Current Events > How do people accumulate enormous backlogs?

(+) Yeah! (+)

This might sound like some kind of survey.
My main curiosity is that I see a lot of backlog talk and I don't understand how people accumulate these mountains of games that go unplayed. I have this image of someone repeatedly going Oh you never know, it might be fun to play someday and I hope that's not the case.
I get having one or two games you insist you'll get around to or put aside for a rainy day or something but how does the pile grow beyond that?

I have been wringing extra mileage out of games I already own for a while now, to the point buying games has become alien to me.
Something new would be nice though, so I'd like to understand the positives of being less selective.

Deals

PS+ and crazy sales.

Gris is currently 30kr

I heard Gris is really good.

How could I not buy it?

1) sales. Prices too good to pass up. Addictive buying

2) less interest in gaming. Been there, done that. Game is not so different from past games to warrant playing.

3) Too busy with a career or relationships. All the money, but none of the time.

I literally own consoles I've never played.

My backlog is over 1000 in games I have physical (plain or premium) or digital copies of. Unopened.

it's called life.

My backlog is so huge because of Steam and GOG sales, cheap used copies, and my reluctance to play anything I haven't already played. I can easily play Super Mario 64 or Contra for the millionth time, but I have a hard time starting new games. I think the last time I played through a game I hadn't already played was when I played Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 last summer.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

Deals

BurmesePenguin posted...

PS+ and crazy sales.
How could I not buy it?

You only have so much time to actually play these though.
Do people not reach a point where they think Hold on, my hobby isn't playing new games, it's buying new games at low prices and briefly feeling proud while exclusively playing a few favorites?

I was considering a few other reasons but I'm thinking impulsive purchasing is the big one.

They got greed to feed

For me it's combination of buying a couple of games on a deal and then being lured by another game after I complete the first I play from the bundle, so I end up forgetting about the rest of the bundle, or just looking at it and going "yes, but not right now". Or sometimes, life just get in the way, and I'll buy a game and won't have time to game until long after when something else new and shiny comes along.

I don't have a backlog (outside of some super cheap PS3 games I bought right before the PS4 came out that are collecting dust).

I'm very much a "buy a game, play the game, sell the game, buy the next game" type of guy

they store them in naturally expandable pouches in the side of their cheeks

ViewtifulJoe posted...

You only have so much time to actually play these though.
Do people not reach a point where they think Hold on, my hobby isn't playing new games, it's buying new games at low prices and briefly feeling proud while exclusively playing a few favorites?

I was considering a few other reasons but I'm thinking impulsive purchasing is the big one.

yes that is a part of it, do you not know what a collector is?

MedeaLysistrata posted...

yes that is a part of it, do you not know what a collector is?

Physical? Sure, not my thing but sure.
Digital? No, not really. Explain to me the mindset of a digital game collector.

A wife and two kids under 2 leave me with only a few hours a week to play.

Backlog piles up quick.

Sales, bundles, fomo.

But the main reason why I'm not working on reducing my backlog is I have a slight aversion to learning how to play a new game from scratch.

It's more comforting for me to stick with a game which I've already spent a considerable amount time learning & understanding the mechanics.

That's why I mostly play games with seasonal content & continuous updates long after launch.

But I still buy single player games and adding to my backlog because who knows, I might get sick of GAAS games one day.

i don't have a backlog.

I have a huge backlog. A lot of my games are hard to find games, so when I do find them, I buy them. Otherwise, I might never find them again (or when I do, it's something like Panzer Dragoon Saga where I passed on it for being too expensive at the time [$200] but now is even more ridiculously expensive [like $1,000]). Some of it is sales. Some of it is gifts/hand-me-downs from friends/family.

That said, I do indeed go back to old games all the time. I usually play like 4-10 games at a time. I also bounce back and forth between generations a lot.

Sales and depression.

