henke on 10/5/2016 at 16:34
Quote Posted by Judith
unless you want to be like those who argue that Police Academy 5 is better than PA 6 (it is, but that's not the point)
Hold on now. In PA6 Hightower drives a monster truck and Jones pretends to be a Terminator. It is clearly the superior movie.
TannisRoot on 10/5/2016 at 17:44
I've got a huge backlog but I don't sweat it. Life's too short to waste on games I'm not interested in anymore. If you're having fun that's all that matters. At this point it's likely impossible to play them all.
Zerker on 10/5/2016 at 20:42
I've also gotten on the "stop buying games just because of a sale" bandwagon, but as far as an actual technique for playing games:
1) Sort games into buckets of related content "e.g. Retro FPS"
2) When you say "I feel like playing a Retro FPS", look at the bucket and either pick one that stands out, or run it through a randomizer
3) Enjoy said game :)
I also mix in a few wishlist items into the bucket as well. If it's something I feel strongly about, I'll just buy it and play it. Otherwise, if going by random choice, I always have the chance for something new OR something old.
It seems to work for me.
heywood on 10/5/2016 at 20:51
During the decade between Quake 1 and Bioshock, I tried to keep up, buying every game I wanted to play and trying to squeeze them all in. Didn't want to miss out. It started to feel like a chore so I gave up. Now I won't buy a game unless I'm going to play it now. I have no backlog. It feels good not to accumulate stuff I'm not using.
Quote Posted by Abysmal
My issue is with knowing what to play, whether it's in my library or not. I hate the thought of missing out on creative brilliance. There is a constant stream of awesome looking games coming out (as twisty said above) and no time to physically play them. It's even worse when you want to replay old games, or play a single time-consuming game like an MMO. How do you make that call, which to play with your (very) limited time? Why not create a game instead, or read a book, or go outside? Damn these choices and mortality. I thought getting older was supposed to make you not care.
Getting older sucks. You have less free time for yourself, and time seems to go faster.
One of the reasons why I don't play games as much anymore is that my free time comes in small chunks, thanks to work and children. I mostly like immersive games, and can't really get into them when trying to play them in 30-60 min chunks. So when I do get a small chunk of alone time, I'll usually fill it with something else. It's hard to free up larger blocks of time except during holiday breaks so that's when I spend the most time playing. During the rest of the year, I don't play unless something comes out that I just can't wait to play and am willing to lose sleep to.
icemann on 11/5/2016 at 02:39
1 issue is that if you account emulation related backlogs (games for a non PC platform) where buying them is impossible as many are from companies that no longer exist, then this opens up a ocean of games to choose from.
That when combined with the Steam proper proper list of games to see and choose from, is just SUCH a massive amount of games to choose from, and that can be nothing but good.
Not every new game needs to be a months long commitment despite the fact that most games these days do indeed take weeks/months to complete. Sometimes its great to play a game that only takes a few hours or a day to beat. If you look back at when we were all kids (speaking as a 35 year old), besides the occasional RPG release most games were quick. You'd play them for an hour or so and that was that. That said I will freely admit that nowadays I do prefer playing the longer ones as its like stepping into a different universe/reality. You become that character and roleplay that with whichever slant you choose to do (eg play as a evil character, mercenary type, good guy etc etc). This in turn makes choosing that next game to play, that much more difficult.
SD on 11/5/2016 at 14:50
I have about 1,000 games, most of which I've never played. If you see a bundle of 10 games, and maybe you're interested in two of them, even then it typically still represents a massive saving on what just those two games would have cost. In those circumstances a sizeable library is pretty much inevitable.
I just view the majority of those games as freebies that came with the games I really do want to play. Indeed, several dozen of them were actual freebies, from those regular giveaways by the likes of Indiegala.
Jason Moyer on 11/5/2016 at 15:34
One of my problems is that I'll get on a genre kick, where I'll play a game I really like and start collecting other games from the genre, then I end up with a couple dozen new games and no desire to play them because I've already had a similar (and probably better) experience. When I was younger I did the same thing with music, ending up with 1000's of CD's most of which were kind of shit. Whatever the next big consumer media is, I'll probably end up doing the same damn thing before settling on specific artists and franchises that I reliably enjoy.
The problem that keeps me from truly escaping backlog growth is that nagging feeling that there's something really brilliant I'd miss if I didn't buy stuff outside my comfort zones when there are big sales. There are a lot of great games I would have missed if I had just stuck to favorite developers or series.
icemann on 12/5/2016 at 08:09
Quote Posted by SD
I just view the majority of those games as freebies that came with the games I really do want to play. Indeed, several dozen of them were
actual freebies, from those regular giveaways by the likes of Indiegala.
You'd have noticed Bipolar game in last weeks. I didn't heavily promote it due to how little I got per sale.
Mr.Duck on 12/5/2016 at 17:14
This 'Year of the Backlog' idea intrigues me. I just bought Uncharted 4 and the new Ratchet & Clank game, but I think I can cut myself dry until December and see how much headway I make.
If anything, I have tons of great games to play/finish, so I should give them my proper attention :3
Tony_Tarantula on 12/5/2016 at 20:05
Doesn't bother me. It's very much a first world problem. Some games I regard as a sunk cost simply because I now value my time too much to spend it on a bad game, others I'm glad to have in my quiver because I can use them the next time I get stuck hanging out at the in law's place.
