I have too many games!

I, like other gamers or imbibers of media, have a huge backlog of stuff to chew through. Usually I know what I want to go through first, but sometimes I hit a rut where I have a bunch of games that I want to play equally and I can't decide what to spend time on. Games like Darksiders II, The Darkness II, Puppeteer, ZombiU, Gears of War/God of War prequels, Pandora's Tower, Xenoblade, Ni no Kuni, all these just sitting around. I got Splinter Cell Blacklist, AC4, and Black Ops II for Wii U waiting on the backburner too, not to mention a ton of old Xbox/PS2/GC games I picked up recently like Psi-Ops, Blood Omen 2, Vexx, Phantom Dust, and more. Don't even get me started with Steam/XBLA/PSN, or heaven forbid the retros, I'm just taking glances at my shelf here. The problem is, I don't know which of these to take on first, because for me they are all around the same level of quality and interest. Each time i reach for one on my shelf, I get pulled to a different one, and you know what I end up playing? NOTHING! Or I just play something I have already played. It's frustrating.

I figure the solution is to maintain focus and play one game at a time, which is why I have been sticking to trying to unlock Chain Chomp in Bayonetta 2 for the last little while. I hate the statistics of gamers never finishing their games and I feel gulity contributing to it; I find getting through a campaign to be one of the most cathartic experiences in my life, and the amount of unfinished ones on my lap is infuriating. I had a problem when I was younger where I wanted to play all the new releases so I could get in on the conversation; I used to frequent another forum, but I was sick of the pessimistic community (as well as sick of my own teenage legacy on there) so I left. However, I still end up buying stuff I may not be that interested in just so I have another game to play. It's almost like I'm preparing for a day where the world ends and I have my bunker filled with games for years.

I want to figure out a way of managing all my games without making it feel like I'm turning my hobby into "work". I have tried to organize and commit to finishing games in a certain order, but the part of my brain that doesn't like being organized convinces me that I should be relaxed and having fun rather than making it a task to complete, so i slip into the same unproductive habits. But I truly do want to finish these games, I want to experience them, I don't want to just sell them for a couple bucks at EB.

To anyone who has this problem, how do you deal with it? I find I'm more likely to increase my backlog as sales pop up as opposed to finishing the 5 games I got in the last discount blitz. I think my previous strategy seems like the best way to go, finishing short games first and then tackling longer ones after, but tastes vary and sometimes I feel like playing a JRPG even if I could spend the same amount of time actually finishing something. Maybe I'm overthinking it and I should just play whatever I feel like, but as I play Mega Man X for the 7th time, my collection looms over me, gathering dust, regretting its stagnant existence as I sink into my old comforts.

So I've basically decided to lie to myself and change my tune from "I'm going to play all these games I'm buying" to "I just want a wide variety of games readily available for me to play at any time." As an example, football was getting boring yesterday so I fired up Lovely Planet and played through 7 levels in World 2. I already own the game and have it installed, so it's really easy for me to just boot it up and play whenever I happen to remember it's there.

I love that I can do that with such a wide variety of games. It's great. That's definitely not the reason I bought them in the first place. I fully intend to play and finish the games I buy within at least a few months of buying them, and that doesn't actually happen as often as I'd like. But I can always fall back on the fact that I can boot up whatever I want from a vast collection whenever I want.

I make endless lists of my backlog and keep careful of track of it, spending so much time that I don't have any left to actually play any games. Then I remove everything from the lists, hide the games in boxes/steam filters and pretend I never bought them.

Good luck!

For those of you who are PC gamers, I've found steamcompletionist.net to be a fantastic tool to keep track of which games in my library that I've played, beaten, or haven't even touched.

I just play whatever I want to.

There is a problem with tackling short games first and saving long ones till later. Eventually all you have is long games. Right now on my Vita I'm one dungeon into Persona. I want to replay Persona 2 IS before I jump into Persona 2 EP. I haven't touched Final Fantasy VI or Legend of Dragoon. I'm in the middle (or hopefully nearing the end) of Fire Emblem Awakening on my 3DS, and I'm getting Persona Q this month. When am I gonna play them all? That's just the handhelds!

I used to limit myself to playing three games at a time and I'd set deadlines. Stuff like I'm gonna finish FFXII by Dec 31st or I'm gonna remove it from my three active games. Usually I'd have a list of three or four games I'd have to beat by the end of a quarter. I certainly blew through a chunk of games when I was on that regimen. I guess it's how the games press go through so much; they have deadlines and after that they have to move on. Their deadlines just happen to be much more frequent and they get paid.

@asko25: recently I decided to uninstall every single story heavy game I had installed on steam(because those are the problem right), then I got a list of all the games in that category I hadn't played yet, feed them into a randomizer and let it pick one a time for me to play next.

Of course I still have other games installed, but usually stuff like luftrausers or kerbal space program which are not games you can finish per se, just stuff you launch for 30 or 40 minutes to play a bit in between the more story focused games, which are the ones you have to focus and dedicate yourself to finish.

