Too many games?

I experience this exactly almost word for word. Especially the part about learning the mechanics, playing a bit of the story, then moving on to the newest shiny. Repeat ad nauseum.

For this reason I almost never buy games on launch anymore, and almost exclusively buy during Steam sales.

I have lots of games I haven't played or beat. When I was a kid, a game was typically about $50. At that price, I bought 2-3 a year, and played them a lot because I didn't have many other options.

Now that games are cheaper and I have adult income, I have many unfinished or unplayed games.

Put a limit to the amount of games you buy before you play through/beat the ones you still have. Odds are if that game is 50% off now, it will be 80% off the next time so you have no excuse to buy now. Make a list of games you want to beat every month and make it happen. If you have a large backlog of games, dont buy a single game until you've beaten at least three. Three games beat for every new one bought. Stop getting distracted in games with complex systems too. If you tend to spend 200 hours farting around, save those till last on your lists. OR play through them for the story/beat them and then come back to them as a casual game to play later.

This is the first Steam sale I haven't bought a single thing, and it's because of this exact problem. The backlog of games I have, even just counting big AAA titles, is staggering. And I don't know I'll ever get through it, because every time I sit down and have time to video game I inevitably just wind up playing league/dayz/hearthstone.

Hatorade,

Are you having a good time?

Make a list of games you want to beat every month and make it happen

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Games shouldn't feel like a chore nor are they important enough to arrange your life around them (like children, maybe). If you're not having fun or you've reached the amount of fun worth spending time on, then so be it.

I do similar to what Valos mentioned. I don't usually buy games just because they are cheap, but rather because I want to play them. I figure if it's cheap now, it'll be cheaper later. The games aren't going anywhere, so there is no hurry to buy them now unless I have a strong urge to play them immediately.

This resulted in me just finally playing Mass Effect a few months ago, and Batman: Arkham Asylum recently. I don't care though, I play them at my own pace and enjoy them. I've never been concerned about buying games as soon as they're released.

He ask for a solution around his backlog of games. The solution isnt a fun one, he made the situation because he buys shit at random. I agree, you shouldn't have to do these things to get through a backlog of games, but its obvious he cant just ignore the pile he created for himself.

The real solution is to stop buying anything thats under 10 bucks. But he's already made the mess!

Hatorade_sl said:

Anyone else experience this, found a way around it?

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Yes, and no.

My biggest problem is not being able to admit I just don't like a game, and simply clear it off my SSD or ship it back to GameFly instead of forcing myself to continue until I hate it or letting it sit there for a couple weeks wasting space/subscription time. There's so many games I get the idea in my head that I should like them, but for whatever reason I don't--at least not enough to play through them in just a few sittings before moving on to the next thing.

Fortunately, even though there's a ton of "why am I completely apathetic about this game when it seems to be exactly the sort of thing I should love?" games like Bioshock or Beyond: Two Souls or XCOM or 95% of all JRPGs and everything Bethesda ever made, there's still plenty of others like Tomb Raider, Last of Us, Resident Evil: Revelations, Metro: Last Light, etc. that I beat within 2-3 days of when I get them.

What I can't figure out is why sometimes a game which is really only average at best is somehow more compelling than other, arguably better games.

I have this problem with a lot of action/adventure or 4x strategy games. Some, I just get burnt out and lose interest and this is usually the case for 4x games. It's been literally years since I've actually completed a space 4x game, and I have an issue with playing a strategy game like the Total War series through to the end of campaign without either starting a new one, or just quitting for a while.

It's also been quite a while since a storyline was compelling enough to make me play it through, so like you I've amassed a huge amount of hours in several RPG's or action/adventure games without ever completing. The only thing that made me finish Skyrim was trying to get the best lewts in game so I could load up some hardmode mods to enjoy my hard earned uber gear without just one shotting everything. I think the last games where the story actually kept me interested enough to plow through were Fallout: New Vegas, Far Cry 3, and Bioshock: Infinite.

The problem seems to be, at least for me, that gaming storytelling is generally pretty bland and cliche across the vast majority of titles out there. There's a ton of content out there, but not a whole lot of weight to support it long enough to make you want to pursue it until its end. For RPG's and action/adventure, there's only so much time before you've seen all the mechanics any particular game has to offer, and after you've got your fill of that you're left with only the story and content to pursue. Sort of the same for strategy games- once you've reached the endgame of amassed technology/troops/buildings, combat is only going to support you so far until you just get burnt out on it. It takes something really special in the realm of gameplay itself to keep me interested for a long time in that genre once I've acquired all the shinies.

