I had beaten tons of games over the years on SNES, Sega, Playstation. Before 2009, I used to pirate on PC as well and I beat reasonable amount of games. (After joining Steam, I even bought them and beaten some of them again.) As I grow older, I feel that I can’t give so much attention as I used to. I’m 30 now and finishing every single game feels like a burden. They tend to get boring, uninspiring. If a game catches my attention, usually I’ll finish them in short amount of time. But apart from them, forcing myself to like some other game probably ends up me hating it.
I like to track my progress however. Seeing which ones I haven’t played or finished is giving me some sort of a road map. I like it here. People are sharing their accomplishments, experiences and feedback. And seeing them makes me want to finish those gazzilion number of dusty games on my library. But let’s be honest, if you have over 2000 games, it’s not going to happen. That’s like more than my life time. I wish I could but I can’t. I shouldn’t. I’ll just stick with the ones that gets my attention immediately. Others unfortunately will be forgotten along with my wasted money.
If you’re still reading this, thanks for your attention as well. Just wanted to blow off some steam. I can’t describe how overwhelming it feels when I look at my library. My life is stressful as it is, adding more stuff to worry won’t help. I just can’t do that to myself.
Just wanted to blow off some STEAM.
Ah, I see what you did there. ☺
It crossed my mind. :)
Word of advice: Make a list of every game you would like to delete from your library (except your SG wins of course). Then go to the support page in the Steam client, find those game and delete them all!
Only keep in your account those you know you want to keep. You’ll feel much better.
I have 815 games in my account. If I hadn’t done that, it would be well over 1000. I still have over 60% I still haven’t played but I know I’ll get through each one someday.
Yeah, I’ve been thinking this lately but as soon as I start doing that, I won’t stop myself after I get rid of over 1000 games. :P And it’ll be overwhelming too since you have to do that individually, you know, select the game, head to the support, ask to be removed.. It’ll take quite some time. Still, at least we have that as an option.
Our backlog can sometimes feel like a burden but for me it’s more a sea of opportunities. I have so many games I really want to play and I just don’t have the time.
I know I will not beat every game in my library (many of them I’ll never even start) and sometimes it feels my backlog keeps growing in spite of my efforts but I truly enjoy playing games and gaming has been an important part of my life from an early age (I’m 39 by the way). I just play as I can and this community and steamgifts (in particular playing my wins) help me stay motivated.
My suggestion is to only add to your library games your really want to play, use the list functionality on this site, and just play what you feel like and have fun.
Good luck with your backlog assassination :)
Oh yes, I’ve learned my lesson not to add every sodding game to my account. :) I’m entering less giveaways on Steamgifts (I used to be greedy about that too), and I’ve organized my Steam wishlist. It used to sit around 300 games, but now it’s under 100 games.
Gaming helps me in so many ways. I just want to keep it as an enjoyment.
Thanks for your thoughts. :)
yep. i’m currently at 2062 games and i’m 37. i’ve also realized i probably don’t have enough hours remaining in my life to complete every game i own (especially at my current rate of 5-10 hours a week for gaming).
i want to think i’m reasonably quick to decide i’m not that into a game and sort it into my quit category, but i easily get stuck thinking either “what if it gets better after this level” or “it can’t take much longer to just beat this thing.” it’s helped me to post here when i decide to give up on a game — i write why i decided that and usually a few people who have played the game will share their opinion. if it does actually get better after this level i’m pretty sure someone would say so.
my library is big enough i often don’t know whether i own a game, and i have it categorized based on when and where i acquired everything. i should probably do something better to keep track of what i’m most excited to play next…
Welcome to backlog assassins! I know what you mean about being bogged down with a game - I really enjoy games I can complete in an afternoon or two. Playing larger games can be fun at first, but then it just ends up being too gol dang much!
Going with your gut is good - as long as you’re playing SOMETHING you’re making progress. I like to use a random number generator to pick which games I play next a lot of the time - it’s impartial. What you can do is maybe use that, but not even just to play a game. It can be a way for you to clear your backlog by making you look at this one SPECIFIC game and asking yourself ‘do I want to play this now? will I want to play this, like, ever?’ and then you can keep or remove it as necessary.
Many of us like to delete games from our Steam library if we have no intention of playing them (unless of course they’re SG wins, because you can get suspended for non-activation of wins). Just click on the game in your Steam (client) library, click Support in the right nav, then click “I want to permanently remove this game from my account.” Note that it will remove any games that were part of that activation (e.g., DLC and games from Steam bundles/packs), so be sure to check what games it’s going to delete. In theory, you can still get them back later, but they are gone from your library and that Games tally will go down from its current 2,129.
Alternatively, you can set them as Hidden in your Steam client. But the games counter will read the same.
You might find it’s quite liberating to tighten your library up a bit and get rid of the clutter of old free games you farmed for cards, or bought but later realized you’d never play it.
Good luck!
Gaming should be fun to escape the stresses of life, not create more. I get that and I feel it too sometimes. I just ignore it and do what ever I want and that lead me to completing my first ever game 100% :D
Also what Trent said, I have also deleted like 13-20 games from my library because now when I look at my library it is only games that I am keen on playing or trying out so I get quite excited when I see the list now and always think about what I can play next.
Good Luck Man :D BLAEO are good people and a great community :D
Heya, sorry to hear you feel that way. Maybe it’ll be a help if somebody looks over it and picks some for you?
Actually I am pretty happy I don’t have THAT many games, but I sometimes already feel overwhelmed by the number I own - and I keep adding games. Shame on me :D
But yeah, it mostly stops me from getting back to awesome games I would like to play again. But since I will probably find other awesome games by going on, that ok too :D
Don’t let it get to you though! It’s only games! They will wait and rot if they need to. And if you touch them, they will be grateful for it too! :)
Have a great time!
Happy backlog killing :)
Thanks for your kind words. Picking a game is not a hard thing for me. I mostly follow my gut or even I don’t participate here, those events are giving me some ideas.
The hard part is after I start working on some game, the others are just boggling my mind all the time. Before I start a game, I check howlongtobeat.com to understand how much time I’m going to sink on average. And I’m constantly thinking while playing “Well, instead of wasting my time here on this average game, I could have been finishing a game that I like more.” The reason is that I have so much on my backlog. After my rant above, I’ve put more games on “won’t play” category. To tell you the truth, I feel much better now. :))
Ah yes. That’s me with long games. While playing them I constantly think I could finish lots of short ones in that amount of time. But then the long ones would still be there, right? So how ever we do it…. :]
You are doing fine! Just ignore those nagging games in the back of your mind and enjoy! happy