The Problems With Backlogs

Not my collection, but at this rate it will be soon

My backlog of games has kind of become my own personal fucking nightmare.  It's a thing I'll never be able to get over and I'm doomed to perpetually have metric fucktons of games unbeaten on unplayed until the day I die.

On the surface it seems like every enthusiasts dream right?  Stacks upon stacks of games to play, never stuck for choice and just being able to quickly yank something off your shelf and play.  Failing that, firing up my computer and having hundreds of digital games at my disposal ready to be installed and played at any time, sounds wonderful, right?

Well no because that's not how it goes.  The problem with having a huge backlog is that you have too much choice.  You suddenly decide that you want to play something new and you'll sit there for fucking HOURS going through every single game you fucking own trying to settle on one to play to completion.  It's gotten to the point where I'm not finding games that I forgot I ever owned and when I'm buying used games in places like Book Off I have to wrack my brains trying to remember if I own it already or not.

The other problem is long games.  It's OK if you're backlog is all modern FPS games that are about 6 to 10 hours long, but if you have an old collection then I can guarantee that there are games 60+ hours in there somewhere.  Old school RPGs that you bought off GoG or JRPGs from the PS1 days sitting there, festering and you know that one day you're just going to have to rinse it for a week solidly to have any decent chance at beating it before getting distracted by something else in your massive collection.

It's also stupidly easy nowadays for a backlog to get out of control.  I can go 10 minutes down the road to my retro shops and find stacks upon stacks of games for about 100 yen.  I can find equally cheap PS2 games and it's now gotten to the point where even things like PS3 games won't exactly break the bank.  Not to mention that PC owners have to deal with Steam, constantly offering them sales on shit they may not even want but that "75% Off!" mark is just too damn tempting.  Making the whole PC situation even worse is the fucking humble bundle, offering you games at a price OF YOUR CHOOSING.  If you're feeling particularly miserly then you can add another 5 titles to your endless list for $1.  I spend more than that commuting to work for fucks sake.

Once a backlog is out of control, it's doomed to be like that forever.  You try to stop yourself but there's always some cheap way to acquire games and you may not be spending that much money but these poor poor games are doomed to be stuck on the shelf for weeks, months or maybe even years.

One day I'll topple my backlog and when that day comes I'll have to do something insane in celebration.  Until then I'm just going to carry on being a victim of Steam sales and stupidly cheap Japanese retro games.