Fighting with backlog and how can I enjoy games again ?

I feel constant pressure of getting and completing next game from my backlog. Even if I really love the game I'm currently playing, I don't have enough patience to explore, avoid guides as soon as I encounter an obstacle or hard puzzle on my journey, and enjoy the world. As a result, after finishing a game I don't have any meaningful memory or recollection of what happened in the story, how my playtrough looked like just day or two after. I just jump to another game. They are more of a trophies or numbers on my groove (https://www.grouvee.com/) list of completed games than enjoying them as art or storytelling medium.

I feel like not only I ruined experience with some of the greatest games of current decade, but also I feel like I'm playing games for sake of playing games.

Meanwhile, I watch people like https://www.twitch.tv/excessiveprofanity who was so deeply involved on his first playtrough of sekiro, analyzing small details and story bits even in item description, look at beautiful valleys and landscapes. I want to improve my way of consuming video games as form of entertainment, so that they actually force me to ask myself questions, analyze, connect with them on a whole new level. It would help me as a story writer, concept artist, and help me grow as a person.

Do you guys have any suggestions on how should I tackle this issue ? What can I do to break this terrible habbit ? And perhaps, can some of you relate and experience similar issue ?

Stop buying games is the real answer. Its my issue at times too. I get into a game, buy a new one and then forget about the 80 bucks I just spent.

I think when following places like this site its easy to feel like you need to be playing new games now but really its not the case. Just go at a more leisured pace. take time between playthroughs to let things be processed.

Why are you in such a rush? My instinct is to check every corner of every room. Sounds like you don’t have any problems beating games. That’s usually the backlog issue.

Maybe just be ok beating half as many games so you can give yourself, potentially, twice as much time with any given game? That might give you more breathing room and less pressure about backlog completion. The other thing I do, I put away most my games so I only see one or 2 under the TV. If you have stacks in front you, it can feel overwhelming.

1) Only buy games at a steep discount

- I’ll sometimes get a coop game if my circle will be playing it

2) If a game is too long, monotonous, doesn’t respect your time, stop playing

- I loved Horizon Zero Dawn’s opening, but ceased to care about the game within 10 hours...it became a chore, so I uninstalled it. Also, I bought it for $10 (see suggestion #1), so there’s much less of a desire to force it

3) Play what you love when you want to

- I sometimes don’t play games for weeks at a time. Life is full of things to do. If you’re in a rut with a hobby, come back to it when you want it. Don’t force yourself into something that should be a pleasure if it’s not currently pleasurable.

I’ll also throw out there that Gamepass has been super cool. I buy it when it’s on sale for about $5/month. It creates a Netflix-like culture where it’s less about every last game and more about checking things out. If something is meaningful and sticks, fantastic! Take your time and enjoy it. If it doesn’t stick, uninstall it and move on.

SORRY FOR THE ESSAY!

As someone who's been there, I would say the solution is to just play the games you want to and stop thinking of your backlog as something you absolutely need to complete as soon as possible. I've got a backlog going back all the way to the Gamecube, and for a while I also rushed to the end of my games. I even dropped longer games just because the end was nowhere in sight and I didn't have the patience to see it through.

Eventually, I realized the same thing that you did: that just powering through my games wasn't letting me enjoy them. I thought about how much I loved doing everything in the Mario Galaxy games recently and how much fun I had going through Metroid Prime again on the hardest difficulty instead of rushing to the next game.

From then on, I started putting more of an emphasis on playing what I already had and felt like playing instead of constantly looking forward to the next thing. I took a hard look at my collection and picked up the first game that called out to me. To my delight, I found quite a few hidden gems. Turns out Okami and Super Mario 64 are freaking awesome! Wow, Far Cry 3 is actually a heck of a lot of fun when I take the time to learn how its world works instead of getting frustrated at my early deaths and shutting it off! Man, Shadow of the Colossus is so much better than I thought it would be! I wanna play it again on Hard! Even better the second time, lemme try this ICO game I got with it. Hey, that's great too! I finally picked up that copy of Arkham Asylum I've been sitting on for years and woah, it's one of my favorite Metroidvanias ever! Didn't I buy Arkham City years before Asylum? I wanna jump straight into that! Done, another one off the list! Ni No Kuni's been sitting on my PS3's hard drive forever, let me try it out. 86 hours later and oh my gosh, this game is awesome! I finally get JRPGs! This Persona 4 game seems to have the same gameplay style as it, so why not give it a go? It's even better! One of my favorite games after 114 hours! Oh wow, I stumbled across one of my really old Pokémon games, Pokémon Pearl. I'll boot it up for old times' sake. I'll probably quit after an hour or two like in the old days, but I'm feeling nostalgic. 160 hours later, I am finally the very best!!! I tried out Castlevania after hearing some great things, and it turns out I am way into super hard platformers. Didn't I buy Super Meat Boy all those years ago? It's the same kind of game, right? Let's do this!!

