What do you do when your backlog gets out of hand? Do you actually work through it in some sort of order, or are you basically just collecting games at this point?

I have a pretty good backlog, but I think they’re all “That looks interesting and it’s on sale for $4” type things. I think, anything I’ve paid $20+ is to play right away. I will freely admit to collecting wildly discounted, ancient games, just in case there’s a moment of boredom and no new hotness waiting to try. I have no guilt over the fact they’re likely to remain unplayed forever.

What we need is a metaroguelike game that hinges progression on getting decently difficult achievements selected from a list of backlog games. There would be branching paths and boss challenges too. Maybe you could challenge other people to the same backlog run too.

I used to buy on offer. I tend to have a wishlist, but I’ll only now buy towards the point where I am ready for something new, or really want it, then I’ll jump when the offer comes in. Basically, hold off buying, and play what you have, and only when you’re running out or desperate, top up. There will probably be 4 more sales before you’re ready.

I don’t have a backlog. I have four categories:

• games I’ve finished

• games I’m still playing

• games I haven’t played yet

• games I want to buy

And I also have a rule not to buy a game just because it’s on sale. Unless I have time to play it, it can wait.

I play on a steam deck and I decided to work through games smallest first. I don’t necessarily complete them I decide if I want to keep them on and if I don’t feel they are fun they are kicked and as I have space I go up the line. This will likely go out the window if some large game I like enough comes out. Something along the lines of cyberpunk, eleden ring, harry potter, etc.

I kind of have three layers of games.

The deepest is where I play an involved rpg of some kind and I basically don’t play any other serious role playing games except this one. It’s the only way I’ll ever finish a longer game. Currently playing trails in the sky fc and have been for like 2 years lol

Middle level is where I play shorter to medium games I know I could finish, like 10-30 hour playtime to completion. If it’s not short like that I might as well go back to trails in the sky. Still, I’ve finished a few games like this in the meantime.

Shallowest is where I just hop on and play multiplayer and rouge type games which is probably where a lot of us lose gaming time.

I recommend looking up how long it takes to beat a game and then thinking about how achievable it is to commit that many hours…and then just do it. At some point you must simply pick something and play it 🤷‍♀️

https://howlongtobeat.com/stats

We just hit 1600 games on our Steam Family. Most of those are from one guy who just does not seem capable of finishing games. Like he enjoys them but just goes “ooh shiny” and picks up the next one.

I very much have a list that I’m working through in order. I’ll rearrange the order a little bit as people push me to play certain things and if I’m just not enjoying a game I’ll put it down and move on but for the most part I’m just rolling through. These days I’m sticking to games with a certain feeling I just connect with, not trying to play literally everything, just the ones I want.

I’ve accepted that I’ll never finish everything in my list and honestly I’m fine with that. I’m just going to enjoy my time with whatever game I’m on.

I usually only buy stuff once I’ve finished something. I’ve still got a backlog, since I have a few people who like to gift me games. Once the pile is to big (5+ games), I ask them to stop for a while. Having more somehow feels opressive and I enjoy playing games less. I kind of feel obligated to play more then. Can’t let gifted games rot on a pile now, can I?

I don’t put that much thought into it. I’ll buy a game if I like it or if I think it’s a good deal. At no point am I obligated to play it. I bought (a license to) it, it does not own me, let alone oblige shit outta me.

Case in point, I bought three games on sale on Xbox a while ago. Bloodstained, Stray, and Animal Well. Bloodstained I’ve played and beat a bunch of times, but I own it on Steam and it’s never been ported to Mac, and I don’t have Windows machines anymore. So, I bought it on Xbox. Haven’t played it yet since I bought it. I’ve 100%’d it on GamePass when I had that, so I’ll go back and do so again. Stray, similar. Bought it on Steam, that is available for Mac and that’s partly why I bought it. But it doesn’t play very well on Mac (or at least mine) so I haven’t played it much. Rather play it on the Xbox. I’ve beaten it once, I’ll get around to doing it on Xbox. Played it before on PC (but I knew I was switching). Animal Well… I like the idea. The game isn’t really my thing. I may give it another shot at some point, but I don’t really care for it.

I go through phases. I’ll usually only buy games when I see them on a decent sale, but half of the time I’m playing multiplayer games just to do something with friends (recently, it’s been a whole lot of Peak).

I’ll usually jump into a story based game, and usually play two or three of them all the way through. Then I’ll go back to only playing the multiplayer ones. It’s mostly a lack of time thing, and would usually rather enjoy time with friends, but I do try to get through some of the games I’ve been anticipating eventually. As for an order… No, no order at all. Whatever sounds fun in the moment (right now, I just started playing Deathloop as of last night for example)

Using Playnite has been useful for me. Consolidating different libraries, then sorting by Critic Score or Community Score has helped me find the worthwhile games I’ve overlooked.

My backlog grew too much and one day I decided to go through and just write off games I thought I would fealistically never play. That pruned a good ~half of them. The remaining I put through a ranking process and I pick a game and play it until I either finish it or stop having fun (within reason - I’ll try to push through a bit of “boring time"). Not buying any more games until I’ve got the backlog down to single digits. The only exceptions are, well, exceptional cases. Deltarune ch3+4 for example.

You don’t need to buy the game now just because it’s 95% off. It’ll be that price again. You have other games to play. And you’ll feel better for finally playing them.

I just play the very few free games that don’t get boring for me because of randomness (random maps etc) and just watch walkthroughs of games that seem cool during lunch sometimes and I put the time index in the bookmark name.

I don’t want to ruin most games for you, so I’ll spare you the details.

Best are the walkthroughs of silly people like “omg why do I keep pressing this button. It does something else on xbox” and I’m like why don’t they change the button layout 😄 Can recommend.

I don’t really buy that many new games; usually if I buy something I intend to play it right away. I used to frequently support HumbleBundle back in its glory days though, and I support the Yogscast JingleJam every year, which has left me with a massive library of games that I didn’t really intend to purchase nor play. I typically just ignore them, but sometimes one catches my eye and I’ll give it a go if I’m very bored.

it’s ok to not play games.

i don’t even know what games i own at this point really. i just buy a handful on black friday and maybe get through 3-4 per year.

See, my issue is that I don’t get to pick what I’m going to play. Oh, I can present my brain with many options I want to play, but I’m at the whim of what my brain fixates on. There’s so many games on that list of things I want to play that I don’t even really think if it as a backlog anymore and I’ve just accepted that I’m probably not going to get to all of them.

i would do some serious internal reflection to see why your “collecting” all these games. if your not having fun playing a game…you should really be doing something else with your time, and if your honest with yourself you can probably figure out what that something is.

I only buy games when I am ready to play them, though I do have lots of games from PS+, and I also have a VERY long wishlist, which I just treat like a backlog.

In my case, I have both wishlist and owned games arranged by release date (Year and month - well, I like making lists) , when I finish a game, or am looking for what next to play, I go from my list checking games from old to new and see what I feel like playing and go for that.

There are some exceptions though, like there are some series I’ll buy day-1, for instance Metroid Prime 4 coming next month. And for some games if a sequel is announced / releasing soon then I try to play the previous part to catch up on the series. And sometimes just randomly play some game if I just want to.