For basically the first ~22 years of my life, I didn't accumulate too much of a backlog. I was usually too broke (either as a literal child or a starving college student) to buy more than I could reasonably play. After college graduation though, it got exponentially worse. I could buy almost any game I wanted (within reason). I ended up getting a lot and either only playing it a tiny bit or not at all. Part of that was an extremely intense depression. Like, so intense that I straight up do not remember huge stretches of time and am genuinely amazed that I'm still alive. You'd think, "Oh, that means you probably played a lot of games to make you happy," but no. It was to the point that I would just disassociate constantly and be miserable.

I'm a little happier now. I don't buy new games very often. I still struggle to play the ones I do have though.

I bought a few too many games when I first got my Xbox One. I thought I would get through them all pretty easily, but I still haven't played DA: Inquisition, LotR: SoW, MH: World, RDR2. I somehow became more interested in random indie PC games (I guess also because they're short), especially turn-based RPGs and card games.

_Rinku_ posted...

Sales and depression.

For basically the first ~22 years of my life, I didn't accumulate too much of a backlog. I was usually too broke (either as a literal child or a starving college student) to buy more than I could reasonably play. After college graduation though, it got exponentially worse. I could buy almost any game I wanted (within reason). I ended up getting a lot and either only playing it a tiny bit or not at all. Part of that was an extremely intense depression. Like, so intense that I straight up do not remember huge stretches of time and am genuinely amazed that I'm still alive. You'd think, "Oh, that means you probably played a lot of games to make you happy," but no. It was to the point that I would just disassociate constantly and be miserable.

I'm a little happier now. I don't buy new games very often. I still struggle to play the ones I do have though.

Well good for you being on the up.
But was this a dopamine shot per purchase thing? If playing the games wasn't doing much but you kept buying them, does that mean you were just buying games for the sake of saying you did something that day or what?
Or were you buying a lot in search of the one that'd make it all better?

Very carefully...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/3/3/AAUJMyAAEhgp.png

By obtaining more games than they are finished playing.

Well mr deleted message, you're not wrong.
But my pre-requisites for allowing myself to buy a game are just as out of control.
Right now for me to purchase a game, it has to have perfect gameplay, great music, great characters, no underhanded DLC stuff, has to be difficult but also offer opportunities to power trip, it has to last forever, it has to make me laugh and endlessly spout in-jokes and quotable lines.
I've concluded I need to shorten my list of demands somehow.

Dakimakura posted...

By obtaining more games than they are finished playing.

Less explainin', more obtainin'
Like a real life MMO grind.

Sales for things I want to play eventually but not right now. Bundles or collections dumping multiple things at once. Getting distracted with games that don't have a full win condition. Gifts from friends or family that don't know what else to get or just pick things off my Steam wishlist.

I do actively try to work through my backlog though. I probably beat more than 20 games in 2022.

Unfortunately for my backlog, most of 2023 free time has been absorbed by a personal project so I don't have a lot of time for games or actually beating things. I've tried to not buy as much as a result, though, to at least limit further backlog growth.

Edit: for reference, I have about 50 games in a backlog folder on Steam, then another 30-40ish I keep a list for on consoles. Like it or not, I'll probably get a few more on my birthday.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Physical? Sure, not my thing but sure.
Digital? No, not really. Explain to me the mindset of a digital game collector.

Someone who likes having a large collection of games they can play, idk what to say because it's not that different from a physical collection. I own like 60 games and have played maybe 40, but it's nice to know I will always have something new if I want it. Steam collections are a badge of honor in some ways because it shows you know what games are good or your taste in general. It's not like people are buying every game that comes out.

Some of the most fun I've had was buying a game on sale and playing it a year or two later. It's nice because the experience is closer to the future.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Well good for you being on the up.
But was this a dopamine shot per purchase thing? If playing the games wasn't doing much but you kept buying them, does that mean you were just buying games for the sake of saying you did something that day or what?
Or were you buying a lot in search of the one that'd make it all better?

I wanted to play the games, but then once I'd have them in my hand, I wouldn't have the energy to follow through.

