It's a product of human psychology that have existed for millennia. Large libraries come from digital downloads making it easy to buy games (no need to drive to a brick-and-mortar store) and time-limited sales that create a fear of missing out. The difficulty in deciding what to play comes from the paradox of choice.
I solved this problem for me choosing the games by release dates. As a historian myself, It makes me feel like experiencing a console life cycle and his games
@@Brownaut1993 Note this is also the hardest part to get through a backlog, old games can be very rough to get into, and they might turn you off an entire franchise. Still my favorite way to experience a series though.
Yes in this day in age where there's a million things demanding your attention, short dense games are what the industry should move towards. With the odd 100 hour game here n there for those (kids) who still have time to play them. A short game filled from start to end with great moments instead of stretched out for time sake is such a better design in modern day. Like I committed to play through tales of arise and I literally started in November maybe october and I think I'm might be half way...
@@ryanabarca8616 "tales of..." is an extreme trash. It is worth only for very specific moments and battle systems that should scratch your unique itch of some kind. Otherwise playing it for story or to get 100% completion is tedious and boring
If looong RPG's taught me something, it's that me being "intrigued" by game is about 26 hours before I just lose interest. The game can even be good and fun, but at that point I kinda want to play something else and usually just never return. Next milestone is 60 hours (the very best games) and even the ones I love to the core (anything FromSoft), after 90 hours I'm like: "can we fucking finish already, it's been two months".
@@Surly1 yes but no. Don’t make it about completion, make it about TRYING a certain number of games from your backlog. You do not need to finish your games.
There's also a mental trick: if your backlog is too big and it keeps growing, tell yourself that it likely contains some of your favorite games that you'll never know if you don't play some of them.
I have found that to be true. Some Indy games have brought me such great enjoyment and have enev changed HOW I play games. Lone: Far Sails and Submerged are two phenomenal games that I play on my TV with a controller. That's how I played Biomutant and loved it. Relaxed and chill. Indy "Zen" games are the thing that I look forward to. As a results, Ryme, Spiritfarer, and a host of other games have become industry changers for me.
how I solved this problem: 1. uninstalled every game (except the Multiplayer ones I regularly play with Friends / Family) 2. Install ONLY ONE Single Player Game. 3. Play through it 4. uninstall the Game 5. install next Game 6. rince and repeat Beat around 50 Single Player Games this year alone.
@@theanimerapper6351 I like to switch between two to three games at a time so it stays more interesting. The worst thing though is starting a massive series as I almost always play half of the series and then it takes me like a year to play the other half.
Alternative routine: 1. Switch between playing a game you know and a game you've never played, in order to get through the games you already own. 2. When looking at deals ask your self "will I have time to play said game on offer befor it comes on sale again" saves you money and helps you avoid cluttering your library 3. categorize your games library so it will be easier to find a tittle that fits the mood your in. these three steps worked wonders for me and no 3rd party app is needed.
Sidenote to 1: Before you start your favourite go-to game, ask yourself what else you could PLAY in that time. For instance, in about the same time it takes to play one match of Counter Strike you could pick out a random game like in the video and try it out. And if it turns out that you don't like Fell Seal, oh well, CS will still be there when you get back.
@@polocatfan yeah, it has to be *at least* a 50% sale before I even consider it these days. So many games are just doing 20-30% sales which is really just barely anything. A $10 discount is not worth it for something I'm not even planning to play yet.
Point 2 is fine, until when you realize you missed the opportunity to buy a game which got delisted, for example I feed sad everytime I see the Deadpool in another steam library, wish I had bought that one when I could...
I solved this problem for myself by playing multiple games at once. I usually switch between 3 or 4 games. I get burned out easily so playing one game for 5 or 6 hours one day and then switching to another game the next day really helps me to not lose interest. I've really been knocking games out this year. I've finished probably 50 games this year. Also I never never 100% games. It takes all the fun out of it. I don't like chores
@PikaLink91 if the game is really good and you already put in more than 30 hours, of course I would insist you do extra objectives in the game. More depth and entertainment to the game than just competing the story. I think the only achievements I don't bother with is online and speed running. May be one attempt, but I normally hate those.
@@Sadeyo1 Well if it's a game I really really like and want to replay I just can't help myself trying to go as fast as possible on future run throughs. Even if I tell myself that next time is just gonna be a casual take-your-time romp, I eventually find myself taking shortcuts where I can. When I played REmake 2 and learned of the trophy of finishing the game without ever opening the item box or only taking 15.000 steps I was like no way can I do that. But as I played the game to death and everything became muscle memory, I suddenly found myself nailing both no sweat. Online though, I'm with you there. In Tomb Raider 13 for instance the online trophies are the only ones I haven't got, because I don't play a game like that for the multiplayer portion. Same why I have never even touched Last of Us's online multiplayer even after hearing it's quite good. That said though, of course you shouldn't force yourself to complete a game 100%, but like you said if it's one you really like, why NOT put in the extra effort. I mean, a chore as OP put is, is defined by something you don't wanna do but have to, right?
Great video! This may seem like a silly thing, but I suffer from all things you mention. I rarely have time to game and when I do I stare at that backlog and end up walking away as I couldn't pick anything.
This video inspired me to attempt to tackle my ever growing backlog, and I've already come across some really great games that I don't think I would have played otherwise. I accumulate so many games these days from places like humble bundles, prime gaming, and free games on the epic game store (on top of buying some during steam sales). There are so many different genres and quality of games I could play so I think that this method of using a launcher to randomly decide for me is fantastic.
I’ve been doing this for a while now but with a spreadsheet, albeit without the random selection. It helps massively to narrow your choice down. I tend to play 3-4 games at a time and set little rules like they have to be different genres and on different devices. I think I do need to start picking more randomly though because even with that method, I keep coming back to the same series. PS I think the one other improvement I’d make is, instead of an hour play at least 10% of the Hltb time. 1 hour is nothing for a JRPG but you might get the measure of a short indie title in half an hour.
One method that keeps me motivated is I keep track of every game I ever beat in a notepad file. Then I also go even further by making notepad files for each decade of game as well. Then I can say well I beat 70 games from the 2010s, 65 from the 2000s and 68 from the 1990s. So now I want to try to even the decades out by getting the 2000s and the 1990s up to 70. I can also play games released in the 2020s to my hearts content since we are only 3 years into the decade and really there just are not enough games or not enough games marked down yet for me to bother with to even get close to 70. This system for me has worked really well. The example I gave above is my First Person Perspective game list. The list use to be an FPS list, but then I decided to expand it to First Person Perspective since I found myself playing a lot of games that are not necessarily shooters, but are in the person person perspective. For example Pokemon Snap, Lego Island, Sub Nautica, Penumbra Series, The Park, Soma, ETC.
I have finally committed to cleaning up my giant backlog of games that spans all the way back to the ps1 era and 6 different platforms. Now granted it's not thousands of games, but still, it's quite a lot. Idk if I'll ever be able to clear it due to the sheer time requirement but eh, at least I'll be able to say that I tried. THE DAYS OF PLAYING THE SAME GAME OVER AND OVER ARE GONE, YOU HEAR?!
This is more a self-help video for people with a very specific problem... like me. :D Thanks much! This is an awesome video! Going to try out Playnight tonight. Didn't know such a beast existed!
I did pretty much this a few weeks ago, but i just let it go wild and only put unplayed as limit. I cut down the hour to 30m if i really dont like it but usually i played a bit longer even if it wasnt just what i wanted. Additionally i added a little spreadsheet with notes and a rating to make it fun to think about the games. Its a lot of fun to play games you would never even touch usually like this. And it had the added effect of making me want to play some more games and curious what would come up next! Great recommendation!