Sitting there and actually giving time to older games did wonders for my enjoyment and my backlog as a whole. Not only was I still checking games off the list and making my pile smaller, but I was having a heck of a lot more fun doing it. I was getting into new genres and franchises, which was helping me go back to older games I bought off hype alone and finally giving them their due. Earlier this year, I remembered I had a copy of Cave Story sitting around on my laptop. I refreshed my memory about it and discovered it was a Metroidvania, which games like Metroid Prime and Arkham Asylum had shown me I love. Bought it on the 3DS because screw Mac keyboard controls (I had downloaded the free version before), gave it an hour and got hooked. Before I knew it, bam, off the list and I plan on replaying it for the best ending down the line. Becoming a giant Mario fan through Galaxy and 64 led me to actually go back to my Wii and play my copy of the original Super Mario Bros last year, which I also wound up re-buying on 3DS for better controls. Two days later and bam! Off the list. Also last year, was really in the mood for Metroid, but which one? Digging through the pile of games, I found an old copy of Metroid: Zero Mission my friend had traded me ages ago. I asked my girlfriend to borrow her Game Boy Advance (mine's long gone and my brother broke my DS Lite) and slaughtered that game. Aw, it's over already? That was way too short! Where's that copy of Samus Returns I bought a while ago? There we go! Bam, two off the list.

It's gotten to the point that I've made a vow. The only game I'm getting at release this year is Persona Q2 as a birthday present. Everything else has to wait until Black Friday at the earliest, and how many games I beat over the course of the year determines how many I buy. The rest can wait. They'll be there later and I know from experience I'll enjoy them just as much.

If you want a few tips:

• Only play what you feel like playing. Forcing yourself through a game just to do it only leads to you not enjoying it. If it's in the pile, play it and enjoy it. Case in point: I used to have a thing about playing the Zelda games in a specific order. I had tried to play Wind Waker about 3 or 4 times and each time I wasn't feeling it. About a month or two ago, I woke up one morning and thought "I wanna play Wind Waker." So I grabbed Wind Waker. Now I'm at the tail end of it and enjoying it way more than I ever had. Last weekend, I had been on a Pokémon high for the last week. So I took a look through my Pokémon games. I've tried Y several times, and still wasn't feeling it. I was about to say screw it, but then I remembered I had Crystal sitting there. Just got my first badge on my way home from work yesterday. I've owned Y for longer, but the end of the day, it's still another game off the list.
• Play for as long or as little as you like. You do not NEED to 100% any game you own, nor do you HAVE to finish one game so you can move on to the next. As I said before, Far Cry 3 turned out be a very pleasant surprise for me, and in the beginning I resolved to do all the relevant side quests just to enjoy the world more. I got a long way towards that goal, but near the end, I was getting super burnt out. If I had to hunt down one more jaguar or wolf with those stupid freaking arrows, I was gonna walk away. So I said screw it and smashed my way through the rest of the story. It was way more entertaining and I left with much happier memories than if I had continued the slog. On the flipside, I took my sweet time getting through Pearl and my other games were still there waiting for me when I finished.
• Don't be afraid to take breaks, break up longer games with shorter ones or stop playing a game you're not feeling. I love Persona 4, but about two thirds of the way through the story, the grinding got to me. So I put it down for a while and played whatever I felt like. I managed to knock three shorter games off the list in that time and I blew through the rest of Persona when I got back. On the other hand, I was obsessed with Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 for about 3 months last year, and got maybe about halfway while doing all the side quests. But then, I just got super bored with it and the repetition of everything. So I put it down. I've beaten plenty of other games in that time, and I can always pick it up later when I feel like it again. It's better than making myself finish it while hating it the whole time. And if you don't feel like playing anything, don't. I felt more like reading and catching up on shows about three weeks ago, so I did. Wind Waker was still there when I got back, my save was still there and I was still ready to progress.
• Feel free to experiment. Part of the fun of gaming is having our own unique experiences, so feel free to try something new or different if it strikes your fancy, even if it takes more time. I had a great time playing through the first God of War early last year, and I thought I did pretty dang well on Normal. So when God of War 2 caught my eye later on, I decided I was going to challenge myself and play on God (Hard) Mode. Problem is, thanks to instant-death QTEs and an assumption that you played the first game recently, God Mode beat me senseless. I tried going back to Normal but by then I had started getting used to Hard difficulty and Normal felt like I was sleepwalking through it. So Normal was too easy and Hard was too unpredictable and slow. So I decided "Why not both?" I started a file on both modes and played save point to save point. I'd play through a section on Normal to familiarize myself with what it was going to throw at me, and then I took on the full challenge on Hard. It wound up really working for me (to the point where I took down the final boss on Hard in one shot after he had spent the morning slapping me around on Normal) and I had such a good time I'm probably going to play 3 the same way.
• Stop buying so many games! You don't have to go to the same extreme that I have, but make sure your intake is significantly lower than the amount of games you've beaten that year. Otherwise there's no point!

