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Backlogging. Bleh. It's not just playing games you bought a while back. It's going back and finishing a game that bored you. It's giving a game more than a fair shake. It's playing through all the games you've bought, one by one, fighting to squeeze value from every purchase you've made. It's the sunken costs fallacy in action. You’ve already thrown away money on the Steam Sale. You can't get that money back. However, you can choose how to spend your time. If you play through a mediocre game to completion in order to squeeze value out of your purchase, you’re just throwing good time after bad purchases. You’re doubling up on the loss, adding lost time onto the lost cash. Don’t backlog. You’ve made a TON of bad impulse purchases. We all have. It’s inevitable. Don’t punish yourself by trying to find value in those purchases. That time can be better spent.
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Jun 14, 2014 09:01
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What if you legitimately want to get back to a game but forgot about it? I don't force myself to finish games I put in my backlog, I just put them in there as a 'give this another shot' thing, and if I get bored of it in two hours it gets shelved again.
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Jun 14, 2014 09:07
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I can agree with this. Whenever I see a game in my stack that I don't feel like playing anymore, I trade it in. If you stopped playing a game because it bored you then there's no reason to play it anymore. And for all the good Steam is, I know a bunch of people that have blown hundreds if not thousands of dollars on games they haven't even installed. I mean, what the gently caress? I get buying a game you want to play and not getting around to it, but do you need every game that's on sale? Mom with a blog fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jun 14, 2014 |
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Jun 14, 2014 09:08
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Endorph posted:What if you legitimately want to get back to a game but forgot about it? That's not the tedious backlogging that I see people do, with checklists and whining that they've bought too many games and "need" to finish something. That poo poo is like work. You don't need to finish anything, but if you've enjoyed something and got distracted, then why not play it? If you think it'll get better, why not play it? Since you're willing to give it up if it doesn't pay off, it doesn't sound like you're obsessively backlogging.
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Jun 14, 2014 09:09
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I'll admit to using one of those backlog sites but that's just because I have a lot of stuff that I shelved halfway and it's nice to have some sort of organization to the whole affair. I've gone back to stuff after a year or two and adored it, and I probably wouldn't have gone back to that stuff if I hadn't had a reminder of 'oh yeah I should give that another look.' Backlogging sites have a use, just like how people have lists of movies they need to watch or books they need to get around to reading, but forcing yourself through something because you feel obligated to is dumb, yeah. Like everything else, it's only really a problem when you overdo it, or make it into something you have to do.
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Jun 14, 2014 09:13
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PC gaming is a lot cheaper than console gaming. You bought that six month old game for 40 bucks, I bought that game and 29 other games I'll never play for 60. 30 games for 60 bucks. Steam sales bitch. I've bought thousands of dollars of games I've never even installed for only a few hundred dollars.
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Jun 14, 2014 09:13
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boom boom boom posted:PC gaming is a lot cheaper than console gaming. You bought that six month old game for 40 bucks, I bought that game and 29 other games I'll never play for 60. 30 games for 60 bucks. Steam sales bitch. I've bought thousands of dollars of games I've never even installed for only a few hundred dollars. Sometimes, I type a few letters to start a search in my Library. Turns out I own games I didn't even know loving existed. Steam Sales man.
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Jun 14, 2014 09:16
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Having unplayed, uninstalled games on Steam is remarkably common, if that makes you feel better: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/04/introducing-steam-gauge-ars-reveals-steams-most-popular-games/ Games are cheap. I almost never buy a game when it comes out for full price, instead I wait till it goes on sale, and have the added benefit that by then any obvious bugs have been fixed. Sometimes the game is in a bundle and you get a bunch of other games thrown in too, even though you care nothing for them. If I bought a game and found out I didn't like it, I'd try to sell it on, give it away, or just donate it to a charity thrift shop. It's no different with books. I can't do that in Steam, all my bad purchases will sit there in my list, reminding me of my bad choices forever. Keeping a backlog is tricky, since just differentiating between "finished" and "unfinished" is a bad idea like the OP pointed out. Finishing games you don't enjoy is work, not fun. Sites like http://backloggery.com/ have an option called "nulled" for games that you want out of your backlog because you've given them a shot, but you're definitely not finishing them. They even differentiate between "beaten", where you've gotten to the end of the game, and "finished", which means you've gotten all the achievements or gotten some other 100% rating. But even with such nuanced ways of defining a game's state in a backlog, some games are unbeatable or unfinishable. How does one beat a sandbox like Garry's Mod? When have you beaten Civilization V? What about multiplayer-only stuff? How do you beat Team Fortress 2? How do you beat an MMO? Let's make it even more complicated and add Early Access games to the mix. Do you have to beat the game again with every update that adds new features? I had a friend who said he'd figure out the value of a game by dividing the purchase price by hours played, and would try to make each game hit at least 1 euro/hour before giving up on it. I don't think he kept this up, because it still leads to playing games you don't really care about. Even if you made this more generic by looking at the total of money spent on all steam games, and all the time spent playing all games on steam, you still might end up forcing yourself to play games you don't like. This is the sunk cost fallacy as mentioned before. I try to at least get the amount of the games with 0 hours on them down, before buying a new game. Every now and then, I find a gem in my backlog.
