There's too much good content these days...

[dpodblood]

Over the past few years I've really been trying to diversify the games I play, rather than sticking to the same 2 or 3 titles for months at a time. This has lead to me buying a ton of Steam games, as well as a smaller collection of console titles. I've also been picking up more new released than I used to.

I've come to the realization that there are just too many good games out there to play them all. I've accumulated a huge backlog of games. I put my backlog into the website howlongtobeat.com and it calculated 61 days in real time to complete it. Even with my short list of high priority games it calculates 13 days real time. I play about 15 hours a week, sometimes more depending on what my weekend looks like. That means it would take me 20 weeks just to complete my short list!

Do you guys have a huge backlog of games like me, and if so how do you manage it while keeping up with new releases? Do you stick to your favorite genres, or branch out and try as many things as you can?

 

[thespyder]

Um, NO. Not for me at least. I have, for all intents and purposes, played three 'Good' new games this year. Skyrim, KoA:R and Xcom.

I played D3, and boy do I regret that. I have a mild interest in ME3, but not so much that I would lose sleep over it. If I get to it, I get to it. But that's about it.

Problem is that most of the stuff that has come out lately has been consolized to death or made with the wider "Casual" market in mind such that they took perfectly good ideas and ruined them. Everything is so Formulae that I feel like they are spoon feeding me baby food instead of making good games.

I have high hopes for Wasteland 2 and for Eternity, but not a whole lot else. I "Might" pick up BG:Enhanced, but even that isn't what I consider a "New" game. it is an old game reskinned.

 

[Barfo]

Yup, too much content nowadays, not enough time to see it all, even if you were unemployed, so you have to prioritize. I've limited myself to buying games on Steam that are <$10 and even then I've accumulated over 450, I pretty much gave up hope of playing each of them for a decent amount of time.

Same for movies and tv series, theatre plays...pretty much any kind of entertainment really.

 

[PowerYoga]

I play the ones i really want to play. D3 is something i still play actively and on the side xcom and various other little games.

 

[dpodblood]

Um, NO. Not for me at least. I have, for all intents and purposes, played three 'Good' new games this year. Skyrim, KoA:R and Xcom.

I played D3, and boy do I regret that. I have a mild interest in ME3, but not so much that I would lose sleep over it. If I get to it, I get to it. But that's about it.

Problem is that most of the stuff that has come out lately has been consolized to death or made with the wider "Casual" market in mind such that they took perfectly good ideas and ruined them. Everything is so Formulae that I feel like they are spoon feeding me baby food instead of making good games.

I have high hopes for Wasteland 2 and for Eternity, but not a whole lot else. I "Might" pick up BG:Enhanced, but even that isn't what I consider a "New" game. it is an old game reskinned.

Maybe I am just less picky. I got GW2 at launch and played that for probably 70 hours, until Borderlands 2 came out. Been playing that since, and the 1st DLC came out shortly after I completed the base game. Took a break from that an finally managed to finish up Sleeping Dogs (which was excellent). Now I'm in the process of playing through AC Revelations in anticipation of AC3. Tons more games I wish I had time to play too like Chivalry, Dishonored, and XCOM, not to mention the huge amount of PSN/XBLA games that have been coming out like Unfinished Swan, and Mark of the Ninja.

 

[gorcorps]

2012 has been awesome for gamers IMO, but hard for us to keep up on. The only game I've actually finished this year has been Arkham City but I have a ton of games that I bought, put ~10 hours in, and then moved on.

There were many sequels that I kind of expected I'd want from the beginning: Borderlands, torchlight, batman, etc... But there were also a number of newer IP that I didn't expect to buy (or want): Sleeping Dogs, Dishonored, etc...

 

[Juddog]

Yup, too much content nowadays, not enough time to see it all, even if you were unemployed, so you have to prioritize. I've limited myself to buying games on Steam that are <$10 and even then I've accumulated over 450, I pretty much gave up hope of playing each of them for a decent amount of time.