At a certain point I've always thought the healthiest thing to do about a backlog is to look long and hard at it and then ruthlessly cull the whole thing.

Do I really care about these games? Or do I feel obligated to play these games?

Anything in the latter category gets thrown into the void.

@nicksmi56 Holly, thank you for such a great and in-depth response ! You definitely helped me understand my issue by sharing your own experiences ! you have such a healthy attitude towards something relaxing, entertaining, and something that is supposed to be form of your leisure time, not a part time job (because that how video games feels to me now)

@nutter , @efesell@bradbrains I will definitely consider cutting my backlog, but definitely it might be the issue, and I'm buying too many games for full price on a whim. I didn't think they are such a big part of the problem, because no matter if I have 3 or 12 games on my backlog, I still can't focus on the game I'm currently playing. I will give it a shot tho and see how I feel :)

I will cut my backlog, buy games on at least 30% price cut instead of buying them at the release date and not playing them for months. Plus, what I think will help me the most is breaking this big 50+h games with one/two days of some roguelike game or multiplayer session, perhaps some small 8-12h game :)

I was thinking I would be laughed at, and criticized, not even mentioning receiving any helpful advice. I was sooo wrong. Everyone in this post pitched in something very important and meaningful for me, and my life. I'm really motivated and I already feel better. My anxiety with beating video games will probably be smaller until if will finally be gone, and video games will again start feeling like video games. So thank you <3

Cut your darlings.

I bet you could reduce that backlog by stacks, leaving you with what you really want to play.

I ditched a fair few PS2/3 games I was never likely to touch. Now I'm just working through the games I want to put time into.

I guess the most relevant advice comes down to why you are buying/playing the way you are now. Is it to keep up with the zeitgeist so that you can always talk about the newest game with everyone? Is it for the trophy/completion rush? Fear of accumulating an impossible backlog? Just pure enthusiasm every time a new game comes out. Something else entirely?

Personally, I got into/back into gaming about 5 years ago and felt like I had a 20+ year backlog to catch up on. Bought and started playing a ton of games, but always felt like I was behind and missing the newness, so I never finished anything- old or new. Eventually I started thinking about why I play games (to feel good(or different)/enjoy a story) and now I play whatever will do that for me at the moment. Another hour of Stardew Valley? Fine. 6 hours of Persona 5 until a rage quit. Fine. Play Moonlighter for 4 hours on release. OK. Etc. If I have the budget to buy a new game that will do that, awesome. If not, there is a 99.9999% chance I have something in my backlog that will.

But your strategy may depend on why you play games. Maybe pick a genre/publisher to focus on for a year. Or play whatever your friends are playing. Or pick just one platform and focus on it. Or a given year (2010, 2012, etc.). Or pick a creative project (streaming, blog, GB post thread) and focus on a game for that.

Backlog will always be there - find a path to play what you want. :]

If you're playing games just to complete them, you're doing it wrong. If you always think about how many games you have to play, you're going to be stressed out and anxious and feeling like you have too much to do all the time. You can't finish everything, so don't try to.

My best advice would be to forget actually finishing everything in your current backlog. Don't worry about it. If you're playing a game and you're just not having fun, don't keep playing it. Play something else. Sometimes you spend a year anticipating a game and you get it and it's really not doing much for you and that's OK. That happens sometimes to every enthusiast of all types, so when it happens to you, shrug your shoulders and move on. Part of this is also accepting that every time you buy a game, you're running the risk of getting something you might not actually like, so make sure that's money you're OK losing.

My second advice would be to focus on one or two games at a time and don't try to play twenty plus hour games back-to-back. This one can take a little while to get used to - at first, your thoughts will probably frequently wander into other games and keeping your mind on a few games is hard. But it gets easier.

And, finally, if you're forcing yourself to play something then you probably need to either play something else or go do something else. Whenever I'm not enjoying a game I'd like to be enjoying, I put it down and go read a book or do some chores around the house or something and then come back to it a day or two later. After two or three times of trying this, if I'm still not into it I'll put it down and go do something else with my time. I don't have enough time to play something that I think I'd like instead of something that I actually like.

