Anyone else have a massive backlog of games to play?

Parksey wrote:Because most of my consoles are back in the UK, I don't have as great a backlog as I once did. I can't readily access some of the GameCube games like Fire Emblem, Chibi Robo or Baten Kaitos which are unfinished or unplayed, as well as a load of Xbox 360 downloadable stuff that I purchased in various sales.

PS Plus has given me a massive backlog over the years, but since I know pay that sub to play online with friends, I see those free games as just a library of titles I can dip into if I want, rather than games I have to finish and clear off my list. Nevertheless, there are games on there, like Deus Ex, Borderlands 2 and Tomb Raider that I want to play. There are others, like Deadly Premonition, Darksiders and Little Big Planet 2 that I want to try out but will possibly never actually get around to it.

In terms of games I have shelled out for, I actually have remarkably few on the PS4. I have to finish Bloodborne, Fallout 4, The Last of Us as Diabo 3 but that's about it. My other purchases are largely multiplayer games that I play sporadically but can't "complete".

I still have a few handheld games I need to get around to playing, and a lot of games on my list tend to be lengthy time sinks like RPGs or open world games, but because I'm abroad I tend to be limited by the amount of physical media I can buy. It's just those pesky digital sales that do me in.

Returning home will add about 20 games back on to my list too.

Good to see the Japanese naming convention is still alive and well.

My main problem has always been I'll pick something up cheap on that basis that I'll just trade it in and I've not lost much. I've now made the decision to only buy stuff digitally which means I have to make much tougher choices, if I'm not 100% interested then I just don't bother. The only issue with that is the PSN sales (NBA 2k16 I'm looking at you). This year I've only bought Life is Strange on physical media and that was only because it was a nice looking special edition and Lego JP in a recent Game sale with a trade in. After that, I've got Valkyria Chronicles on pre-order and that is it. Now I just have to kick the board game hoarding habit.

Got Wii Party U with a bundle deal about 18 months ago.

Never played it.

Rex Kramer wrote:...I've now made the decision to only buy stuff digitally which means I have to make much tougher choices, if I'm not 100% interested then I just don't bother...

I'm traveling down that road too, Rex. The higher prices mean that - hopefully - I don't buy as many games. In a weird way, the publishers are helping me to spend less on their products by making the costs so high.

I always thought that the arrival of digital game purchasing for consoles would mean cheaper prices. Yes, I was crazy.

jawafour wrote:

Rex Kramer wrote:...I've now made the decision to only buy stuff digitally which means I have to make much tougher choices, if I'm not 100% interested then I just don't bother...

I'm traveling down that road too, Rex. The higher prices mean that - hopefully - I don't buy as many games. In a weird way, the publishers are helping me to spend less on their products by making the costs so high.

I always thought that the arrival of digital game purchasing for consoles would mean cheaper prices. Yes, I was crazy.

Thats the part I never understand about digital pricing, take €60 off me now and fail to impress, Ill never touch your games again, take €30 now, make something reasonably good and Ill probably try the DLC and pick up the sequel when it comes out. This is all the easier when the store is on my console, I dont need to order it and wait for it to be delivered. You could even give a loyalty discount for owning the first one, or go even deeper and dish out discounts based on play time, especially if its a multiplayer title, you spent 1000 hours helping make a vibrant community for COD, then have 25% off COD II as a thank you. Theres obviously some issues here with brick and mortar stores sign deals and not wanting the digital stores to undercut them and drive them out of business but the day is coming where they will be totally irrelevant and then we might see some more competitive pricing from publishers. As it is now, Ill wait for the physical disc to arrive in the post or for it to go on sale, simply because Im not going to pay the RRP for a game, its way too high.

Rax wrote:...Thats the part I never understand about digital pricing...

I think the console eshops are currently taking the approach of "reap in a ton of cash from the top 5% of buyers who'll pay almost anything" rather than a "mass market i.e. cheaper" approach. I love the convenience of digital purchasing but, yeah, I do plan to buy less. Until publishers make their pricing more attractive, I'm going to look upon it as "Great! I wanted to cut back a bit and now I am!" .

jawafour wrote:

Rax wrote:...Thats the part I never understand about digital pricing...

I think the console eshops are currently taking the approach of "reap in a ton of cash from the top 5% of buyers who'll pay almost anything" rather than a "mass market i.e. cheaper" approach. I love the convenience of digital purchasing but, yeah, I do plan to buy less. Until publishers make their pricing more attractive, I'm going to look upon it as "Great! I wanted to cut back a bit and now I am!" .

I may have some beans that would be of interest to you......

My physical backlog (a pile on the top shelf - always the "to do" shelf) is fairly reasonable but I've lots on my laptop & steam unfinished or unstarted.

jiggles wrote:Backlog?

You have no idea. It's something I actively avoid thinking about now because to picture it would be to stare death himself in the face

I know that feeling.

So, as I've accidentally started thinking about it, I've realised the wheels are falling off the cart on my 52-a-year goal for beating games. And Overwatch coming out next week isn't going to do me any favours in that regard, so it's time to get this backlog back on track.

WARNING I'm a little obsessive when it comes to structuring my free time, so forgive me while I indulge.