I still experience that a bit, to be honest. I was extremely hyped for the Resident Evil 4 remake. Preordered it. Had a really fun time. Got about 2/3 of the way through and just haven't picked it back up in close to two months. Depression is a bitch and it's robbed me of a lot of happiness in my lifetime.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

Someone who likes having a large collection of games they can play, idk what to say because it's not that different from a physical collection.

Sure it is. It's got the dark cloud of DRM looming over it. It's less impactful when you show it to people. Not as appealing to whatever sort of person buys collections. With a physical collection you're usually thinking about scarcity but with digital items they can be infinitely replicated.
I'm not sold on building a big digital collection so you can have a pile of games you can play if you ever want to.
MedeaLysistrata posted...

I own like 60 games and have played maybe 40, but it's nice to know I will always have something new if I want it.

This is the thing I bought up. This is buy now, hope you actually care later. I couldn't do that.
MedeaLysistrata posted...

Steam collections are a badge of honor in some ways because it shows you know what games are good or your taste in general. It's not like people are buying every game that comes out.

If you had a stack of games and played them you could go through them and work out your tastes. We're talking about backlogs though, people who build sky high piles of games they might be interested in and rather than play them, they buy more games. I didn't say people buy every game that comes out, I mean some people will see a bunch of games on sale and just grab a whole load of them.
Not sure how any of this is comparable to a badge of honor either.

_Rinku_ posted...

I wanted to play the games, but then once I'd have them in my hand, I wouldn't have the energy to follow through.

I still experience that a bit, to be honest. I was extremely hyped for the Resident Evil 4 remake. Preordered it. Had a really fun time. Got about 2/3 of the way through and just haven't picked it back up in close to two months. Depression is a bitch and it's robbed me of a lot of happiness in my lifetime.

Why were you extremely hyped?
Was this a common thing when you were buying lots of games?

Personally with that specific example, I understand putting it down. Remakes, Capcom and Resident Evil alone could make me instantly lose all interest in a game but all three rolled together? Not today, Zurg.
I still haven't even watched a playthrough on YT. There's just nothing to care about with it.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Sure it is. It's got the dark cloud of DRM looming over it. It's less impactful when you show it to people. Not as appealing to whatever sort of person buys collections. With a physical collection you're usually thinking about scarcity but with digital items they can be infinitely replicated.
I'm not sold on building a big digital collection so you can have a pile of games you can play if you ever want to.

This is the thing I bought up. This is buy now, hope you actually care later. I couldn't do that.

If you had a stack of games and played them you could go through them and work out your tastes. We're talking about backlogs though, people who build sky high piles of games they might be interested in and rather than play them, they buy more games. I didn't say people buy every game that comes out, I mean some people will see a bunch of games on sale and just grab a whole load of them.
Not sure how any of this is comparable to a badge of honor either.

You're trying to rationalize something that is not completely rational

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Why were you extremely hyped?
Was this a common thing when you were buying lots of games?

Personally with that specific example, I understand putting it down. Remakes, Capcom and Resident Evil alone could make me instantly lose all interest in a game but all three rolled together? Not today, Zurg.
I still haven't even watched a playthrough on YT. There's just nothing to care about with it.

The original Resident Evil 4 is, hands down, my favorite game of all time. I've also had an extremely difficult time the past few years, so I really clung onto any kind of bright light I could look towards leading up to its release.

It was pretty common. The last one I remember being a real let down was Metroid Dread. I got it and then developed a horrible ear infection. I couldn't sit up without puking and I heard a constant ringing in my ears. Then my entire life fell apart (for unrelated reasons). I've considered selling it because, even though it's a fun game, there's so much bad energy around it that I never want to play it again.

That energy has kind of tainted everything. I stared at my open sketchbook for like an hour and drew maybe three lines last night. I renewed my FFXIV sub after taking a month long break but I barely want to play. I've written maybe 10k words for my stories in the past month. Nothing seems fun anymore.

They buy more games than they play.

Sometimes you can get 3-4 games with complete dlc for the price of 10-15$..

I mean when you compare it to the amount of time you can get, it's really the cheapest habit so long as you stick to deals.

A movie can be easily 50$ for a few hours, goiing to the bar can be 150$+easy.