Great thread! Thank you to everyone for their thoughts and approaches. A lot of the time, I also feel like playing games can be more of a part-time job than anything recreational.

Play what's fun, when it's fun. I've had Trails in the Sky sitting on my desktop for 3 years, tried playing it about 10 times throughout, and only now am I enjoying it enough to want to continue playing it. I'm actually excited to play games lately because I just happen to be in the right mood for certain things I never finished, like Phoenix Wright 6 or Yakuza 6's side content.

Also, if you've got any kind of list that you're adding to or checking off, I'd recommend getting rid of it. I found myself far more willing to stop and smell the roses when I didn't have a list of my failures staring at me anymore. I can see in your second post that you're already putting way too much emphasis on giving yourself "rules" of how to play, and while it might be good to break you out of your habits at first, you're going to turn it into a job again if you keep trying to give it structure like that.

I used to get stuck in a similar rut. I think in the end you should stop enforcing rules or expectations on how/why you play. If you don't feel like playing a game, don't, it'll still be waiting for you when you want it and you'll probably enjoy it more in the end. If you don't feel like playing any of them (I'm in this situation atm) take a break from games for a bit until there's something you're enthused to play.

I know it's much easier said than done to break out of old habits but turning a fun hobby into a chore is a good way to spoil it and it's a habit well worth breaking imo. Sorry I haven't got any actual practical advice except: keep at it duder!

Just play whatever you feel like playing man. I never quite understood what the deal is with forcing yourself to finishing something. I have a huge backlog of JRPG's I'm interested in, but since I only play when I feel like it, it they end up taking like a year. I just play 10h chunks every other month or so until it's over. Because that's usually about how much RPG I have in me. And that's been working fine. I have great memories from Persona 5 and Octopath Traveler for example, both of which took months to beat. And in that duration I was mostly playing a bunch of other stuff instead like Nioh/Horizon or replaying all the DMC's

Dunno I feel like you just have to drop the mentality cold turkey. Maybe it could help to take the "log" out of backlog. If you have a list or databse of your backlog, just delete it. Uninstall old games. Filter or hide them in your services of choice. If you aren't reminded of their existance constantly, it'll be easier to forget and move on. Also try to only buy things you intend to play in the future, and buy less overall. (I'm awful about that personally). But it's very good for you mentally and economically.

stop thinking of it as "consuming video games." that mindset leads to trying to just get through one to get to the next

Buying games and not playing them is a habit, possibly even an addiction in some people, It's driven by the "Fear of Missing Out". But since we never get around to playing them when they are new we miss out on the cultural zeitgeist surrounding it anyway.

The only way to break the habit is breaking the habit. Stop buying games. It's that "simple". In reality, I know it's not that simple. It took a long time but I eventually broke the habit. God of War was the first full price new game I bought in years, I played it straight away and thoroughly enjoyed it. Right now I am working my way through Mafia III and Lego Marvel Superheroes 2.

You are saving money in the long run since you aren't always buying games at full price. You are also valuing your own time more. Video Games are meant to be a hobby to be enjoyed. Don't worry too much about creating rules about how and when to play. If a game doesn't click after a couple of hours it's fine to drop it, or if something catches you its fine to spend an extra 5, 10, or 100 hours on it past whatever howlongtobeat says it should take.

Games are supposed to be fun. You don't have to finish them if you don't want to. Stop worrying about the backlog and embrace the fact that you will never clear it. Then if you feel like playing one of them, you can do that.

Buy more games you coward!!! It isn't enough until you look at your Steam library and realize you'll never live long enough to play everything.

Sorry for the quick and dirty response.

If you are not having fun, don't be afraid to drop the game. There is plenty to chose from. Don't be afraid of resting away from the medium. Don't be afraid to jump back into an online game and HAVE FUN.

Might I suggest putting games down to easy to live the content tourist life? Perhaps even cheat? I've just got International Karate + off my plate by save stating my way to a black belt. 47 games to go, guys.