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Jul 14, 2014 03:14
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This is why I feel like if you actually want to play a game you should just buy it whenever you feel like it and not necessarily wait for a sale. The human brain is stupid and impulsive and as soon as that impulsive interest in playing a game fades there's no guarantee you'll get that impulse again. And yet you still buy the game on sale 6 months later. And then you never play it. But you would have played it if you bought it when you were really jonesing to try it. I wonder how many games we've bought that we've never played that were the result of this process. I know that's how it happened for me with games like Mass Effect 2, Alice Madness Returns, RAGE, and others. Wanted to play it when it released, decided to wait for a sale, bought it on sale, didn't have the same interest anymore. I'M STUPID AS gently caress
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Jul 14, 2014 03:23
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Quest For Glory II posted:I wonder how many games we've bought that we've never played that were the result of this process. I know that's how it happened for me with games like Mass Effect 2, Alice Madness Returns, RAGE, and others. Wanted to play it when it released, decided to wait for a sale, bought it on sale, didn't have the same interest anymore. I'M STUPID AS gently caress And part of that not having the same interest anymore, for me at least, is hearing the reviews and general opinions about things after they have been out for awhile. RAGE was a pretty good example of this. I was pretty hyped on it pre release, but didn't buy until sale. By then, I'd heard it was pretty weak, but for 5 or 10 bucks, what the heck, grabbed it. Then, still didn't play it until fairly recently since I was no longer really that interested after hearing the reviews. Once I did finally play it, yup, reviews were right. Got a couple hours in and shelved it.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:35
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There's always going to be examples of that in both directions. I remember picking up Painkiller based on some dude's recommendation for like a dollar or two last year and playing the everloving poo poo out of it. It's a really efficient dude-murdering simulator where sometimes you just want to murder wave upon wave of dudes with a gun that shoots stakes and pins them to the the wall behind them. The worst is buying a game, installing it straight away and then not playing it. Then, a year later, clearing out some space on your HDD and realising you've had 10 gig of data sitting there, literally never touched. I never thought I would feel guilt towards erasing striped patterns of electrons on a stainless steel platter. Yet here we are.
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Jul 14, 2014 04:39
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The Butcher posted:Once I did finally play it, yup, reviews were right. Got a couple hours in and shelved it. I can think of an argument for buying games full price on release day: Multiplayer. The amount of players online gets lower every day, till you will need to actively recruit your friends to join you, if you want to play with others. Stick Insect fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 04:58
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You're not the boss of me!
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Jul 14, 2014 05:13
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Some day I will actually give Bastion the attention people say it deserves.
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Jul 14, 2014 05:31
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Stick Insect posted:But, would you really have put in more than those couple of hours if you bought it full price at release? There's no way to find out. I think I might have. Even being aware of the sunk cost fallacy, if I'd paid 60 bucks for the thing I probably would have been more patient and gone at least a bit longer to see if it turned around. "maybe this gets better in a bit"
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Jul 14, 2014 06:08
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Steam games are cheap enough to where I don't feel bad about deleting them if I don't like them; I probably pay an average of $3 a game or so. Why finish a game if you aren't having fun with it? It's not like you get any real bragging rights for beating a video game, not to mention any sense of accomplishment is overshadowed by a bad gaming experience anyway. I probably end up deleting around 1/3 games I get on Steam; some are games I got on bundles that I didn't want to play anyway, and it's just a given that I won't like a certain proportion of the games I try. E: The reason I delete so many games is because I don't think it's worth playing something unless it's very high quality. Your time is limited and there are a lot of games to try, so why play anything that's less than excellent? Autumn Angel fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Jul 14, 2014 |
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Jul 14, 2014 06:24
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Memento posted:There's always going to be examples of that in both directions. I remember picking up Painkiller based on some dude's recommendation for like a dollar or two last year and playing the everloving poo poo out of it. It's a really efficient dude-murdering simulator where sometimes you just want to murder wave upon wave of dudes with a gun that shoots stakes and pins them to the the wall behind them. I had Mortal Online taking up like 25 loving gigs. I discovered this about a week ago when I installed space sniffer. It was sitting there for an entire year and I never played the drat thing because it ran like complete trash on my laptop. I had Age Of Wushu on there as well, just soaking up gigs.