One other thing I've recently used is to categorize every game in my backlog into 4 categories based on how much I want to play them, those being "I want to play this ASAP," "I want to play this eventually," "I Guess I'll Play this," and "Do I HAVE to play this?" This allows you to cut it down to the ones you want to play the most, so that way there is less to choose.
The consolidation thing is going to be incredibly useful for me - I had no idea that was a thing. I don’t have a problem trying new games, my issue is finishing, but this will be incredibly useful nonetheless. Thank you!
This video is so 100% me. I have hundreds of games in my library unplayed including many AAA titles like RDR2, CyberPunk 2077, Far Cry 6, Arkham Knight, No Mans Sky, Horizon: Zero Dawn, blah blah and I can't even remember how many more. And just like your video says, none look appealing at all and I always go back to my favorites of Minecraft and Fallout 4. A big part of it for me is that learning the mechanics, familiarizing myself with the controls and understanding which things you encounter in the game are important vs. unimportant and which are common vs. uncommon ruin the immersion for me and make the game frustrating instead of relaxing. I am also understanding that I have sort of lost the ability to care about video games that fail to deliver those things that made me love Minecraft, Skyrim and Fallout 4 so much: That the open world you were in mattered to you outside of which enemies you killed or which fetch-quests you completed. The world needs to be a place you are living in. You need a home and a way to improve it. You need places to store the loot you gather. The world needs to be interesting enough to live in for hundreds or even thousands of hours without even following a questline. Without all of that, the open world serves as nothing more than an elaborate and inefficient menu from which you select your next set-piece level and if that is all this open world offers, I'd rather have a linear game in the first place. I think a lot of this gaming ennui is that I've been a developer since the 90's and when I am engaging in combat or parkour in games, if I am not already fully immersed in the world then all I see are the developers behind the pixels I am clicking at. I realize that my character never leaves the center of the screen (in action RPGs like Diablo-clones) and I start to realize I am just watching a small animation stuck to the center of the monitor and clicking certain buttons so that the coding behind those actions determine an outcome. I really hope Starfield delivers the Bethesda experience fully. I am worried that after almost 50 years of gaming, my favorite indoor hobby may be slipping away.
Very relatable topic, also props for not dragging this video out to a 20min mark and getting right into it after a funny intro. ( Or maybe I'm just biased, as I also use the " if you're anything like me, sorry " joke in my videos lmao ) subbed +1
Something that worked for me : Separate completely unopened/new games and partially played games. Apply this mandatory 1 hr to partially played games and knock off your backlog. For every few partially played games knocked off, play 1 brand new game.
I've had a similar problem with movies on streaming services, and the thing that has worked for me is the fact that many of the movies on these services are available for a limited time. Every month I look up the movies that are leaving a service and try to watch them before they leave. Another similar thing is only subscribing for a limited time. Then I have to finish the movies before that time is up. This also has the advantage of saving money.
Steam was helpful since it has a "What to play next" category you can add to your home page of the library. They added it when they reworked the steam UI and it's been really helpful in doing this. Surprised you didn't mention it if you mainly only use steam.
Pretty great idea! Thanks. For me I actually sorted it by always checking the library with the covers and not the list. It makes me feel like when we would go to Blockbuster and choose a movie. The decision of what to take home to watch was almost always based on the cover art + title. And choosing was fun usually.
Great video mate, I related to everything you discussed at the beginning. Especially the brain shutting off after mindlessly looking at the library to decide what to play. Looking forward to trying your methods, thanks
I've done something similar. When I absolutely don't know what to play, I've been choosing from one of the games in the Steam "Play Next" section of the library. I have recently combined all my libraries with PlayNite so this is a good way to go about doing it too. Especially the Metacritic search is pretty neat. One thing I've also done is stop restarting a game if I leave it for some time. This has been such a godsend especially with large games. I had a really bad habit of being, "Well, what was I doing? Time to start over." and sending 20 hours or more of gameplay down the drain just to restart, stop at around the same spot, and then repeat the process all over again. Completely maddening. Now, I just force myself to figure it out and it's actually made me stop starting so many large games at once and I've been more focused to complete the one that I'm on or at least not let it sit for so long before coming back.
That is exactly what I did when I played The Witcher 3, I would play the first few hours then stop and when I came back to it I had no clue what was going on so I'd restart. I think I did that like three times, and I still haven't gone back and played through it yet.
I think it's funny how these videos are being recommended to me after 5 years when my backlog is just about wrapped up. I pretty much did the same thing where I limited my choices but I never dropped a game. I always gave it a single playthrough.
This is actualy what i begun doing about a year or so ago, with added games considered "Classics" from consoles because i was a PC only player. And for the past 4 months, youtube has been recommending me more and more people clearing their backlog wich helped me immensly. As such now instead of writing what i played on a paper i have a Google drive file set up with expected play time, my excitement for the game before and after playing and so on. I might even look into Playnite now thanks to this video to consolidate libraries (Although i still have a lot of physical games and i am unsure how that works with Playnite)
@@HurkaTheGuard You can manually add games to Playnite for sorting porpoises. It also has emulator support for lots of emulators as long as you always sort games by console into their own folders.
I just shrunk down my list and force myself to play something even if it isn't a game from that list. This last month I was barely playing anything, watching anything, or doing anything. But this week I forced myself to start playing Dylan's Rolling Western on the 3DS despite having no urge to. And now I am back playing a new game on Steam for at least an hour at a time.
Holy shit I love you. As a person who makes a list and tries to stick with it and then falls apart half way through the year this is gunna help me beat more than 100 games this year lol
That game that you played reminded me of a GBA game that looks similar and i played so many years ago. Thanks now i finally can play it again after vaguely remembering it for years. The game is Tactics Ogre - The Knight Of Lodis in case someone is interested.
2 years ago I broke up with my gf three months before our wedding (close one), used the wedding budget to buy a 3080 pc (during the covid scalping era). Since then I've played through 134 games, completed 83 of them (my proudest is 100% achievements on Nioh 2) and giving the rest a good chance, totalling something like 3000 hours of game time. I've completed my backlog. It wasn't a huge backlog, but it was mine. And I finished it. I still have games I want to play, but they're not must play, backlog material. It feels good.
Really like this concept. My library just keeps getting larger. But unfortunately it's spread out across steam, switch, and xbox. Makes it a little harder. But I'm making my way through it!
I haven't finished the video yet, but one thing that causes issues for me is that I suck at knowing what genre I wanna play. The only thing I have noticed with me is when I have a lot of pent up energy, I wanna play fast paced action-y games like shooters, and otherwise it's like "whatever" for what to play. I don't know of a good categorization system to sort through what I would wanna play or what not. Also good timing on this video as I was struggling to figure out what to play last night and ended up finally choosing Quantum Break which I've never played before, which I mostly chose because it's a Remedy game and I love all their games. EDIT: Oh you need self control for this? Well rip me haha Honestly I've thought of doing something similar, randomly generating from my list of games, tho I never knew about services like Playnite so I was thinking of writing a python script with my list of games in a notepad or something lol But yea seems like good advice!
If you're not sure of the genre, you could always go full pot luck and leave that empty, just pop the review scores up. Also you can choose multiple genres, leaving out the ones you know you don't want to play. There is a certain amount of self control needed, but part of managing that is being aware of what your brain is going to try to do, and what tricks it's going to play on you.
I plan on chipping through my backlog this year, and your "play a random game for one hour" tactic seems pretty viable. I'll give it a shot and see how it works. Thanks!
I just started Persona 5 after putting it on hold for years , since its original release. as of right now it might be my favorite jrpg ever and I just completed 2nd Boss , still have a long way to go. I'll use this method for my next game. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for this video. Although I am unlikely to use the tool you recommended for streamlining my libraries, I still enjoyed listening to your approach. And browsing through my library, I found out I own "Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark", so I followed your advice and played it for an hour. It's not a bad game at all! I see myself playing this on my steam deck, on a Sunday morning on the couch with a coffee. Cheers!