Same for movies and tv series, theatre plays...pretty much any kind of entertainment really.

Makes me wish I was retired so that I could just play video games 14 hours a day.

 

[dpodblood]

There were many sequels that I kind of expected I'd want from the beginning: Borderlands, torchlight, batman, etc... But there were also a number of newer IP that I didn't expect to buy (or want): Sleeping Dogs, Dishonored, etc...

Same here. And I really feel the need to play and support these new IP's with the lack of original content coming out in recent years. Not to mention Bordelands, Sleeping Dogs, and Dishonored all had very good PC ports. That's the type of Business practice I support because I would like to continue seeing it.

 

[SMOGZINN]

I just put my backlog into that website, and if it is accurate I'm just under 23 days to finish just the games I'm excited about. Since I doubt I get more then 10 hours a week in, this is going to take awhile.

EDIT: This was a good reminder that I have so much entertainment that when I find I'm not enjoying something *CoughD3Cough* I need to stop playing it and move on to the next one.

 

[pontifex]

i have so many games that i bought and started but never finished because i lost interest.

 

[crownjules]

Of the games I have in my backlog that I actually want to beat, it would take me about 10 days. Although it's less because most of them are in some state of play. I don't have many games outside of that. I don't let myself buy games just because they're on sale and there's a chance I may play it. To me, it's too similar to people that become hoarders because they buy everything they see on sale on the off chance it might be useful. You don't get a house cluttered because they're digital items of course, but you still waste lots of money. I also don't buy many games on release day. I have enough to keep me occupied that I can wait for people to verify whether they're good or not. They'll be there tomorrow for me to buy (and likely on sale!).

 

[dpodblood]

i have so many games that i bought and started but never finished because i lost interest.

I tend to stick to one or 2 games at a time. More than that and I get distracted and never finish anything. I also make a habit of finishing every game I start, unless it's an utterly terrible experience.

 

[thespyder]

Maybe I am just less picky. I got GW2 at launch and played that for probably 70 hours, until Borderlands 2 came out. Been playing that since, and the 1st DLC came out shortly after I completed the base game. Took a break from that an finally managed to finish up Sleeping Dogs (which was excellent). Now I'm in the process of playing through AC Revelations in anticipation of AC3. Tons more games I wish I had time to play too like Chivalry, Dishonored, and XCOM, not to mention the huge amount of PSN/XBLA games that have been coming out like Unfinished Swan, and Mark of the Ninja.

To be fair, I am interested in Borderlands (1 and 2) but haven't made the plunge yet. And I do kind of want to check out Dishonored after seeing the reviews. Just not sure I want to play a steam-punk version of Assassin's Creed.

I would highly recommend Xcom. Although it isn't Quite the original and suffers from some bugs and some consolitise, it is still one of the best games that has come out this year (IMHO). and it absolutely has that 'Just one more turn/mission/day feeling.

 

[Martimus]

I know what you mean. There haven't been any good tbs games for years, and now we have XCOM and Fallen Enchantress within a month. The problem with these is that both suck so much time to play that I can't play both. On top of that I have a couple roguelikes I have been playing too that are quite good. (Uplink and FTL, although XCOM is also a roguelike with ironman mode, and I have also started playing Nethack again). Add the desire to get back into Eve, finish the story line in Skyrim, play the Witcher 2 again differently, and looking into Torchlight and Borderlands 2, and I just don't have enough time.

 

[thespyder]

You know, in anticipation of Xcom, I started playing ToEE again. Which, once you patch it with the Co8 community fixes is actually a very enjoyable game. And after playing Xcom, is very reminiscent of ToEE in the turn based tactical sense.

