I think that's half my problem. I buy something telling myself I do want to play it but usually ends up a brief 40min-2 hour flirtation and then move on to something else. Either I've got commitment issues or the marketing guys have go into my head, or both.
I spend more time worrying about the nitty gritty nature and the analytical nature of my backlog and subsequent progress in reducing it than actually making head way. 10 hours inputting stuff on backlog very isn't a problem but playing 2 hours of Just Cause 2 is (though I swear that game is never ending).
Saying that I must have finished more games this year than any other outside of school days. Just this end of generation price crash and retail woes we've had here had really made for some stupidly cheap deals.
I think I can help.
Will also add some screenshots to make the wall of text more appealing.
Also note: some people will immediately think I see gaming as work. (That's a reaction I once got on a Dutch forum).
This is
not the case: I feel I have more fun now since I take my time for each game, and make sure I don't play more than 2 SP games at the same time.
All while I see my Steam friends hopping between several games in a matter of an hour or 2, seemingly not feeling "dat satisfactory feel" to spend time with one game.
I also feel rewarded to only buy games in sales because:
- I know the games are patched to its fullest (early buyers Beta tested it for me
)
- there are decent walkthroughs to be found in case I'm lost
- and eventually, sometimes, even mods or tips to make the PC version shine even more
My
previous situation:
- I bought all my games retail, mostly at the initial release price, and most I didn't complete.
When I noticed I could buy games on Steam without have a credit card, I transitioned to Steam for all my gaming habits.
I became immediately so overwhelmed by the amount of cheap games, I immediately knew I would need some way to "organize" this overload of entertainment.
Perhaps it's because I'm a student in the Engineering field and my need to have an overview and a rational view on everything seems to instill this in my free time habits as well... I think. I don't know.
My
current situation:
- I do quite some of research about every potential game I buy. By which I mean: checking metacritic.com (both critics and users scores) and watching Youtube footage.
- I make sure it is on my Steam wishlist. Games that are not on my wishlist but are on sale, I would never impulse buy. Games that I noticed only in a current running sale, I will put on my wish list and consider for the next sale.
- I complete most (around 90%) of my games. If I don't, it's mostly because I can't fix the game to work properly, for example: Crysis 1 and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory...
There are some games I simply don't like enough to finish through the end, but these are rare occassions: only Braid, World of Goo, Tropico 3 so far.
Just by checking someone's Steam games page and sorting by playtime, you can see the gaming habits of said person.
Most Steam profiles I check out of curiosity have about 5 to 10 games with 10h+ gameplay, followed by an immediate drop to a huge pool of games that haven't been touched for even 5 hours. And then, the other - giant - pool of simply unplayed games.
And now I'll stop printscreening lol.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Asgaro/games?tab=all
- I only install 2 singleplayer games at one time. I will explain why further below.
- Multiplayer games: I don't really place a limit because you can never "complete" those. And it's not immersion breaking to hop between several MP games, while it is major immersion breaking when you hop between SP games.
- I feel more satisfied now that I play 1 or max 2 SP games at the time, instead of hopping between several. Every time you jump into yet another SP game you already played a bit, you have to take time to get into the story again and probably forgot some key elements already. Even forgetting the key bindings etc.
- The more I succeed in completing games, the more I feel actually rewarded for the way I'm doing this.
I see too many people (perhaps most people on Steam?) struggling just like you: hopping from one game to the next, probably not spending more than a few hours in a certain game.
Simply not feeling a "reward feeling" for staying with a certain game. The attention to the majestic backlog keeps suppressing the desire to actually COMPLETE a game.
- I only buy games when they are 15 euro max. Of course this is a threshold everyone chooses for themselves.
No matter how good the discount is, there really is no point in buying if you will only play the game 2 years after purchase and could have gotten it for even cheaper. So focussing on a certain threshold can help to save money - and also keeps the growth of the backlog in check.
Example for how long I wait before going over to purchases:
(Note the game that are "free" are of course not free: it means I bought them at key web stores.)
- And so far played 70% of my library. This will still go up a bit since I haven't yet had a moment where my backlog was completely gone.
It also doesn't take into account games like Half Life 2: I already completed them, but this was before Steam started counting gameplay time.
http://steamdb.info/
The KEY to all this?
Make a list.
Whether it be in spreadsheet software or the other 2 sites I will provide or anything else.
Without a chronological list that you can change at will, you will never have that "overview" in mind. It's the key issue people have with their giant backlog. Not knowing what to play first and simply postponing the idea of choosing...
Example, my current Excel sheet for games I have yet to complete.
I also keep up with a list of games I want to buy. Also handy to split them between "released" and "unreleased".
Lots of them on the right are probably still in early development. I also have had occassions where some eventually got cancelled lol.
That's because I add all the games here as soon as they are announced - notice that space indie game announced yesterday at VGX I already added at the bottom right - and not when they are finally getting in the marketing fase.
The games that are already available on Steam, I also add to my Steam wishlist.
Note I have tons of them under the 15 euro limit I put up for myself as threshold. Even if they are very cheap, there is no point in buying if you have more than 5 games in your Backlog really.
Edit: of course, it depends on how fast you can complete games in between sales. 5 is personal.
Or you use a true TODO list instead of an Excel sheet. In that way you can really check off things if you like that!
https://todoist.com/
Another helpful site is
http://www.howlongtobeat.com/
You can insert the games you have into the backlog section of your account, then sort them by "Time - To Beat" and immediately see which games take the longest.
That way you can for example first complete the shortest games and work your way up.
I can recommend this, because that way you quickly build up that satisfactory feeling of actually completing a game, and you will be motivated to further use this method.
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I hope you and others can benefit from this.