I would say the cost compared to the amount of time you can enjoy the product is the reason why people acquire such huge backlogs.

If you buy 3 60 hour games for 10-15$ once a week..... thats only 60$ a month , which most people can afford... now do that for 5 years, you already have hundreds of games.

so in the time it takes to complete the product, you already acquired enough wealth to buy another 9-10 games ...

For real? OK I an going to stop my Ryuji gag but wow that is his catch phrase. I at least tasted games on my era. I never had a huge backlog I called it a taste test. Even Divinity Original Sin 2 fell victim to this. I'll just taste games and be like yea I likely won't get back to that. Even if the game is good.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

Deals

This and Gamepass.

I bought Alien Isolation and its DLC for 10 dollars several years ago and still haven't played it. Partly because Prey scratched that itch and partly because my friend said it gave him nightmares

If you have Gamepass, I don't think any backlog games count. That's like saying I have Spotify but haven't heard that album yet. You can it is real freaking easy just there are many options.

Not saying you have to pay for album or game, but this is literally the taste test thing I mentioned I used with GOG and other cheap ways. I use Steam too. I've gotten better at finishing or getting significant progress these days.

MedeaLysistrata posted...

You're trying to rationalize something that is not completely rational

Ah, well if I do ever play VTMB and return with an understanding of Malkavian speak, I'll get back to you.

_Rinku_ posted...

I've considered selling it because, even though it's a fun game, there's so much bad energy around it that I never want to play it again.

That energy has kind of tainted everything. I stared at my open sketchbook for like an hour and drew maybe three lines last night. I renewed my FFXIV sub after taking a month long break but I barely want to play. I've written maybe 10k words for my stories in the past month. Nothing seems fun anymore.

I can understand that. Discovering a point low enough that even your favorite hobbies become completely incapable of distracting you or cheering you up would definitely put a permanent blemish on them. Like that's beyond buying a game and being disappointed, that'd make you cast doubt on the good games as well.

When I talk about my backlog, its any game that I intend to play if I have time. I can buy any game; dont really care about the price. I just dont have the time to play them.

I beat VtMB as a Brujah I think that's a clan. That game is such a mess at the end and so frustrating even with pleasure patches that make the game easier to finish ( as the game had serious crashes on launch).

Honestly I did most of it melee except for the very end and one mansion. Going full Werewolf and just running into ppl and being able to suck blood and not get interrupted is very visceral and satisfying.

buying bundles for singular titles and historically low priced sales
it's such a low risk investment and sometimes you find something you'd have never given a second thought to that you end up playing years later that you really like

one of two games I've ever been assed to 100% the achievements on steam was a game i paid absolutely no attention to when i got it in a bundle, but it ended up being a "perfect" game for me when i played it a few years later. it's got shit reviews, few fans, and by all rights is not a quality game, but i love everything about it.

and for fuckin less than a dollar a game for most bundles, why not build a backlog?

isnt TC the guy that refuses to play anything but PS2 games or something tho

ViewtifulJoe posted...

I can understand that. Discovering a point low enough that even your favorite hobbies become completely incapable of distracting you or cheering you up would definitely put a permanent blemish on them. Like that's beyond buying a game and being disappointed, that'd make you cast doubt on the good games as well.

I'm desperately clinging on to the few things that do still make me happy. Some of my friends are painting it as an unhealthy obsession, but it's just that everything else seems so bleak in comparison that I can barely engage in it.

All that said, I do think I've reached a point where I won't be adding significantly to my backlog. I have enough games that I could, conceivably, never buy anything new and I have plenty to play through. I'm sure I'll still pick up a game here and there, but the days of buying four or five games at a time or in quick succession are over. I don't even buy a ton during Steam sales.

Ars I forgot about the bundles but yea, still if you haven't at least booted the damn thing up and played it for I dunno 20 minutes it's not a backlog game. Just something you got heh

I am being silly with the backlog/taste test. I should make my own topic.