There is much wisdom in this video! But the key element of course is simply removing what we cherish the most: freedom of hoice It's like having to do household chores but procrastinating / debating with yourself. The solution is equally simple: just do them!
i'm doing this right now with my steam library. playing every game on the list, in alphabetical order, for at least 8 hours (exceptions are, if a game is much shorter, like "35mm" or if a game bores the shit out of me like "agony" which i quit after 3 hours". and you know what, i like it, now i'm playing alekhine's gun and i'm having a blast playing different genres every day
My solution for my 100+ game collection consists of several factors: 1): Looking up the general consensus ratings for each game and listing all the games that have one into a list from best to worst, then work my way UP the list. (I prefer to save the best games for last). 2): Split the list by system type (different consoles and formats). Hope this helps others out there...
What worked for me: I hide all of my steam library, and then I only search through my hidden steam library with thumbnails, and not on the collection tab to the left. Then I put a custom artwork on all games I dont feel like playing for the moment ( A big red X custom picture) and then I unhide 5 or so games that I will try out for the forseeable future until I get bored with any of them, If I dont feel enganged I hide it and sometimes return to it If I feel like it in the future, works well for me so far. also sort games by hours played or metacritic score can be useful.
i have a similar way of doing this... I set up my steam library in a few collection: finished, will finish, unplayed, time to stop and didn't like I start by picking a few games from my unplayed list and moving them to the "will finish" collection. Then i play pick a game from this collection and play it until i finish it, or decide i don't like it. Either way i move it to it's respective collection(finished or didn't like). For games that i see that i ended up liking a little bit too much and ended up having a lot of hours on it, i move it to "time to stop". I usually take a week or two on a game, then i move on to the next one. Using this method, i have played and finished more than 50 games this year.
@@Kaiji... maaan, I was a heavy Destiny fan. I have thousands of hours and great memories between both games, but I had to move on. It was a second job 😭. I'm finally attacking my backlog, but I think D2 is planning their final expansion, so until then, I have a bunch of other games I want to play
@@JO-hs1ue Same, D2 felt like a chore. Every update was the same where you collect weapons only for them to be useless by the next. Insanity levels of an endless loop. I only liked PVP by the end since I had like a 4 KD and "got good". I quit during Beyond Light & I refuse to go back. It doesn't help that I can't stand playing with other people 99% of the time, I go into a zen mode when I'm alone and it's great & relaxing for me, I'm weird, I know. OW2 being garbage helped me quit that too, I'd still be playing OW1 if it still existed lol.
After years of collecting games through gifts, giveaways and sales, I finally took some time, made a list of "Series games" that are at least 3 games and am currently going through that list, currently on Assassin's Creed 3, next up is Bioshock...and then I bought Halo MCC on sale, but I did start playing it right away, so that's not as bad as some purchases
I agree with your random game for an hour method, but 20-30mins is more than plenty in most cases. I'm currently going through a 3.5K Steam Library and in 30mins I have enough time to assess what type of game it is and to know if I like it nor if its worth playing.
I see you're a smaller channel right now, but I just wanted to offer encouragement and say that I absolutely love the concept behind your channel. I think this is a fantastic idea. Keep up the good work! Subscribed for sure.
I actually have something similar. On steam I have categories for type of game (indie, AAA and multiplayer) but also two more categories. One is called "meh" and it's all the games I either don't like or haven't played, while the other one is called "playlist". I only allow myself 5 games in the playlist, and whenever I buy a game it must go in the playlist. It encourages me to really choose my purchases, and make my way through games I do choose to get. Once I've played it, it either goes into my main categories listed before, or returns to "meh". I made it through many sales without buying stuff and makes me really evaluate the games I actually enjoy playing versus the ones I enjoyed buying.
This is a problem I am well acquainted with. There's just so many games out there that interests me, yet no matter what I do, I can't seem to even put a dent in my backlog; with every game that I mark off of the list, several more take its place. My solution that I've settled on to win this battle is... to not fight it. I've made peace with the fact that I will most definitely not be able to experience even a fraction of the games I'm interested in, no matter how many lifetimes I have at my disposal. By doing this, I've accepted that I will most definitely miss out on my next favorite game, or perhaps even the best games I will ever play, but that's okay. To compensate for this, I will enjoy the games I get to play with the extremely limited time I have on this Earth to the fullest. I will savor every detail, every feeling that they make me feel, and every thought that they make me think, up until I consider myself done with them. I've come to this decision after realizing that it takes some time to properly experience a game. A game that you like can become a game that you love if you spend the time and effort to master it, and this process takes time. This is especially hard to do when you play games to complete them as fast as possible, to be done with them as soon as possible. At that point, you're no longer playing games to have fun, you're playing games with the end goal to cross them off of your list, with enjoyment being the byproduct of this process. Again, It's okay to miss out. Don't let FOMO ruin gaming for you!
I can’t use this method as I collect physical games but what I do is pick 5 games on my older consoles, then play 5 games on my newer consoles. This works well for me I normally finish about 30 games a year, the games I play are around 8-20 hours but I do play a few 50-100 hour games. My collection does grew as I still trying to find 170 games for 13 consoles but once I complete my collection for my older consoles, I will focus on new games.
Years ago I started creating quarterly collections. So sometimes when I think about getting around to games I bought, I check back to what I bought in say Q1.2022 . What did I never play? Now's the time. And I just work my way upwards until there aren't any more games that interest me at the moment, then I jump back further than Q1 2022 and see what was in Q1 2021.
Letting the dice choose for you saves you from paralysis by analysis , when you have too many choices you waste more time just looking at them than actually playing. If we all played 30 minutes per day (and trust me, people would spend 30 minutes just staring at their backlog while they watch youtube) which doesn't sound like a lot we would still finish a bunch of games by the end of the year, probably more than most people do.
I just put everything I buy or someone buys for me in a big backlog list on HLTB, and pick 3 games I feel like playing, sometimes I let the site pick for me at random. When I joined HLTB, I had 200 games in my backlog. Cut it down to 100. But then 5 years later I have over 500 beaten games recorded on the site. And I'm still stuck with around a 100 games in my backlog. I'm the kind of person that NEEDS to complete what I buy, go figure.
You could modify the method with an additional trick, if you feel like you would be able to pick between a cheese and a cake: roll the die twice and choose between the two outcomes. This could make the start of the playtime easier on your brain, since it *has* made a choice, even if though it was constrained.
We all have an issue with trying to find the game, or video or anything else, that "hits the spot" since it's been ruined by doomscrolling. I enjoy seeing this kind of video (seems that more and more people are making them, and we can see why...) and the kernel of them is that you just need to commit, no exceptions, for a full hour. We need to commit to things whether or not we think in advance that it will "hit the spot" and allow ourselves the joy of discovery and the pain of disappointment instead of being lost in the valley of satiation
100% the other day I was reading a book in a hammock the garden. I left my phone in the house and made the decision not to go and get it. Honestly one of the most relaxing afternoons I've had.
In addition to this, I have some other "systems". For example, if I buy too many indie games at once, I must play most of them. Last week I bought 6 indie games and I already finished 4 of them. This was doable because their play time was between 2 and 8 hours. 2 of them slipped me and I will probably not play them for a long time. But I feel a sense of accomplishment just because I finished 4 of them. I also choose the genre of the next game in a round-robin order. This keeps the games I play diverse, and also trims down my choices. For example I may go like RPG - Metroidvania - Roguelike - Shooter. I had another system to never buy a game unless I have unfinished games in my library, but that one is obviously too hard to maintain when Steam presents you something like 90% discount.
