I wanted to throw a new post out here for some opinions/suggestions. I recently turned 25 and I feel like I want a fresh start on video games. I have a decent backlog and there are plenty of (probably) great games I’ve never even seen or played. I have half a mind to just delete and forget about my backlog and start 100% fresh with new games.
Lately it seems like my backlog has been causing more stress than fun and even though I’d be missing out on some games, I think I might need a clean slate. A quarter of a century old now and I feel like now would be the perfect time to reboot, so to speak.
Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated!
A little context before I describe how I’m trying to change my perspective to help with this. I have noticed for myself that a long backlog of books actually makes me content because I know whenever I want to read, I will have something decent at my fingertips. However for games, having a long list of games I want to get to but haven’t even purchased yet stresses me out.
The best explanation I’ve come up with is that I have always lived with knowing I will never read everything I want to get to, but when I was younger it at least felt like I could get to all the big game titles that were coming out each year or so. Now that the volume of games being released has grown so much (and my free time to play has dwindled) games have transitioned more to how books are. I’ll never get to play everything I would want to, but I haven’t transitioned my outlook to follow that change.
So what I’m trying to do is shift my view of games from “get to everything good” to “make sure there’s always something decent to play when I want to/can.” This also helps me feel less guilty about playing a game a whole bunch before moving on.
I can see how this may not help too much if the backlog is of games already purchased. Though I like @GlitchtheGameGremlin’s suggestion in this situation.
Backlogs stress me out, so I simply stopped having them some years back. I use sites like Grouvee just to keep track of what I’ve finished, kind of in place of a journal or blog. More fun to see what I’ve played, rather than what I haven’t. I try to limit my “currently playing” to five games at most. If I’m simply not feeling the game, I’ll just unmark it completely. (Maybe I’ll go back to it later; maybe I won’t.) If I play a decent enough amount and dislike the game, I’ll call it “completed,” give it a low grade, and move on to something new.
I guess I still have wishlists for games I’d like to pick up in the future, but I only see them at the online stores so that “backlog” isn’t really on my mind much.
I appreciate the feedback from all of you. I think I’m going to do just what you all suggest.
Erase/Ignore my backlog
Only pickup games I have intentions of playing soon
Track games I’ve played instead of games I haven’t
I’ll have to get in that mindset that even though I have a great value of $$$ in my backlog, I shouldn’t ‘force’ myself to have fun where there is none.
I maintain a list of the next ten games I plan to play. It’s a rough guide to help me focus on playing games I already own. But it’s also not a hard and fast list, so if there is something else I want to play will play that instead. I just think of it as a way to remind myself of games from my backlog that I want to play.
Ten definitely feels like the maximum I want to plan ahead for. I recently also tried to create an additional rule because I find myself with games scattered on different systems. I try to alternate systems so I never play one platform twice in a row. I’m less firm with this, but it’s a fun added layer and let’s me tackle games I might otherwise completely ignore.