As a followup, upon finishing Ori and the Blind Forest, I tried to pay attention to my thought process as I selected the next game, such as it is.
“Well, that was fun. What next? Huh, that’s a lot of games. Which one…hey [YouTuber I like] was playing something that looked fun, and they said it was by Remedy. Remedy made Alan Wake, which is in my list. Decision made.” Elapsed time: about 30 seconds.
I…don’t think that’s really going to help those of you who have trouble deciding. And yes, my backlog goes back that far. I’m not very picky about how old games are. So far, the story is interesting, and the mechanics aren’t bad, but the controls are close to making me regret the decision. Alan steers like a drunken yak, and is about as nimble.
It’s become part of my daily routine to do a quick check on /r/gamedeals for what’s cheap. For a couple bucks, I’ll pick up most things that seem interesting and I’ve ended up buying a lot of bundles because just one game seemed to have potential. After a few years of this, my current count is at 1716 games in my Steam library. I’d say I have a problem, but, well, it really only costs me a few hundred bucks a year and is well within my budget. I can think of worse things to collect.
It’s hugely paralyzing, though. Have you ever gone to the grocery store and felt like there was nothing there you wanted to eat? It’s like that. I feel like I should start a backlog clearing blog or something along those lines.
“Steam Backlog Paralysis” is not unlike “altitus” in online games. You have a bunch of characters in a game and can’t decide which one to play.
The solution is forget about what you “should” be playing and focus on “what’s fun for me right now”. This is your entertainment, do what you feel like. If that means switching to something new every day, without “completing” anything, so bet it. If that means playing one exclusively for 8 months, while “neglecting” all else, so be it.
I think my Steam library is around 1,200 games and it should go without saying that most are unplayed. On the other hand, many of them are bundle fodder or worse that can be ignored.
So, for one thing, I’ve been buying a lot less bundles. I’ve been trying to prioritize playing newer, well reviewed games that I own. After that, older stuff that I “know” is good (or at least worth trying) based on reviews and conversations. I’ve also been trying to revisit a few old games to complete DLC I bought and never played – finally did Burial at Sea for Bioshock Infinite, for example. Games with a definite ending point are helpful; you play Rise of the Tomb Raider and then you’re done but Civilization V or Cities Skylines is forever.
Sometimes I do get on a tear and play a bunch of bundle trash games just to see what they’re about. The lesson is almost invariably that 90% of bundle trash is indeed trash. You usually already know which ones are the good ones and pleasant surprises are rare.
Of course, at the end of the day, play what you want. For all the above, watching my son play Dragon Age Inquisition on his Xbox reminded me that I never finished that second run with my dagger rogue and so that’s what I’ve been doing for the past week.
Big backlog here too, but I keep going back to Civ5, Planetside 2, Arma3, and GTA V. Space Engineers has captured my interest for the past week though.
Done with Alan Wake. After doing the responsible adult thing for a bit, I will probably go back to The Secret World for a while, because there’s a new content issue out. Then maybe Transistor, because I saw Bastion as I was scrolling through the library and thought about what an awesome game it was, and Transistor is by the same developer.
The idea behind posting my game-picking process was to nudge you paralysis-prone types a bit. I think it’s mostly just underlining how fickle and random I am.
I would like to apologize to any inebriated bovids who may have taken offense at this comparison. In my defense, I did not know at the time that the developers had including driving and platforming elements in their game with the terrible controls.