Thank you for the tip on sticking to an hour. I have a system to sample all of the games I get, but I do often bail early. I do reserve the right to quit games that belong to genres I'm not particularly fond of in less time, but outside of that I'll be using the hour mark. Wish me luck.
the crazy thing is I still remember not knowing what game to play when I had 50 games on steam and now I have 1000 on steam and 100 on epic now it’s impossible so this helped
On top of this pick two games, one long, one play and drop type game and have those as the only two games downloaded. This way if you have a good chunk of time you play the long game, if you only got a half hour you play the one that you can save anytime/complete a run in 20-30 minutes
I think Im going to try doing this once a day or so. That way, I can get through my backlog and try more of my own games while still playing other games I care about.
One hour is not enough time for most games. Learning how to use the controls usually takes up a large chunk of the hour. Starting a new game can be a significant investment of time. That is a big part of the reason for backlogs of unplayed games (plus, of course, the I can't pass up this bargain syndrome).
@@rogoznicafc9672 1. Commit to playing a game at least every other day. Never let more than two days go by without playing. The longer you go without playing, the more games will come out. Making your backlog longer 2. Make a list of all the games you own but have not played yet 3. The first games I played from my Backlog are the games I believe are most likely to get Spoiled for example AAA games & popular games. Usually Story driven games like Last of Us God of War, Whicher 3 4. Once those are done, I play the shortest games on my list so I can get them done faster and out of the way. Usually indie games. Check how long to beat website to see how long the games on your backlog are 5. After I beat the shorter games (games under 10 hours) I play the oldest games from my list so that I'm not out of touch with classic games and also not get spoiled. Games from two Generations ago lol 6. After I beat those games, I focus on the harder/longer games on my list because they will take the longest time to beat and will prevent me from getting to other games faster as they come out because of how long they are. Ex. Fromsoftware games, Roguelikes, Bullet Hell games. 7. Finally the last games on my backlog I play are the ones that the most obscure that I know will not get spoiled because they are niche games and not likely to be talked about as much .I'm not hyped for but still mildly interested to play them.
This is pretty much what I've been doing for a while now, just with less steps, I just open steam (since 99% of my games are there), go to my backlog collection filled with Humble Bundle games and do 1 of 3 things, Pick from a genre I'm looking for, Pick a game I think DOESN'T look interesting so I can just get them out of the way since I'm pretty good at telling if I won't like a game but I still have to be sure since I already own it or I just use a random number generator, I got my backlog down from 120+ down to below 40 in about a month or 2
Like this method! i wanna add something to it too. Might be a bit masochistic if you have thousands of games but for me has less of 100. Add another list "Exclusive" list of games i really want to play/give a try. Can't touch that one at all, only after the other is completed. Feels faster to empty the backlog, find hidden gems & at the end is a big reward when you try out exclusive list.
The method I started using was commuting to whatever game I pick no matter what… with only one real exception and a few caveats. The exception was if a new game I have been looking forward to comes out during the playthrough I would put said game on pause to play the new shiny, and also I’m allowed 2 additional games, one shorter new game to change things up or when I have less time, and one game I have already played and allows me to decompress when I’m stressed. I began doing this last year and by my count I beat about 17 games. This year I’m committing harder to this plan and actively mapping out new games I will get ahead of time, and planning my backlog ahead of time so I’m not in the middle of one thing when something new comes out, in addition I’m going to keep a journal of the games I’ve beaten and plan to beat so I have more clear goals, it’s similar to your strategy except for me it’s easier to just commit hard to something I have been eyeing instead of letting chance dictate this
The game you've already played for decompressing is a smart one I think I'll steal that idea. I'll add an adendum that I have to at least start a new game after replaying something instead of just replaying another game immediately.
I've been smashing through my backlog lately. Didnt buy any game this christmas, not even on very cheap sales. Been enjoying gaming way more because of it. Its just a matter of control and self discipline
This is gonna be long but anyways the biggest time investment are 100% contents like achievements mainly but it helps me decide what backlogs to clear. This is useful to consider when you got spreadsheets which helps greatly. Since I naively bought games that I may hate I am the type to finish it no matter what I just need a plan. After all, I need to take baby steps and go beyond efficient. List of websites I used to help my 100% backlogs: - All achievement websites - Infinite Backlog - Backloggery - TrueSteamAchievements - Of course HowLongToBeat I took the gamble to 100% my Like a Dragon 0 game this month but its my daunting backlog and I need to 100% it, I got burnout like before but in the end I really feel like victory is mine.
This beats my system of remembering i have a backlog, installing my last 10 purchased games, playing one of them, forget about the rest even if i didnt like the first one, 6 months pass "hmm why are all these games installed, best uninstall them". rinse repeat
Ok, I've filled myself full of crap, now we can talk. Good way to go about it. I thought about consoIidating for a while. I personally try to narrow down to a few games I really want to try, and then pick one and don't listen to brain who would get you endlessly searching. You're spot on about that, same with streaming services etc. And also, I try not to let completionist brain take control to press myself to finish games if I lost interest along the way, I just don"'t care anymore, it saves time and is way more fun that way. And so the games I finish are those I really like.
i almost never buy games without playing them except when i buy a physical box mainly for collecting. still have a big backlog because you get so many games for free these days
Great idea 👌. The way I did it was by checking the games which had a download size of less than 5GB and supported steam cards. So I played each game until I collected all cards. I discovered so many hidden gems using this method. Next I'll up the download size to 10 gb and do the same.
![How to Deal with your Overwhelming Backlog - [SuperSamBams]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/y3KJ0Abd96c/mqdefault.jpg)
You know we are fucked as a society if we need a tutorial on how to entertain our selves with the things we already bought.
Yup
lmao
It works with books the same, it's humanity that's flawed 🤣
No kidding
It's a product of human psychology that have existed for millennia. Large libraries come from digital downloads making it easy to buy games (no need to drive to a brick-and-mortar store) and time-limited sales that create a fear of missing out. The difficulty in deciding what to play comes from the paradox of choice.
I solved this problem for me choosing the games by release dates. As a historian myself, It makes me feel like experiencing a console life cycle and his games
This is an excellent idea that I will try
@@Brownaut1993 Note this is also the hardest part to get through a backlog, old games can be very rough to get into, and they might turn you off an entire franchise.
Still my favorite way to experience a series though.
How do you filter by release date?
Could this be called something like, say, Digital Historical Larping?
LMAO who calls themselves a "historian"? Pretentious (and inaccurate) AF
Games like high on life, ff7 crisis core reunion, a plauge tale requiem are honestly a blessing when games keep coming out at 40+ hours
Yes in this day in age where there's a million things demanding your attention, short dense games are what the industry should move towards. With the odd 100 hour game here n there for those (kids) who still have time to play them. A short game filled from start to end with great moments instead of stretched out for time sake is such a better design in modern day.
Like I committed to play through tales of arise and I literally started in November maybe october and I think I'm might be half way...
@@ryanabarca8616 "tales of..." is an extreme trash. It is worth only for very specific moments and battle systems that should scratch your unique itch of some kind. Otherwise playing it for story or to get 100% completion is tedious and boring
If looong RPG's taught me something, it's that me being "intrigued" by game is about 26 hours before I just lose interest. The game can even be good and fun, but at that point I kinda want to play something else and usually just never return. Next milestone is 60 hours (the very best games) and even the ones I love to the core (anything FromSoft), after 90 hours I'm like: "can we fucking finish already, it's been two months".
@@deusheart1333 don’t worry, it’s okay to be wrong sometimes. Tales of slaps
Games are WAY too long though fr
@@rusty7448 I play through a shorter action heavy game if I start getting bored of a JRPG then come back to it.
I bought a bunch of games like a month ago. Was really excited to play them all. I am currently replaying Dark Souls 3 for absolutely no reason.
You made the right choice
@@HostOfFrenziedFlame I mean, it's not like I regret it. DS3 is awesome.