I was kind of the same a few years back. Pre-2015, when I was just being a bum at home, all I did was play video games night and day. I used to beat like 80 games a year. Then I started working, went back to school, started going out with my friends more and suddenly I just wasn’t playing as much. It’s been such a freeing experience. I used to play games back to back to back thinking I had to finish this game so I can finish the next and so on. It was annoying because it never ended. But even when I wasn’t playing as many games anymore, I was still buying a lot of things full price and sometimes I wouldn’t even touch it. I bought the Witcher 3 like a week after release, played like 3 hours, and haven’t touched it since. Mostly because it felt like shit to play so I waited on updates but I don’t even know if I will ever play it at this point. These days, It’s hard to devote 60+ hours into a game, especially a game I’m not feeling. I still have a backlog of like 60-70+ games on my PS4 but I just don’t think about it anymore. It’s too stressful. You have to just stop buying games. I see you said you’ll buy games when they hit 30% off but even that’s not enough. You need to buy games when they’re 50%+ off. That’s what I do now. The only games I bought last year for full price were God of War, Red Dead 2, and Spider-Man and those were my favorite games of the year in that order. I played GoW and Spider-Man for days until I finished them and even got the platinum for both because I loved them so much. Red Dead 2 took me almost 3 months to finish. I love that game. I love the slow pace of it and everything but I knew I would burn out on it if I played it for days on end until I beat it so I spaced it out. I went like 2-3 weeks without playing it at one point. I wanted to finish it but during those weeks, I kinda just didn’t want to play it either so instead of forcing myself to play it, I let it sit there until I felt I was ready to jump back in. Last year, I beat like 20 games, maybe less. Most of the time now, if I turn on my PS4, look through my games and don’t feel an urge to play any of them, I just turn it right back off. I turned on my PS4 for the first time In like a month a few days ago and wanted to play attack on Titan 2 so that’s what I did and I enjoyed the 2-3 hours I played. I played it yesterday too for a few hours and also played through CoD4 Remastered. I had a good time. I’m gonna go home and buy Dreams because it’s only $30 and i thought it looked amazing from the quick look the guys did. I’ll also probably buy Days Gone depending on reviews. But If I do, I’ll be going half and half with my friend on it. I also just bought the gold edition of Assassins Creed Odyssey last week because I heard that the season pass is actually worth it, it was only like $32, and I had $20 in credit from Sony rewards. So I basically got it for $12. It’s a huge game so I know I won’t play it for at least a month or more but it’s alright because I didn’t spend much on it. Also, like others said, if you’re not feeling a game, just cut your losses and stop playing it. I used to be the person who had to finish every game I had, even if I hated the game. I stopped doing that though. Some examples of games I stopped playing for different reasons are Ni No Kuni, Kholat, Tales of Xillia 2, Mafia 3, Mad Max, Far Cry 5, and more and I don’t feel bad about it. Some were just too much of a commitment, some I got bored of, and some sucked. I saved myself a lot of time, money, and stress by just deleting them from my hard drive and never thinking about them again. It’s a wonderful feeling to not feel like I have to play everything to completion and it doesn’t sting when it happens because I got them heavily discounted on PSN. Play what you want, when you want, buy games when they’re HEAVILY discounted, and stop playing games that you’re not enjoying and you’ll find gaming to be a wonderful experience again.

Burn every video game you own. Every console, every game, every memorabilia. Get rid of it.

Nah, we get these kinds of threads every month or so it seems. Life is full of missed experiences, the best way to train your brain to deal with them is to have more varied options. If you can get CBT or look up methods online, that would also help. Make a schedule, watch a TV show, read books, exercise. There's no catch 20 answer for your problem, it takes many steps and finding motivation.

If your backlog is so deep that it's overwhelming and bringing you down, you've bought enough games. You've done your part. You don't need to keep throwing money at the next thing you think is awesome. If it's awesome enough, you'll get there in time. Just play the games you already have. Keep an eye on the games that are coming out. Maybe make a Wishlist. Best part. When you get to the newer games, they'll be half off or better (unless they're Nintendo). If it's any consolation, I just bought an arcade cabinet and put about 2600 games on it. In addition to several dozen, or more, sitting in my Steam account untouched. I've spent the last 6 months playing my arcade cabinet almost exclusively. Even my new PSVR with Skyrim, Astrobot, and that fantasy mouse game has just been sitting there. Games I really want to play! So I'm done buying games. I'm just gonna PLAY games for a while. Beat The Legend of Zelda in one sitting (my cabinet doesn't have save states. Need to fix that.). Beat Metroid. Got my ass handed to me in Ghouls n' Ghosts, over and over and over again. Got to level 4, though! Super proud about that. Re-mastered, or learned all the patterns, in Street Fighter II Championship Edition. Currently playing through Final Fantasy (the PSX remake) with no save states (hope my cabinet doesn't have a meltdown). Played the crap out of R-type; what a great game! And having a blast with all of it. Looking forward to getting back to my modern backlog someday. But definitely not going to add anything to it any time soon... well, maybe MK 11... No! No! After the first sale at least. Like I said, with backlogs like ours, we put enough money into the industry to wait for sales.