ArsGoetia posted...

buying bundles for singular titles and historically low priced sales
it's such a low risk investment and sometimes you find something you'd have never given a second thought to that you end up playing years later that you really like

one of two games I've ever been assed to 100% the achievements on steam was a game i paid absolutely no attention to when i got it in a bundle, but it ended up being a "perfect" game for me when i played it a few years later. it's got s*** reviews, few fans, and by all rights is not a quality game, but i love everything about it.

and for f***in less than a dollar a game for most bundles, why not build a backlog?

Maybe I'm impatient but if possible, I'd really rather just metagame my way straight to a game I'll like and stick with than go rummaging.
Buying a bundle for a specific game each time makes more sense than buying it because it's cheap and maybe it'll be good at least.
I do wonder how often your story of lucking out happens for people though.
ArsGoetia posted...

isnt TC the guy that refuses to play anything but PS2 games or something tho

Yes, something akin to that. I love me some 6th gen, I'm pretty happy with 7th gen for the most part, I played a few 8th gen games and didn't like them.

BurmesePenguin posted...

PS+ and crazy sales.

think i finished 9 shorter games after gravel. though currently working on diablo 2 and grand theft auto san andreas (ps3)

diablo 2: looking for 8 gear items including 4 socket monarch shield (may have to start including crypt and mausoleum into my run).
cant make it to lower kurast yet. wanting to try and upgrade my shitty gear a bit.

I didn't have a backlog until I got a pc.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

have been wringing extra mileage out of games I already own for a while now, to the point buying games has become alien to me.
Something new would be nice though, so I'd like to understand the positives of being less selective.

ViewtifulJoe posted...

Well mr deleted message, you're not wrong.
But my pre-requisites for allowing myself to buy a game are just as out of control.
Right now for me to purchase a game, it has to have perfect gameplay, great music, great characters, no underhanded DLC stuff, has to be difficult but also offer opportunities to power trip, it has to last forever, it has to make me laugh and endlessly spout in-jokes and quotable lines.
I've concluded I need to shorten my list of demands somehow.

Yeah you're definitely being way too particular, from the sounds of it. If you don't have anything to play, then it would help to broaden your search horizons. What genres do you normally play?

But you don't have to go from one extreme to the other. A backlog of 1000+ games is far beyond simply "not having enough time." At that point, it's more of an addiction to buying. My Aunt had that problem with the infomercial products. She had literally hundreds of products still unopened, that she bought because they were a good price.

For me, I have maybe 10 games I've bought but haven't played yet. Some individual games that I'm interested in, so I grabbed them on sale. Plus a bundle of the old Star Wars Jedi Knight games that I never had the chance to play when I was younger. It was 9 bucks for 5 games, so I figured why not grab them for later lol.

Mr deleted message I actually saw that here once, it was the most innocuous. Basically saying something about a opinion on work and when I went to quote it, it was gone.

I get the stealth delete if you are trying to be offensive but why delete that, was like so bizarre.

For me it was a combination of:

- Having less time to play games due to work/responsibilities/other hobbies
- Spending much of the gaming time I did have on infinitely replayable and live-service games
- Accumulating games from my Steam wishlist games going on sale + Epic freebies I found interesting
- Getting bored with new games easily

_Rinku_ posted...

The original Resident Evil 4 is, hands down, my favorite game of all time. I've also had an extremely difficult time the past few years, so I really clung onto any kind of bright light I could look towards leading up to its release.

It was pretty common. The last one I remember being a real let down was Metroid Dread. I got it and then developed a horrible ear infection. I couldn't sit up without puking and I heard a constant ringing in my ears. Then my entire life fell apart (for unrelated reasons). I've considered selling it because, even though it's a fun game, there's so much bad energy around it that I never want to play it again.

That energy has kind of tainted everything. I stared at my open sketchbook for like an hour and drew maybe three lines last night. I renewed my FFXIV sub after taking a month long break but I barely want to play. I've written maybe 10k words for my stories in the past month. Nothing seems fun anymore.

What type of things do you like to write?

Deals and fomo. Luckily I share my backlog with the family like my own little blockbuster so its all good.

fomo