One solution to this problem is to add a rule that you can replay a favourite game after completing a certain number of games from your backlog
@@Surly1 yes but no. Don’t make it about completion, make it about TRYING a certain number of games from your backlog. You do not need to finish your games.
There's also a mental trick: if your backlog is too big and it keeps growing, tell yourself that it likely contains some of your favorite games that you'll never know if you don't play some of them.
I have found that to be true. Some Indy games have brought me such great enjoyment and have enev changed HOW I play games.
Lone: Far Sails and Submerged are two phenomenal games that I play on my TV with a controller. That's how I played Biomutant and loved it. Relaxed and chill. Indy "Zen" games are the thing that I look forward to. As a results, Ryme, Spiritfarer, and a host of other games have become industry changers for me.
Yep that legitimately was true for me.
BioShock Infinite and Prey have become some of my favourites
how I solved this problem:
1. uninstalled every game (except the Multiplayer ones I regularly play with Friends / Family)
2. Install ONLY ONE Single Player Game.
3. Play through it
4. uninstall the Game
5. install next Game
6. rince and repeat
Beat around 50 Single Player Games this year alone.
I swear I'm going to do this in 2023 lol. My problem is I'm always hopping from game to game
@@theanimerapper6351 I like to switch between two to three games at a time so it stays more interesting. The worst thing though is starting a massive series as I almost always play half of the series and then it takes me like a year to play the other half.
"You have enough games"
That's right, and not enough time to play them all.
You got that right!
Alternative routine:
1. Switch between playing a game you know and a game you've never played, in order to get through the games you already own.
2. When looking at deals ask your self "will I have time to play said game on offer befor it comes on sale again" saves you money and helps you avoid cluttering your library
3. categorize your games library so it will be easier to find a tittle that fits the mood your in.
these three steps worked wonders for me and no 3rd party app is needed.
Point 2 saves me a lot of money. Also, if I still want the game next time it goes on sale then there's a good chance I'll actually be into it
I typically buy games that I'm either going to play immediately or games on a mega sale.
Sidenote to 1: Before you start your favourite go-to game, ask yourself what else you could PLAY in that time.
For instance, in about the same time it takes to play one match of Counter Strike you could pick out a random game like in the video and try it out. And if it turns out that you don't like Fell Seal, oh well, CS will still be there when you get back.
@@polocatfan yeah, it has to be *at least* a 50% sale before I even consider it these days. So many games are just doing 20-30% sales which is really just barely anything. A $10 discount is not worth it for something I'm not even planning to play yet.
Point 2 is fine, until when you realize you missed the opportunity to buy a game which got delisted, for example I feed sad everytime I see the Deadpool in another steam library, wish I had bought that one when I could...
The never ending loop of scrolling + thinking + buying games
IT was Madness, I have been there !
I solved this problem for myself by playing multiple games at once. I usually switch between 3 or 4 games. I get burned out easily so playing one game for 5 or 6 hours one day and then switching to another game the next day really helps me to not lose interest. I've really been knocking games out this year. I've finished probably 50 games this year. Also I never never 100% games. It takes all the fun out of it. I don't like chores
You see it as a chore? I just don’t like to leave something unfinished.
@PikaLink91 if the game is really good and you already put in more than 30 hours, of course I would insist you do extra objectives in the game. More depth and entertainment to the game than just competing the story.
I think the only achievements I don't bother with is online and speed running. May be one attempt, but I normally hate those.
@@Sadeyo1 Well if it's a game I really really like and want to replay I just can't help myself trying to go as fast as possible on future run throughs. Even if I tell myself that next time is just gonna be a casual take-your-time romp, I eventually find myself taking shortcuts where I can. When I played REmake 2 and learned of the trophy of finishing the game without ever opening the item box or only taking 15.000 steps I was like no way can I do that. But as I played the game to death and everything became muscle memory, I suddenly found myself nailing both no sweat.
Online though, I'm with you there. In Tomb Raider 13 for instance the online trophies are the only ones I haven't got, because I don't play a game like that for the multiplayer portion. Same why I have never even touched Last of Us's online multiplayer even after hearing it's quite good.
That said though, of course you shouldn't force yourself to complete a game 100%, but like you said if it's one you really like, why NOT put in the extra effort. I mean, a chore as OP put is, is defined by something you don't wanna do but have to, right?
Haven't had that much laugh for a while now,
it's really realistic for me. THANK YOU!!!
Great video!
This may seem like a silly thing, but I suffer from all things you mention. I rarely have time to game and when I do I stare at that backlog and end up walking away as I couldn't pick anything.
Hope it helps.
same here but i tend to just throw rocket league on
This video inspired me to attempt to tackle my ever growing backlog, and I've already come across some really great games that I don't think I would have played otherwise. I accumulate so many games these days from places like humble bundles, prime gaming, and free games on the epic game store (on top of buying some during steam sales). There are so many different genres and quality of games I could play so I think that this method of using a launcher to randomly decide for me is fantastic.
I’ve been doing this for a while now but with a spreadsheet, albeit without the random selection. It helps massively to narrow your choice down. I tend to play 3-4 games at a time and set little rules like they have to be different genres and on different devices. I think I do need to start picking more randomly though because even with that method, I keep coming back to the same series.
PS I think the one other improvement I’d make is, instead of an hour play at least 10% of the Hltb time. 1 hour is nothing for a JRPG but you might get the measure of a short indie title in half an hour.
Easily the most helpful backlog video I've seen. Great work!
One method that keeps me motivated is I keep track of every game I ever beat in a notepad file. Then I also go even further by making notepad files for each decade of game as well. Then I can say well I beat 70 games from the 2010s, 65 from the 2000s and 68 from the 1990s. So now I want to try to even the decades out by getting the 2000s and the 1990s up to 70. I can also play games released in the 2020s to my hearts content since we are only 3 years into the decade and really there just are not enough games or not enough games marked down yet for me to bother with to even get close to 70.
This system for me has worked really well.
The example I gave above is my First Person Perspective game list. The list use to be an FPS list, but then I decided to expand it to First Person Perspective since I found myself playing a lot of games that are not necessarily shooters, but are in the person person perspective. For example Pokemon Snap, Lego Island, Sub Nautica, Penumbra Series, The Park, Soma, ETC.
You're a good writer and presenter. Looking forward to seeing your channel grow!
I have finally committed to cleaning up my giant backlog of games that spans all the way back to the ps1 era and 6 different platforms. Now granted it's not thousands of games, but still, it's quite a lot. Idk if I'll ever be able to clear it due to the sheer time requirement but eh, at least I'll be able to say that I tried. THE DAYS OF PLAYING THE SAME GAME OVER AND OVER ARE GONE, YOU HEAR?!
YOU CAN DO IT!
This is more a self-help video for people with a very specific problem... like me. :D
Thanks much! This is an awesome video! Going to try out Playnight tonight. Didn't know such a beast existed!
I did pretty much this a few weeks ago, but i just let it go wild and only put unplayed as limit. I cut down the hour to 30m if i really dont like it but usually i played a bit longer even if it wasnt just what i wanted. Additionally i added a little spreadsheet with notes and a rating to make it fun to think about the games.
Its a lot of fun to play games you would never even touch usually like this. And it had the added effect of making me want to play some more games and curious what would come up next! Great recommendation!
One other thing I've recently used is to categorize every game in my backlog into 4 categories based on how much I want to play them, those being "I want to play this ASAP," "I want to play this eventually," "I Guess I'll Play this," and "Do I HAVE to play this?" This allows you to cut it down to the ones you want to play the most, so that way there is less to choose.
Ywnbaw
@@ПётрПавловский-щ1х certainly
The consolidation thing is going to be incredibly useful for me - I had no idea that was a thing. I don’t have a problem trying new games, my issue is finishing, but this will be incredibly useful nonetheless. Thank you!