In fact, i was thinking that someone could probably modify the Xcom engine to make more ToEE like games. I know I would sign up for a day 1 purchase if they did. There is a whole catelogue of old modules that could be adapted from the old DnD vault. Don't get me wrong. I love BG and NWN. Just saying that DnD is at it's best and most tactical with turn based combat.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I don't really have a backlog, I tend to get bored/lose interest in anything linear pretty quickly. Some games keep me interested for a while, but I usually wind up going back to a small handful of games I really like.

 

[moonbogg]

I am very selective with games, so right now I only play 1 (BF3). As I get older, I find it harder and harder to enjoy games. It takes a very specific formula to entertain me, so for me, there is almost no selection. I look forward to Far Cry 3 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted. Also, I can't stomach single players games usually. I need the interaction and competition from people for it to be fun.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

There's a lot of content often for cheap, but I don't agree that there's enough good content. Hardly anything that comes out warrants being played. I'm much more picky about my games I guess. People with huge backlogs aren't getting games because they're good, they're buying them because they had a really low price at some point.

 

[Siberian]

People talk about PC gaming being dead. But I have plenty of games to keep me going. My steam folder needs it's own hard drive.

 

[thespyder]

People talk about PC gaming being dead. But I have plenty of games to keep me going. My steam folder needs it's own hard drive.

Oh, there is a lot of content out. But most of it (IMHO) suffers from varying degrees of consolitise.

I definitely believe that PCs are THE platform out at the moment as just about every aspect is superior to the 7 year old consoles today. And yes, despite my other comment, there is a fairly decent amount of stuff out for the PC. I just wish that there was more dedicated PC stuff. And more stuff that isn't made for the PC as an after-thought. Or stuff that isn't made to be appealing to the Casual gamer such that it borks an otherwise decent concept.

Seems there is a fair amount of Indie stuff though, so that is good.

 

[Zorander]

Managed to clear Sleeping Dogs & Saints Row 3 but keep coming back to Skyrim (haven't even initiated Dawnguard missions!). Arkham City, OMD2, ME3, etc are still sitting unplayed. And here I am eyeing Dishonored.

Either too much good content indeed or Steam/Anandtech is making games more visible/known these days.

 

[Smoblikat]

Reminds me of my Oblivion days, EASILY 2K+ Hours logged into that game.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Over the past few years I've really been trying to diversify the games I play, rather than sticking to the same 2 or 3 titles for months at a time. This has lead to me buying a ton of Steam games, as well as a smaller collection of console titles. I've also been picking up more new released than I used to.

I've come to the realization that there are just too many good games out there to play them all. I've accumulated a huge backlog of games. I put my backlog into the website howlongtobeat.com and it calculated 61 days in real time to complete it. Even with my short list of high priority games it calculates 13 days real time. I play about 15 hours a week, sometimes more depending on what my weekend looks like. That means it would take me 20 weeks just to complete my short list!

Do you guys have a huge backlog of games like me, and if so how do you manage it while keeping up with new releases? Do you stick to your favorite genres, or branch out and try as many things as you can?

I am not saying you are wrong, but my situation is different. The games that I recently looked forward to were Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Modern Warfare 3 (I know, I know) and Diablo 3 and Borderlands 2. The only game that I really thought was excellent was Skyrim. ME3 was the biggest letdown in a long time, MW3 was ok, (I just wanted to finish the story), D3 was meh, and I am still playing Borderlands 2. I have been gaming for a long time, so there is not a lot of backlogged games that I am interested in. I may in fact decrease my gaming for quite a while. The only games that I am really looking forward to are Company of Heroes 2 and the next Starcraft.

 

[supremor]

I tend to stick to one or 2 games at a time. More than that and I get distracted and never finish anything. I also make a habit of finishing every game I start, unless it's an utterly terrible experience.

Wow, that is EXACTLY how I do things as well and sadly my backlog is huge.
I did just finish Max Payne 3 recently which was a solid game despite having far too many unskippable cutscenes.

 

[Soundmanred]

I'm still trying to get through Kings Quest IV: The Perils Of Rosella.
I simply can't wrap my head around a FEMALE protagonist!