Morning Discussion

Last week I managed to inflate my digital collection of PC titles from 60 to nearly 100, thanks to all of the holiday-based sales online. Since then I've been wondering when I'll have the time to play my newest acquisitions and why I made certain choices with my money.

Did adding Saw: The Video Game to my collection fulfill some imaginary "missing piece" of my gamer soul? At the same time, did I need to purchase the Civilization IV bundle, effectively giving me a third copy of the primary game in the package? No, of course not. But I know a good deal when I see one and playing games is one of the pieces associated with my job. Sadly, each new game in my collection is labeled with the same note: "I'll play it when I have time. I'll play it later."

You know "later," right? It's that magical moment that never arrives. Why? Because even though I don't know when "later" is, I do know it isn't "right now." Fact is, the attractiveness of my collection living somewhere that is accessible at any internet-connected time is sometimes the best part of the offer. After all, what happens if "later" comes and I'm not at my regular computer?

Although I've managed to get a lot of new content, I still haven't managed to find any new hours in the day. But I'm not worried because I promised to make good on these purchases and play them all ... later.

Xav de Matos was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    July 6, 2010 5:01 AM

    Video game backlogs suck. Especially when I tend to just play TF2/CSS/BC2 every night cause it's so easy to fire it up and find a game. Not sure why I'm unmotivated to play other games.

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      July 6, 2010 5:03 AM

      I find my desire to push through the backlog comes in waves. Some days I just want to get home and bang out another hour or so of the game I'd be playing, and sometimes I'll go a week not finding the inspiration to sit down and fire it up.

      You'll get your mojo back, Rydogg!

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      July 6, 2010 5:05 AM

      I have the same problem. For me, more than half the times when I finally do work up the motivation to start something new / continue something I've not finished and don't play often, I have a lot of fun. It's all about getting past the hellish part of actually... loading it up.

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      July 6, 2010 5:09 AM

      Yeah I have this problem with RDR, haven't played it since the first day it came out. Its amazing and I love it, I just know how much time it took to invest in GTA IV, which in the end was totally worth it because the game was absolutely amazing.. but that was a lot of time. I have no problems firing up Bayonetta and playing that for two hours, its frustrating at times but its not super long / intensive.

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      July 6, 2010 5:09 AM

      [deleted]

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        July 6, 2010 5:22 AM

        i bought a ton of games from steam sales just because i felt like i should own them.

        half life, etc. i'll probably never actually play them as too much new stuff comes out i also want to play.

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        July 6, 2010 5:29 AM

        Hmmm....This may be my issue. I mean I have over $1500 in my steam account and hell, I've never finished HL2 or any of the episodes.

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        July 6, 2010 5:30 AM

        This.
        Not to forget - we have less time to play all those new games.
        Also.. I wouldn't worry about waiting to buy new games if they didn't go out of production so relatively soon dammit..
        If I knew they'd be released as downloads eventually (mainly thinking about console games) it would help a lot. That way there would be plenty of time to buy a new game when I was done with something from the backlog. Buying games I won't be able to play for a while is stressing me out..

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      July 6, 2010 5:20 AM

      Honestly, I find myself watching gaming more now than actually playing. I am obsessed with streams online and I don't have as much time as I once did.

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        July 6, 2010 5:22 AM

        Haha, you missed some good stuff last night Hiro. I got a hang of the controls and wiped out the international airport AND an oil derrick.

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        July 6, 2010 5:35 AM

        I got addicted to watching streams from RyDogg1 while he was playing Oblivion.

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      July 6, 2010 5:21 AM

      I wish I could get back into video games :(

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      July 6, 2010 5:21 AM

      Idd, WoW has been eating my precious time up latey :( had a half day yesterday and spent 12 hours on WoW :( FUUUCCCKKK

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      July 6, 2010 5:23 AM

      [deleted]

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      July 6, 2010 5:23 AM

      I know what you mean, for me it was easier to fireup 2142 than one of the many RPGS i have sitting unfinished in my shelf

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      July 6, 2010 5:39 AM

      I have this same problem. It's easier for me to just play CSS for an hour than actually start any of my unfinished games. I hate it cause i always forget the controls when I don't play a game for a while and it makes me less motivated to start it back up.

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      July 6, 2010 5:47 AM

      yeah it sucks, I end up playing BC2 every day. I've had Final Fantasy 13 rented for months now and have not finished it yet.

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      July 6, 2010 6:01 AM

      I'm finally making progress on my list, and also accepted some games I'm in no rush to finish.

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      July 6, 2010 6:29 AM

      Playing with other people is more fun than playing by yourself.

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      July 6, 2010 6:52 AM

      I don't have the time to drop 50+ hours into single player games anymore. I want to, but I just can't, so the thought of even being bothered to get started is overwhelming when I know it'll take a few hours just to get good. But I really don't have those few hours to spare.

      So I play games that give quicker rewards, more or less immediately. All competitive multiplayer games of the FPS nature do exactly this, and hence why I play them so much more.

      Yeah I keep buying those single player Steam deals because I'm still interested in general, but I just can't find that specific block of time. I'm struggling to get through Trine for fucks sake.

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      July 6, 2010 7:06 AM

      I don't get the idea of "video game backlogs". I have a bunch of video games in my steam list that I have only played about 1hr of and never intend to play again. Is that bad? Am I doing it wrong?

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        July 6, 2010 7:09 AM

        I would call those "abandoned" not "backlogged", backlogged would be games you intend to go through to completion but haven't. You don't intend to do so.

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          July 6, 2010 7:12 AM

          Yeah, if I included all the games I stopped playing because they sucked or I just really disliked, I'd have way more than I already do. Backlogged means unstarted or unfinished. Games come off the backlog list when they're either beaten or I say fuck this shit and give up on it.

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          July 6, 2010 8:42 AM

          Out of every game ive ever played, I think Ive only completed like .. 2.

          Quake 1 and HL2

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            July 6, 2010 8:48 AM

            Whaaaat?

            Some of the best parts in video games are the endings!

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            July 6, 2010 8:49 AM

            Yeah, maybe "beaten" would be a better word, I rarely "complete" games, but I get through to the end of the narrative (and usually then some) on the majority of them.

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        July 6, 2010 7:12 AM

        Yes and no. I got UFO: Extraterrestrials Gold and started playing through that, but I only got 2 hours into it and gave up on it. It's just....nowhere near as good as X-COM UFO Gold w/ the Extension mod.

        So yeah, there are games that you can have in your catalog that you'll never play, and that's acceptable. Yet, Bob Came in Pieces only took me a few hours to run through, but on the other side of the coin, I'm really happy with that game and it constitutes <1% of my total Steam time.

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      July 6, 2010 7:10 AM

      I have a spreadsheet with 43 games in it I need to play or finish. :-( And it's not like there aren't more games on the way I want to play, and there are plenty of games that have already come out that I just haven't picked up yet. And yeah, sometimes I look at my backlog, don't feel like playing anything on it, and just get a new game instead. It's probably a battle I can't win.

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      July 6, 2010 7:49 AM

      no golden wrench yet :( TF2 is going apeshit right now, great time to play. anticipation of the engineering update is awesome.

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      July 6, 2010 8:14 AM

      When Civ V comes out I probably won't play another game for at least 4 years.

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