I don't have this problem since after work and studying I'm super excited for gaming but i have many friends that really need this!
I guess this is why I like physical games, it's self limiting and I can take a little pile out to work through. Digital library is well large
This video is so 100% me. I have hundreds of games in my library unplayed including many AAA titles like RDR2, CyberPunk 2077, Far Cry 6, Arkham Knight, No Mans Sky, Horizon: Zero Dawn, blah blah and I can't even remember how many more. And just like your video says, none look appealing at all and I always go back to my favorites of Minecraft and Fallout 4.
A big part of it for me is that learning the mechanics, familiarizing myself with the controls and understanding which things you encounter in the game are important vs. unimportant and which are common vs. uncommon ruin the immersion for me and make the game frustrating instead of relaxing.
I am also understanding that I have sort of lost the ability to care about video games that fail to deliver those things that made me love Minecraft, Skyrim and Fallout 4 so much: That the open world you were in mattered to you outside of which enemies you killed or which fetch-quests you completed. The world needs to be a place you are living in. You need a home and a way to improve it. You need places to store the loot you gather. The world needs to be interesting enough to live in for hundreds or even thousands of hours without even following a questline.
Without all of that, the open world serves as nothing more than an elaborate and inefficient menu from which you select your next set-piece level and if that is all this open world offers, I'd rather have a linear game in the first place.
I think a lot of this gaming ennui is that I've been a developer since the 90's and when I am engaging in combat or parkour in games, if I am not already fully immersed in the world then all I see are the developers behind the pixels I am clicking at. I realize that my character never leaves the center of the screen (in action RPGs like Diablo-clones) and I start to realize I am just watching a small animation stuck to the center of the monitor and clicking certain buttons so that the coding behind those actions determine an outcome.
I really hope Starfield delivers the Bethesda experience fully. I am worried that after almost 50 years of gaming, my favorite indoor hobby may be slipping away.
Very relatable topic, also props for not dragging this video out to a 20min mark and getting right into it after a funny intro. ( Or maybe I'm just biased, as I also use the " if you're anything like me, sorry " joke in my videos lmao ) subbed +1
Something that worked for me : Separate completely unopened/new games and partially played games.
Apply this mandatory 1 hr to partially played games and knock off your backlog.
For every few partially played games knocked off, play 1 brand new game.
I've had a similar problem with movies on streaming services, and the thing that has worked for me is the fact that many of the movies on these services are available for a limited time. Every month I look up the movies that are leaving a service and try to watch them before they leave.
Another similar thing is only subscribing for a limited time. Then I have to finish the movies before that time is up. This also has the advantage of saving money.
Steam was helpful since it has a "What to play next" category you can add to your home page of the library. They added it when they reworked the steam UI and it's been really helpful in doing this. Surprised you didn't mention it if you mainly only use steam.
Pretty great idea! Thanks. For me I actually sorted it by always checking the library with the covers and not the list. It makes me feel like when we would go to Blockbuster and choose a movie. The decision of what to take home to watch was almost always based on the cover art + title. And choosing was fun usually.
Great video mate, I related to everything you discussed at the beginning. Especially the brain shutting off after mindlessly looking at the library to decide what to play.
Looking forward to trying your methods, thanks
I've done something similar. When I absolutely don't know what to play, I've been choosing from one of the games in the Steam "Play Next" section of the library. I have recently combined all my libraries with PlayNite so this is a good way to go about doing it too. Especially the Metacritic search is pretty neat. One thing I've also done is stop restarting a game if I leave it for some time. This has been such a godsend especially with large games. I had a really bad habit of being, "Well, what was I doing? Time to start over." and sending 20 hours or more of gameplay down the drain just to restart, stop at around the same spot, and then repeat the process all over again. Completely maddening. Now, I just force myself to figure it out and it's actually made me stop starting so many large games at once and I've been more focused to complete the one that I'm on or at least not let it sit for so long before coming back.
That is exactly what I did when I played The Witcher 3, I would play the first few hours then stop and when I came back to it I had no clue what was going on so I'd restart. I think I did that like three times, and I still haven't gone back and played through it yet.
@@Chicken144p Yeah, that's me for the Witcher 2 lol. Haven't even started 3
I think it's funny how these videos are being recommended to me after 5 years when my backlog is just about wrapped up. I pretty much did the same thing where I limited my choices but I never dropped a game. I always gave it a single playthrough.
This is actualy what i begun doing about a year or so ago, with added games considered "Classics" from consoles because i was a PC only player.
And for the past 4 months, youtube has been recommending me more and more people clearing their backlog wich helped me immensly. As such now instead of writing what i played on a paper i have a Google drive file set up with expected play time, my excitement for the game before and after playing and so on. I might even look into Playnite now thanks to this video to consolidate libraries (Although i still have a lot of physical games and i am unsure how that works with Playnite)
@@HurkaTheGuard You can manually add games to Playnite for sorting porpoises. It also has emulator support for lots of emulators as long as you always sort games by console into their own folders.
I just shrunk down my list and force myself to play something even if it isn't a game from that list.
This last month I was barely playing anything, watching anything, or doing anything. But this week I forced myself to start playing Dylan's Rolling Western on the 3DS despite having no urge to. And now I am back playing a new game on Steam for at least an hour at a time.
Holy shit I love you. As a person who makes a list and tries to stick with it and then falls apart half way through the year this is gunna help me beat more than 100 games this year lol
That game that you played reminded me of a GBA game that looks similar and i played so many years ago.
Thanks now i finally can play it again after vaguely remembering it for years.
The game is Tactics Ogre - The Knight Of Lodis in case someone is interested.
2 years ago I broke up with my gf three months before our wedding (close one), used the wedding budget to buy a 3080 pc (during the covid scalping era). Since then I've played through 134 games, completed 83 of them (my proudest is 100% achievements on Nioh 2) and giving the rest a good chance, totalling something like 3000 hours of game time. I've completed my backlog. It wasn't a huge backlog, but it was mine. And I finished it. I still have games I want to play, but they're not must play, backlog material. It feels good.
Really like this concept. My library just keeps getting larger. But unfortunately it's spread out across steam, switch, and xbox. Makes it a little harder. But I'm making my way through it!
Use Playnite and add games manually for sorting.
I love getting recommended a good video from a small channel. I wish the algo was smart enough to do that more often.
This is actually really helpful! Cheers mate, definitely gonna give this a try
I haven't finished the video yet, but one thing that causes issues for me is that I suck at knowing what genre I wanna play. The only thing I have noticed with me is when I have a lot of pent up energy, I wanna play fast paced action-y games like shooters, and otherwise it's like "whatever" for what to play. I don't know of a good categorization system to sort through what I would wanna play or what not.
Also good timing on this video as I was struggling to figure out what to play last night and ended up finally choosing Quantum Break which I've never played before, which I mostly chose because it's a Remedy game and I love all their games.
EDIT: Oh you need self control for this? Well rip me haha Honestly I've thought of doing something similar, randomly generating from my list of games, tho I never knew about services like Playnite so I was thinking of writing a python script with my list of games in a notepad or something lol
But yea seems like good advice!
If you're not sure of the genre, you could always go full pot luck and leave that empty, just pop the review scores up. Also you can choose multiple genres, leaving out the ones you know you don't want to play. There is a certain amount of self control needed, but part of managing that is being aware of what your brain is going to try to do, and what tricks it's going to play on you.
I’ve played through quantum break twice it’s a super fun game
I found very simple method - just DON'T PLAY ANYTHING.
Eventually your brain will ask you for the absolutely RIGHT game for it himself :)
This was a very helpful video with amusing bits of humor I really enjoyed mixed in, keep up the great work! ❤
I plan on chipping through my backlog this year, and your "play a random game for one hour" tactic seems pretty viable. I'll give it a shot and see how it works. Thanks!