The Problem

If I examine how I play games, I tend towards operating with games in three rotations:
1. Singleplayer
2. Multiplayer
3. Quickies

Games in the singleplayer rotation are for when I have an hour or two to just sit and play alone and uninterrupted (usually AAA releases). The issues here though are indecision (where a lot of my time is taken up trying to pick from a handful of "in progress" games), and new releases jumping to the front of the queue before slipping into the mix with the rest. So I end up playing a little of everything and never getting anywhere.

The multiplayer rotation, like the singleplayer games, suffer from "flavour of the month" syndrome, but unlike them, there's very little indecision. I'll basically just play whatever's hot right now, and I'm not too bothered if I don't make a lot of progress. However, there are some long-lasting titles I'll look wistfully at and wish I had the time to either get into or get back into.

The Quickies are essentially handheld and indie games. These are the pastime titles, used to literally pass a short amount of time when waiting on my girlfriend, or for a multiplayer session to start, or to just fall asleep. The spontaneous nature of these mean I can just pick up anything and enjoy it, but I do find myself tending to stick to old favourites I've played inside out instead of trying all the new stuff I buy.

My problem is that there's too much in play within each category, and there's some stuff in each that is detrimental to my efforts to see things through to completion. So, I'm going to try and make a change so that the indecision and going round in circles is eliminated without affecting my gaming habits.


The Solution

So, new categories:
1. Headliner - The one and only game I'm playing through in singleplayer. Can only be moved if either beaten, abandoned, or if an exceptional new release takes precedent.
2. Queue - Anything with a playthrough "in progress" to a significant degree that it wouldn't need to be restarted.
3. Multiplayer - One multiplayer game and one alternate multiplayer game for variety.
4. Bucket List - Anything I really want to get around to playing/get back to but I'm not sure when I'll be able to. Super special games I'd love to bits but can't focus on yet.
5. Quickies - Two games for short sessions.

Rules

• "Regular" new releases get 2 hours play max before going into the Queue or Bucket List, but an "exceptional" new release ("drop everything" releases from one of my favourite series) can jump straight to being the Headliner and push the current one to the Queue.
• Upon beating a Headliner, I can play a Bucket List game for max 2 hours, like it was a new release, to decide if it enters the Queue or stays on the Bucket List.
• The next Headliner is always chosen from the Queue.
• New Multiplayers can only be either a new release, bucket list or queue item.
• New Quickies can be anything.

The State of Affairs

And here's how it looks today:

Headliner
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Queue
DOOM
Dark Souls III
Rise of the Tomb Raider
Quantum Break
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Fallout 4
Far Cry 3
Persona Q
Danganronpa
Bravely Default
Borderlands 2
Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty
Final Fantasy XIV

Multiplayer
Diablo III: Season 6
Rocket League

Bucket List
Stellaris
Hyper Light Drifter
Divinity: Original Sin
Pillars of Eternity
Binary Domain
Oxenfree
Read Only Memories
Bloodborne: The Old Hunters
Heroes of the Storm
Dota 2
Dying Light
Remember Me
Saints Row IV
XCOM 2
Soma

Quickies
Picross e
Stephen's Sausage Roll


There are hundreds of titles that I've ignored in favour of just trying to keep focused on the cream of the crop. But this gives me nice foresight and a workable route to progress. So I know Overwatch is out in a week and I should finish Diablo in time for that. As tempting as it is to play DOOM, don't do it until The Witcher is done. Then I can blast through that and get back to my Dark Souls stream with minimum distractions.


The Conclusion

i got dis

Octoroc wrote:Got Wii Party U with a bundle deal about 18 months ago.

Never played it.

The scaletrix game is secret GoTY.

jiggles wrote:(massive analysis)

My word. jiggles, that was... ah... comprehensive .

Green Gecko wrote:

Octoroc wrote:Got Wii Party U with a bundle deal about 18 months ago.

Never played it.

The scaletrix game is secret GoTY.

I'll look into that.

jawafour wrote:

jiggles wrote:(massive analysis)

My word. jiggles, that was... ah... comprehensive .

Keyfacts:

- I really have to beat The Witcher 3.
- No more Dark Souls III streams for a while.
- I may need to drop Rocket League for a few months

I consider games 'finished' when I'm bored with them. Sometimes I only get a few hours out of them, but you win some, you lose some, y'know?

There are very few games in my 'backlog' in the sense of 'Bought it but never got round to playing it', or 'Stopped half-way through but wish I could go back to it some day!'.

Almost all of my games collection is left uncompleted though. I only complete 10/10 games.

Jeez and I thought I was sad making a Google keep checklist.

Johnny Ryall wrote:Jeez and I thought I was sad making a Google keep checklist.

I once built a private website to do this gooseberry fool. It even used GiantBomb's API to pull down boxart for all the games.

jiggles wrote:I once built a private website to do this gooseberry fool....

The secret is out - GRcade is really a front for jiggles' game database. Quite a few "forum members" are, in fact, alts used by jiggles to distract from all the game logging and updating that is going on. "Parksey" was created solely to keep the real members occupied should they log on during the night.

Yes, because PS+.

My Steam library currently says it has 1000 games in it.

I doubt I've played more than 10% of them.