I think a lot of this really does explain the explosion of multiplayer games in the last few decades. The game doesn't necessarily need to be supported by a plot to keep you hooked so long as multiplayer is interesting enough that each game/match/round/whatever has the potential to be a unique experience each time, even if it differentiates from previous experiences only a bit. I know, for me, that's the thing that has kept me playing DayZ for so long- there's no objectives, no embedded plot, and no motivations or inclinations thrust upon you by the developers. It's entirely up to you as to what ends up playing out in your own little story. Single player, questing in MMORPG's, etc. all eventually sort of pigeon hole you in a way that isn't necessarily the case with many multiplayer games. Maybe it's just me, but except for the Elder Scrolls and Fallout series, I've definitely noticed a trend in my gaming behavior drifting more and more towards multiplayer, even if I'm playing multiplayer essentially solo.

An exerp from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

"The writer Umberto Eco belongs to that small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull. He is the owner of a large personal library (containing thirty thousand books), and separates visitors into two categories: those who react with "Wow! Signore, professore dottore Eco, what a library you have ! How many of these books have you read?" and the others - a very small minority - who get the point that a private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool. Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you don't know as your financial means, mortgage rates and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menancingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary."

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I have a gaming antilibrary.

I'm in the same boat, although I tend to look at my library as more of a collection then anything else. I've firmly accepted the fact that I'll never probably give each game the amount of attention it deserves. I do try to make a concerted effort to if not complete, to make significant progress in most of the stuff I have. My thought is if I've at least put 25-30 hours into a game, I've gotten my money's worth (and usually then some since almost everything I buy is heavily discounted). I hardly ever play something as soon as I get it although there are exceptions to this (BF4, Skyrim).

So I don't feel bad that I have a ton of games. Early in my childhood there was a time where I'd be lucky if my mother could afford to get me one or two games in a year, so I figure I've earned it now. Plus now that I have kids, I'm not the only one who will (down the road) access my library.

I don't think this is a "problem" that needs a "solution." My backlog of games is even larger than yours and I don't fuss about it. I always have something to play when I have time. If a game stops being fun, I stop playing it. Since I probably bought it for like $4, this doesn't bother me.

I have a problem with too many games. Throughout my college career I didn't really need stuff so I would just ask for a few games for christmas/birthday/etc. I ended up just recently having around 20-30 sealed PS3 games and an uncountable amount for the PC. I'm going through them now and I have this feeling of "I need to beat it", so I'll beat the game and that's it.. not really exploring or playing additional content or anything. I get my money worth, but I feel like I don't really give the games a fair shake.

I recently realized I am in the same position, I told myself I can't buy anymore games until I finish at least two games for every new one until I finish at least 50% of my back catalog. I buy a lot of used ps3 games on the cheap so i still have a ton of unopened games to get through. I typically play MMOs and find they just eat the vast majority of my game time. Since eq Mac got shut down I have really been enjoying the back catolog I massed over the past 4 years.

its rare for me to pay full msrp for a game now, esp a pc game. I'll just wait for humble or steam/amazon/gmg sale, and the minimum off is 50%. so I don't really feel bad about not playing a game I only paid $5 or whatever for, who cares.

that said when I do play a game I really get into it, even though my gametime is erratic. I was really into BF4 for a few weeks, playing 3-5 hours a day. haven't really played it at all in nearly 2 weeks now though, dunno why. really into assassins creed 4 (PS4 version) right now, while I may take a 2-3 day break between sessions I'll play for 5-6 hours at a time, and my wife is doing the fleet thing on my nexus tablet and loves to tell me all the booty she's plundered (YARRRR)

i think it helps just to rotate 3-5 games into your install list and bounce between em as the mood dictates. More than 5 and you just end up not wanting to play. As I get older I also find myself enjoying movies and TV a lot more than video games. Although doing a pirates of the caribbean marathon this weekend really, really got me itching to play AC4.

I will say every time I get into single player games, its really hard to jump back into MMOs. they are so shitty story, combat, etc wise compared to even a bad single player game. I can't figure out why I put so much time into rift, wow, tera, FF14, etc. Of course I'm sure I'll dump a ton of hours into TESO/Wildstar, even though I know they will both be shit (couldn't even play more than an hour or two of their stress test betas without alt-f4'ing)

i also kinda view my steam collection (200+?) as my emergency stash, like the weird ass canned food you store in case of hurricane. in case i'm stuck alone at home during a zombie invasion and the power is still working, i can chill out and play steam games forever

?'m in a similar situation and dont think this needs fixing. Some games i play more some I play less. The only thing annoying me is that going back to a game after a few months I usually dont remember all the details or even where I left of and whats going on, and I usually just start over then. Makes it even less likely to finish something!