I just started Persona 5 after putting it on hold for years , since its original release. as of right now it might be my favorite jrpg ever and I just completed 2nd Boss , still have a long way to go. I'll use this method for my next game. Thanks for sharing.
Knowing Persona 5,that might be a while.
"You have enough games." No truer words has ever been said.
Thank you for this video. Although I am unlikely to use the tool you recommended for streamlining my libraries, I still enjoyed listening to your approach. And browsing through my library, I found out I own "Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark", so I followed your advice and played it for an hour. It's not a bad game at all! I see myself playing this on my steam deck, on a Sunday morning on the couch with a coffee. Cheers!
There is much wisdom in this video!
But the key element of course is simply removing what we cherish the most: freedom of hoice
It's like having to do household chores but procrastinating / debating with yourself.
The solution is equally simple: just do them!
i'm doing this right now with my steam library.
playing every game on the list, in alphabetical order, for at least 8 hours (exceptions are, if a game is much shorter, like "35mm" or if a game bores the shit out of me like "agony" which i quit after 3 hours".
and you know what, i like it, now i'm playing alekhine's gun and i'm having a blast playing different genres every day
My solution for my 100+ game collection consists of several factors:
1): Looking up the general consensus ratings for each game and listing all the games that have one into a list from best to worst, then work my way UP the list. (I prefer to save the best games for last).
2): Split the list by system type (different consoles and formats).
Hope this helps others out there...
If I had so many games when I was kid id probably think this is heaven and im dead.
I was bored and decided to give this video a go. Im glad I did. Subbed.
7:36 I need to save the clip of you saying "you have enough games", and play it on repeat whenever I open the Steam store during a major sale.
**me laughs nervously in the amount of CRPG backlogs**
What worked for me: I hide all of my steam library, and then I only search through my hidden steam library with thumbnails, and not on the collection tab to the left. Then I put a custom artwork on all games I dont feel like playing for the moment ( A big red X custom picture) and then I unhide 5 or so games that I will try out for the forseeable future until I get bored with any of them, If I dont feel enganged I hide it and sometimes return to it If I feel like it in the future, works well for me so far. also sort games by hours played or metacritic score can be useful.
How I solved my backlog before it could get back at me:
Hey look a game!
Is it Soulslike?
... No.
Alright, moving on.
Just downloaded it! Gonna give it a gander and see if I can get through my Library
Good Luck!
i have a similar way of doing this...
I set up my steam library in a few collection: finished, will finish, unplayed, time to stop and didn't like
I start by picking a few games from my unplayed list and moving them to the "will finish" collection. Then i play pick a game from this collection and play it until i finish it, or decide i don't like it. Either way i move it to it's respective collection(finished or didn't like). For games that i see that i ended up liking a little bit too much and ended up having a lot of hours on it, i move it to "time to stop".
I usually take a week or two on a game, then i move on to the next one. Using this method, i have played and finished more than 50 games this year.
Just forcing myself to not play online fps games. It's actually working. It also helps that they are in a terrible spot right now, lol
This!!!!!
Same, OW1 & D2 took like 4 years out of me, would've been way happier playing 20+ new games instead tbh
@@Kaiji... maaan, I was a heavy Destiny fan. I have thousands of hours and great memories between both games, but I had to move on. It was a second job 😭. I'm finally attacking my backlog, but I think D2 is planning their final expansion, so until then, I have a bunch of other games I want to play
@@JO-hs1ue Same, D2 felt like a chore. Every update was the same where you collect weapons only for them to be useless by the next. Insanity levels of an endless loop. I only liked PVP by the end since I had like a 4 KD and "got good". I quit during Beyond Light & I refuse to go back. It doesn't help that I can't stand playing with other people 99% of the time, I go into a zen mode when I'm alone and it's great & relaxing for me, I'm weird, I know.
OW2 being garbage helped me quit that too, I'd still be playing OW1 if it still existed lol.
After years of collecting games through gifts, giveaways and sales, I finally took some time, made a list of "Series games" that are at least 3 games and am currently going through that list, currently on Assassin's Creed 3, next up is Bioshock...and then I bought Halo MCC on sale, but I did start playing it right away, so that's not as bad as some purchases
I agree with your random game for an hour method, but 20-30mins is more than plenty in most cases. I'm currently going through a 3.5K Steam Library and in 30mins I have enough time to assess what type of game it is and to know if I like it nor if its worth playing.
I see you're a smaller channel right now, but I just wanted to offer encouragement and say that I absolutely love the concept behind your channel. I think this is a fantastic idea. Keep up the good work! Subscribed for sure.
I actually have something similar. On steam I have categories for type of game (indie, AAA and multiplayer) but also two more categories. One is called "meh" and it's all the games I either don't like or haven't played, while the other one is called "playlist". I only allow myself 5 games in the playlist, and whenever I buy a game it must go in the playlist. It encourages me to really choose my purchases, and make my way through games I do choose to get. Once I've played it, it either goes into my main categories listed before, or returns to "meh". I made it through many sales without buying stuff and makes me really evaluate the games I actually enjoy playing versus the ones I enjoyed buying.
ehh this feels like a chore I think I'll just keep playing halo 3
This is a problem I am well acquainted with. There's just so many games out there that interests me, yet no matter what I do, I can't seem to even put a dent in my backlog; with every game that I mark off of the list, several more take its place. My solution that I've settled on to win this battle is... to not fight it. I've made peace with the fact that I will most definitely not be able to experience even a fraction of the games I'm interested in, no matter how many lifetimes I have at my disposal. By doing this, I've accepted that I will most definitely miss out on my next favorite game, or perhaps even the best games I will ever play, but that's okay. To compensate for this, I will enjoy the games I get to play with the extremely limited time I have on this Earth to the fullest. I will savor every detail, every feeling that they make me feel, and every thought that they make me think, up until I consider myself done with them.
I've come to this decision after realizing that it takes some time to properly experience a game. A game that you like can become a game that you love if you spend the time and effort to master it, and this process takes time. This is especially hard to do when you play games to complete them as fast as possible, to be done with them as soon as possible. At that point, you're no longer playing games to have fun, you're playing games with the end goal to cross them off of your list, with enjoyment being the byproduct of this process.
Again, It's okay to miss out. Don't let FOMO ruin gaming for you!
I can’t use this method as I collect physical games but what I do is pick 5 games on my older consoles, then play 5 games on my newer consoles. This works well for me I normally finish about 30 games a year, the games I play are around 8-20 hours but I do play a few 50-100 hour games. My collection does grew as I still trying to find 170 games for 13 consoles but once I complete my collection for my older consoles, I will focus on new games.
Years ago I started creating quarterly collections. So sometimes when I think about getting around to games I bought, I check back to what I bought in say Q1.2022 . What did I never play? Now's the time. And I just work my way upwards until there aren't any more games that interest me at the moment, then I jump back further than Q1 2022 and see what was in Q1 2021.
Letting the dice choose for you saves you from paralysis by analysis , when you have too many choices you waste more time just looking at them than actually playing.
If we all played 30 minutes per day (and trust me, people would spend 30 minutes just staring at their backlog while they watch youtube) which doesn't sound like a lot we would still finish a bunch of games by the end of the year, probably more than most people do.
I just put everything I buy or someone buys for me in a big backlog list on HLTB, and pick 3 games I feel like playing, sometimes I let the site pick for me at random. When I joined HLTB, I had 200 games in my backlog. Cut it down to 100. But then 5 years later I have over 500 beaten games recorded on the site. And I'm still stuck with around a 100 games in my backlog.
I'm the kind of person that NEEDS to complete what I buy, go figure.