It worked pretty nice for me, then as soon as I'm finished with the game I uninstall it and get another name from the randomizer, simple.

Ye I kinda used to have this issue which has never been helped by the fact that I play mostly online multiplayer games.

I solved the problem by letting go, it doesn't matter to finish every game, just play what you want and be ok with sometimes not getting value for money on every game you buy, it makes up for it with those games you love and sink 100s of hours into. Thats my approach.

Once you get to like 350 games not played you stop caring any more. :/

Embrace the backlog.

I do 2 things.

1) play what I like, when I like

2) plan what I play

Sometimes I will just suddenly say to myself - Yo dog, time to play _____. I'll make that pact with myself a day before "game day" or whatever then just stick to that plan.

Having a blog to go with it or some other goal is useful, but it's been ages since I had that much energy.

@asko25: You sound like you have pretty narrow tastes, but you haven't admitted it to yourself so you have this huge backlog that you aren't playing because you just don't want to. You are trying to say you want to, but the reality is that a game either grabs you or it doesn't. It took me years to learn to just play what I like and if something doesn't suck me in, it means I likely don't like it that much and don't hold myself accountable to playing it. Especially as an adult with responsibilities, there's just not enough time.

Bit of an aside ive considered getting a 4tb drive just to have all my games installed.

@asko25: first you gotta stop buying games. it's really easy to go down that rabbit hole because if you're looking, sales are a constant thing...every week there is a good deal somewhere especially with all the digital stores available now. 2nd, you should really think about the games you want vs. the games you need. For me, games like xenoblade or ni no kuni are something i fucking need but most of the games you listed are games i would want or wouldn't mind having but sort of b tier, take-em or leave-em type of games. I would consider them "games of the week", something people talked about when they were released but quickly forgotten. I think as a GB fan, we try to keep up with the conversation but it's really not realistic to. GB is a crew doing a job and you're just one man engaging with your hobby. You should get use to and enjoy hearing or watching games you might not touch. As for dealing with backlog, my strategy is to vary the type of games you play and start with shorter games. If you beat a few shorties, you'll gain momentum and have the confidence and endurance to finish longer games.

Ya I have around 40 or 50 games in my backlog. PC games being cheap means too many games to choose from. It's a real self control problem at this point.

So, I've not been buying any games this year (except The Evil Within) and just playing my back log. The problem I run into is stuff I don't feel like playing, but that usually comes from having too many to choose from so I've just started playing the games I have in the backlog in order and after giving a game a fair chance I will remove it if I don't want to finish it. I did that with Devil May Cry 4 (I don't like that game it turns out) recently. I don't know if I will with Dust or not as I like the look and the story so I may stick with that even though I find myself less interested in that kind of action game right now.

Also, I've been organizing what is in my backlog by putting them in my "favorites" listing in Steam. So that's full of games that are in my back log or games that aren't on steam (so I don't forget about them).

It's been going pretty well, but the problem I ran into recently is I am not sure I want to play open world games yet because they can be rather long (20 or more hours) and I don't feel like playing character action games so I've been playing some Adventure games. It makes it so I don't go in order like I wanted to, though, but at least I'm getting through them.

Whenever I get through all my back log games I gotta start only buying games I'm gonna play and finish. Even if they are super cheap. I ended up getting a refund on Dark Void because the DRM on that game makes it unplayable (it says your key is invalid). Not worth it, even for 2$.

Thanks a lot for the responses, it's helping me get organized. I realized that quitting forums means there aren't too many people I can talk to about gaming in such a specific lifestyle way, so I haven't really been thinking about how to approach this.

Today, I've been taking it easy and not worrying too much about plowing through my collection, and I actually finished Pac-Man World 2 of all things. I stopped playing it as a kid 2 levels before the last boss, apparently! I also got the Chomp in Bayo2 as well as unlocking the hidden Tag Climax characters (one of whom should REALLY be playable in the main game... seriously no excuse), but man it felt good to sink into Pac and some Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus after all that insane action.

My friend lent me Watch Dogs and I'm thinking I'm going to return it to him before I finish it. Again, like some of the other games I listed, I want to play it but i just can't maintain enough interest. I just don't think it's a very good game, though my friend ensures me that it will be better, but open world games can take a while to get going and I'm not sure I'm up for slogging through it. The only thing holding my interest is *gasp* the story! I honestly think Ubisoft does a great job with the cinematic aspects of their games, it just doesn't mesh well with the totally routine gameplay they usually compliment it with. I liked ACIII almost purely for the story, and I'm tempted to just not waste my time and peep the Watch Dogs cutscenes on YouTube, but I believe video games are "gesamkunstwerk" and I feel like it would not provide the genuine experience, even for such a commercial product.

Tonight I'm gonna jump into Psychonauts on the original Xbox (with component cables), a game I beat long ago, though it was the unfortunate PS2 port. I'm probably also going to play more Bayonetta 2 because damn.