egregious example I have that readily presents itself to me is this flashdrive I have that has a host of CRPG classics I have never played. My brother gave it to me a Christmas or two ago and I played a little bit of Baldur's Gate but not much. The thing has the Ultimas on it, Baldur's Gate 1&2, Planescape Torment, etc. All stuff I want to play eventually. I've bought some stuff on Steam that I haven't touched much but want to get around to like Trails in the Sky, but really when I buy stuff for myself I usually play it to a certain extent, even if I don't finish it for a long time. Games I have sitting around unfinished...hmmm...I was really into Valkyria Chronicles and Dark Souls this past summer but never finished them and have moved on to other things. Also stopped MGSV partway through Chapter 2 last September or so. I bought Nocturne recently but have only played the first couple hours and don't have PS2 access for the next couple months.

The cushion I have is that for a long time I was playing games I hadn't bought myself and the games (my brother was the collector in the family) and the games I did buy I beat. I have started buying more myself and frankly I'm in the mood to indulge that. My buying habits were making gaming a dark place for me and a hobby that I was getting very bitter about with respect to the direction it is going in; being more open to explore has been wholly a positive thing for me. Yeah, a lot of it is old games I missed but still :P. It makes me more of a positive gamer and that is a plus.
 
Well, I want to finish or at least play a good chunk of everything I have paid for, since everything I bought I did because it seemed interesting.
But I don't care about reaching a point where I have finished everything, and don't think it'll happen either.
Not counting most Steam games as I rarely add them, my backloggery says I have 210 unfinished games right now, and because of college and the upcoming games I can't really see it going lower.

The good thing is that as I write down everything about where I left I can pick up any game that's halfway at any moment and try to beat it, so the number doesn't go up too much.
 
I participate in the 3 a month backlog clearing threads so I clear the backlog out slowly but surely.

Overwatch isnt helping though...
 
I've accepted the fact that some games I play and try for a few hours and never touch again. But if that's all I feel like playing I won't force myself.
I like to try a range of games then finish what really speaks to me.
 
Not given up, but I certainly have reconciled with the fact that I'll probably never play all the games in my backlog and my Steam and GOG library....and that's perfectly fine with me.
 
Yes, it's simply gotten to the point it will be impossible. I'm trying to cut back on digital purchases as a means to curb further growth.
 
Efejota said:
Well, I want to finish or at least play a good chunk of everything I have paid for, since everything I bought I did because it seemed interesting.
Click to expand...

I used to think this way but I realized that for me, if I was truly interested in a game I would have played it when I first bought it. I make time for the games I really want to play. All the others that I say, "Oh, I'll get to that someday," are games I'm not ever going to touch, no matter how much I might tell myself I want to. I'm only speaking for myself but once I had that realization it helped me let go of the sunk costs of the past spent collecting and allows me to make better choices moving forward. I now only buy games I absolutely have to have. This year I bought DOOM and Dragon Quest Builders for myself. I will also purchase Battlefield when it comes out to play with others, but that will be the extent of my personal game purchases for this year. My yearly expenses on games has gone way down. Buying 3-4 games at $60 each is significantly cheaper than purchasing 30-40 games at $15-30 each (which was my old habit).
 
I'm similar to a lot of others in this thread. I'll only let my backlog grow to 2-3 games (usually around this time of year). I don't buy any more until they're cleared.

Sometimes I'll pick up games cheaper down the track if I have spare time. Gears 4 is a perfect candidate maybe sometime in 2017, but if I don't get the time to play it, it doesn't matter.
 
Only given up on the idea of my backlog until I hit my 50s, and inevitably free time will come back to me. Like retirees with sudoku, I imagine my backlog of games will keep my brain active.
 
Entering the world as an adult with a full time job I now no longer have time to play games as much as I used to which saddens me. I purchased a copy of the latest Deus Ex which I have still yet to open. There's a bunch of PSN and PS+ I haven't touched yet. I hope at some point I can just take a few days off just to make some headway but two years later it has still yet to happen.
 
I'm waiting for PS4 Pro to finally finish Uncharted Collection (UC3)...then Last of Us...then MGS5....then The Order.....Uncharted 4....then PSN games Journey, Everyone's Gone to the Rapture...

hopefully Alien, if there is a VR version...and Space game that is similar to the movie Gravity.... hopefully again, in VR.
 
I've actually started streaming my backlog. Kinda gives me a reason to go back and finish everything, since I can at least talk to my viewers about 'em, and it's honestly really fun.
 
Yep. I'm basically clean slating at this point. Once FFXV is out, any new game I buy, I'm going to make sure I finish. I used to be bad with my money and I bought a lot of games that I never finished, so I'm going to not buy a game/console if I know I'm going to use the hell out of it. I just don't have much time anymore. I play FFXIV all the time, then I have my job. It's hard to make time for other games at this point.
 
I don't buy games that aren't older than 2 years anymore, that makes buying more games less painful despite my backlog. I try to limit Steam Sale purchases to 1-2 big titles and 3-4 deep discounts or indie titles. I then try to finish 2 games every month, 1 big title and 1 indie/short. I'm slowly dealing with it but I don't hope to finish it any time within my life time. It just makes me feel less guilty.
 
I don't see it as a goal that I one day will finish all the games in my Steam library, so maybe in some sense that is giving up. I often get games I care less for when buying Humble Bundles but it's fine, some charity aligned with a hobby. On occasion I find gems in the backlog.
 
Finished ffvii and ffviii and just started ffx. Still got ico, shadow of the colossus, okami, red dead redemption, arkham knight all on the backlog. Good thing christmas is coming
 
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