You could modify the method with an additional trick, if you feel like you would be able to pick between a cheese and a cake: roll the die twice and choose between the two outcomes. This could make the start of the playtime easier on your brain, since it *has* made a choice, even if though it was constrained.
Love your editing style!
Watched some videos and I suppose I found a gem of a channel.
We all have an issue with trying to find the game, or video or anything else, that "hits the spot" since it's been ruined by doomscrolling.
I enjoy seeing this kind of video (seems that more and more people are making them, and we can see why...) and the kernel of them is that you just need to commit, no exceptions, for a full hour. We need to commit to things whether or not we think in advance that it will "hit the spot" and allow ourselves the joy of discovery and the pain of disappointment instead of being lost in the valley of satiation
100% the other day I was reading a book in a hammock the garden. I left my phone in the house and made the decision not to go and get it. Honestly one of the most relaxing afternoons I've had.
5:17 "And your brain will still be telling you to stop" You might want to look into PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance)
In addition to this, I have some other "systems". For example, if I buy too many indie games at once, I must play most of them. Last week I bought 6 indie games and I already finished 4 of them. This was doable because their play time was between 2 and 8 hours. 2 of them slipped me and I will probably not play them for a long time. But I feel a sense of accomplishment just because I finished 4 of them.
I also choose the genre of the next game in a round-robin order. This keeps the games I play diverse, and also trims down my choices. For example I may go like RPG - Metroidvania - Roguelike - Shooter.
I had another system to never buy a game unless I have unfinished games in my library, but that one is obviously too hard to maintain when Steam presents you something like 90% discount.
Thank you for the tip on sticking to an hour. I have a system to sample all of the games I get, but I do often bail early. I do reserve the right to quit games that belong to genres I'm not particularly fond of in less time, but outside of that I'll be using the hour mark.
Wish me luck.
the crazy thing is I still remember not knowing what game to play when I had 50 games on steam and now I have 1000 on steam and 100 on epic now it’s impossible so this helped
On top of this pick two games, one long, one play and drop type game and have those as the only two games downloaded. This way if you have a good chunk of time you play the long game, if you only got a half hour you play the one that you can save anytime/complete a run in 20-30 minutes
I think Im going to try doing this once a day or so. That way, I can get through my backlog and try more of my own games while still playing other games I care about.
I was basically already doing this, but that client looks interesting!
One hour is not enough time for most games. Learning how to use the controls usually takes up a large chunk of the hour. Starting a new game can be a significant investment of time. That is a big part of the reason for backlogs of unplayed games (plus, of course, the I can't pass up this bargain syndrome).
Great idea! I will definitely try this method. Thank you.
Wow I have a completely different strategy for tackling my Backlog but you definitely had some good ideas and great editing by the way hilarious 😅
whats your strategy?
@@rogoznicafc9672 1. Commit to playing a game at least every other day. Never let more than two days go by without playing. The longer you go without playing, the more games will come out. Making your backlog longer
2. Make a list of all the games you own but have not played yet
3. The first games I played from my Backlog are the games I believe are most likely to get Spoiled for example AAA games & popular games. Usually Story driven games like Last of Us God of War, Whicher 3
4. Once those are done, I play the shortest games on my list so I can get them done faster and out of the way. Usually indie games. Check how long to beat website to see how long the games on your backlog are
5. After I beat the shorter games (games under 10 hours) I play the oldest games from my list so that I'm not out of touch with classic games and also not get spoiled. Games from two Generations ago lol
6. After I beat those games, I focus on the harder/longer games on my list because they will take the longest time to beat and will prevent me from getting to other games faster as they come out because of how long they are. Ex. Fromsoftware games, Roguelikes, Bullet Hell games.
7. Finally the last games on my backlog I play are the ones that the most obscure that I know will not get spoiled because they are niche games and not likely to be talked about as much .I'm not hyped for but still mildly interested to play them.
This is pretty much what I've been doing for a while now, just with less steps, I just open steam (since 99% of my games are there), go to my backlog collection filled with Humble Bundle games and do 1 of 3 things, Pick from a genre I'm looking for, Pick a game I think DOESN'T look interesting so I can just get them out of the way since I'm pretty good at telling if I won't like a game but I still have to be sure since I already own it or I just use a random number generator, I got my backlog down from 120+ down to below 40 in about a month or 2
Like this method! i wanna add something to it too.
Might be a bit masochistic if you have thousands of games but for me has less of 100.
Add another list "Exclusive" list of games i really want to play/give a try.
Can't touch that one at all, only after the other is completed.
Feels faster to empty the backlog, find hidden gems & at the end is a big reward when you try out exclusive list.
Yeah i can definitely see that working really well for smaller backlogs.
The method I started using was commuting to whatever game I pick no matter what… with only one real exception and a few caveats. The exception was if a new game I have been looking forward to comes out during the playthrough I would put said game on pause to play the new shiny, and also I’m allowed 2 additional games, one shorter new game to change things up or when I have less time, and one game I have already played and allows me to decompress when I’m stressed. I began doing this last year and by my count I beat about 17 games. This year I’m committing harder to this plan and actively mapping out new games I will get ahead of time, and planning my backlog ahead of time so I’m not in the middle of one thing when something new comes out, in addition I’m going to keep a journal of the games I’ve beaten and plan to beat so I have more clear goals, it’s similar to your strategy except for me it’s easier to just commit hard to something I have been eyeing instead of letting chance dictate this
The game you've already played for decompressing is a smart one I think I'll steal that idea. I'll add an adendum that I have to at least start a new game after replaying something instead of just replaying another game immediately.
Same thing trying to pick a movie out of your video collection.
came for helpful advice, stayed for cat clips, great video
Good to know I’m not alone with this issue
I've been smashing through my backlog lately. Didnt buy any game this christmas, not even on very cheap sales. Been enjoying gaming way more because of it. Its just a matter of control and self discipline
This is gonna be long but anyways the biggest time investment are 100% contents like achievements mainly but it helps me decide what backlogs to clear.
This is useful to consider when you got spreadsheets which helps greatly. Since I naively bought games that I may hate I am the type to finish it no matter what I just need a plan. After all, I need to take baby steps and go beyond efficient.
List of websites I used to help my 100% backlogs:
- All achievement websites
- Infinite Backlog
- Backloggery
- TrueSteamAchievements
- Of course HowLongToBeat
I took the gamble to 100% my Like a Dragon 0 game this month but its my daunting backlog and I need to 100% it, I got burnout like before but in the end I really feel like victory is mine.
This beats my system of remembering i have a backlog, installing my last 10 purchased games, playing one of them, forget about the rest even if i didnt like the first one, 6 months pass "hmm why are all these games installed, best uninstall them". rinse repeat
Ah yes, my old system too.
Ok, I've filled myself full of crap, now we can talk.
Good way to go about it. I thought about consoIidating for a while. I personally try to narrow down to a few games I really want to try, and then pick one and don't listen to brain who would get you endlessly searching. You're spot on about that, same with streaming services etc.
And also, I try not to let completionist brain take control to press myself to finish games if I lost interest along the way, I just don"'t care anymore, it saves time and is way more fun that way. And so the games I finish are those I really like.
Awesome video! Thanks for creating
Blindly staring at my library is my favorite past time, what am I to do know?
i almost never buy games without playing them except when i buy a physical box mainly for collecting.
still have a big backlog because you get so many games for free these days
Choosing the game to play in your Steam library with 200+ games is a game itself 😂
Yeah, mine is 2600+ so it's REALLY something.
Great idea, ty for the recommendation!
Great idea 👌.
The way I did it was by checking the games which had a download size of less than 5GB and supported steam cards. So I played each game until I collected all cards. I discovered so many hidden gems using this method. Next I'll up the download size to 10 gb and do the same.
Sounds like a great method!
Oof, I thought I had it bad with 121 unplayed games in my backlog