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Jul 14, 2014 06:33
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I don't really have a counterpoint, but when Goku gets here he's going to make such a post! You'll see!
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Jul 14, 2014 06:52
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Ok. Does anyone actually force themselves to complete games they hate for no other reason then 'my backlog says so'?
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Jul 14, 2014 06:54
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Anatharon posted:Ok. Complete? No, but I've forced myself to start games like Witcher 2 and Divinity 2 at least four times because they are often praised as the best games of their genre. I'll say, "Maybe this time, it'll finally click!" Then it doesn't and I give up again. Yes, I basically backlogged for "gamer cred."
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Jul 14, 2014 07:10
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I have a bunch of games from bundles and poor sale decisions that I've not started and probably never will, but I've never felt the need to force myself to play them. I'd like to believe that I'll go back to a lot of the ones that really caught my interest but honestly I doubt it.
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Jul 14, 2014 07:40
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Zoolooman posted:Backlogging. Bleh. It's not just playing games you bought a while back. It's going back and finishing a game that bored you. It's giving a game more than a fair shake. It's playing through all the games you've bought, one by one, fighting to squeeze value from every purchase you've made. I like this post and it just so happens to be something I actually really needed to be told, which says a lot about how pathetic I am, but still.
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Jul 14, 2014 07:43
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The Butcher posted:I think I might have. Even being aware of the sunk cost fallacy, if I'd paid 60 bucks for the thing I probably would have been more patient and gone at least a bit longer to see if it turned around. I don't think I'd want to pay $50-55 extra just so that I can get Stockholm Syndromed into playing a bad game for longer. If I compare my games collection now to many years ago when I still bought games full price, I spend the same to maybe a bit more. I don't get any games on release day anymore (except xcom, but one full-price game per year isn't so bad), but I do have a massive games collection. Yes there's a bunch of unplayed crap in there, but I do enjoy being able to browse my collection, trying out some games, and if I don't enjoy it, just toss it after 10-15 minutes of play. Also, I do often return to a game I played 15 minutes of a year ago and end up enjoying playing it. I do agree on the multiplayer thing mentioned above though, that's the only thing I miss out on sometimes. On the other hand, it seems to me that games that have their multiplayer dying within half a year are generally not the best games for multiplayer anyway.
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Jul 14, 2014 07:59
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I came to a similar realization a while back and did two things. First, I used wish lists for games I wanted to try but didn't have time to play yet. This kept me from wasting money even on sales unless I actually had the time to play games. Second, I gave up on trying to play "every great game." Now, I stick to the ones I know I'll like and ones that friends and goons with similar tastes recommend. I created a "crap" section on Steam where I started tossing games I'd given a fair shake to and didn't like. I finally returned or sold a few dozen physical copies of console games and sold my PS3 and XB360 in favor of a PS4, Wii U, and "best of steam" games setup. No more buying blockbusters, even on sale, if I don't already have a good idea I'll like it. If I don't like it, I return it or delete it and never play again.
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Jul 14, 2014 08:05
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Anatharon posted:Ok. Yeah. You see goons talk a lot about trying to finish every game on their steam list just because they're there.
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Jul 14, 2014 08:34
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I have a backlog of games that I need to organize to put on my game backlog. How hosed am I?
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Jul 14, 2014 08:36
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Doing something you hate or are bored by just because you bought it is a mindset I just can't understand. Games are a hobby for entertainment like any other, so why force yourself through that in your free time when you can be doing anything else? Replaying a game you actually liked is better use of that time. I have things in my Steam library that will forever go untouched. I was convinced a on these forums a few summer sales ago that Necrovision was actually a good game. Just misunderstood. They were wrong.
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Jul 14, 2014 08:49
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Anatharon posted:Does anyone actually force themselves to complete games they hate for no other reason then 'my backlog says so'? I can't really think of many games I've ever owned that I really 'hated'. I think Final Fantasy 8 is the only one that fits that definition, but I did finish it since I kept playing, expecting it to stop being terrible at some point.
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Jul 14, 2014 09:13
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I've owned two games that I've hated and I finished both. Dear Esther because it was short and Dragon Age 2 because I bought it to see how bad it really was in the first place. Though I did stop playing a few multiplayer games out of frustration.
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Jul 14, 2014 09:22
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I have a lot of games in my backlog I've never played and I don't want to let them pass without trying them because who knows, they might be great. If you force yourself to finish a game you can't stand that's just dumb. Admit you made a bad buy and move on, it happens to all of us. That's why Duke Nukem Forever will forever sit at ~10 minutes playtime in my library (it turned me off pretty much immediately).
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Jul 14, 2014 09:24
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I do have some games that I keep coming back to and then abandoning. Usually because they're somewhat hard and even a single run of the game requires a significant investment of time. AI Wars, A-Train 8, Men of War, etc. Then I watch someone doing a Let's Play vid of the game and I pick up a few tricks from that. And then I give the game a shot again. Sometimes it works, I never could get into Evil Genius until I saw an LP'er set up a system with traps, alarms and valets and after that I finally got into it and sunk 20 hours into the game. I guess I like the idea of playing/mastering these games. But merely by themselves, they don't keep me hooked. Jibo posted:Some day I will actually give Bastion the attention people say it deserves.  I'm not even sure how I got Bastion. Bundle crap? Gift? Both? Never started once. Not a game I'd ever choose to buy, isometric action platformer? Totally not my cup of tea.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:30
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Bastion is so unique that saying describing it by whatever genres that it falls into is woefully inadequate. Same thing with Transistor. They're both well worth experiencing, especially since they're half a weekend at most. Anyway, in terms of backlog shenanigans, I have a list in my steam library specifically labelled as "will never play". It's full of games that came in bundles, stuff I bought and then realised "why the hell did I buy this?" etc. I've learnt to accept that just because I've purchased a game doesn't mean it has to be played. But I will buy games knowing that I won't immediately play them, hell I may not even play them for years. But I own them, and I may install them on a lazy day and play them. I've done it before, I'll continue to do it.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:40
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Zoolooman posted:That's not the tedious backlogging that I see people do, with checklists and whining that they've bought too many games and "need" to finish something. That poo poo is like work. who even loving does this?
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Jul 14, 2014 10:41
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is it you op?
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Jul 14, 2014 10:41
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cat doter posted:Bastion is so unique that saying describing it by whatever genres that it falls into is woefully inadequate. *hughluhhuhlguh* shut the gently caress up
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Jul 14, 2014 10:42
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I never really had a backlog until I got a PS3, but man, now it's really bad. I have the good sense to abandon games when they're not fun anymore but that doesn't change the fact that I have a bunch still not even opened. PSN+ isn't helping one bit. I've had free games from that for so long that I'm going to have to extend my subscription just so they don't expire before I get to play them. My biggest problem is replaying old great games. I never find the time. I bought Okami HD, lord knows when I'll ever start that up. Worst thing I ever did was playing Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 on PS2, buying the Substance and Subsistence editions afterwards (all this years after they initially came out, mind you), and then buying the Legacy box for PS3 even though I never even got around to replying those PS2 editions. Legacy box has been just sitting there for 9 months now, as well. One of these days, I swear.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:47
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Motherfucker posted:shut the gently caress up aren't you a cool guy
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Jul 14, 2014 10:49
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Motherfucker posted:shut the gently caress up no u cat doter posted:But I will buy games knowing that I won't immediately play them, hell I may not even play them for years. But I own them, and I may install them on a lazy day and play them. I've done it before, I'll continue to do it. This, pretty much. I've bought a game because it looks cool and then immediately booted New Vegas. I play my backlog whenever I get bored enough with my regular games. Also Bastion is amazing.
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Jul 14, 2014 10:52
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bastion IS amazing but don't you dare say that genres are bad at describing unique games or motherfucker is gonna troll the poo poo outta you
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Jul 14, 2014 10:57
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There's a thread for those looking to deal with their large collections of unplayed games: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3387318
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Jul 14, 2014 11:06
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