Hello!

This is the second post on the series, if you want to read the first one and know that is going on (or just look at the puppy picture) you can do it here.

On this post I would like to explain a little bit more of my process and also talk about one of the main culprits when it comes to piling up games: the hype!

A few weeks ago we had E3, followed closely by the Steam Summer Sale, that’s a dangerous combination of excitement and low prices, it’s fairly common to get excited for the new installment on a big franchise and buy the previous game (or all of them) in an attempt to play it before the sequel comes out.

So my question for you today is:

1. Did you buy any games at the Steam Summer Sale? Which ones?

2. Were they related to E3 excitement?

3. Do you plan on playing them anytime soon?

Ok, moving on.

As I said in the previous post, the main goal of my process to fight the backlog was as simple as it can be: play more games than I buy, on a monthly basis. That means if I want to buy a new game I must have finished at least two games, or be confident that I will before the month runs out.

It’s simple enough, but I had to keep track of it, so I made a shitty lovely excel sheet with two columns where I would write the games I bought and the games I finished. Later on the sheet was improved to add platforms so I would know wether I was buying too many games on one platform and playing only on another.

This is what it looked like on the first month, August 2014.

Yes, I failed at the very beginning of my experiment, but it was the only month it happened, ever since then I was able to comply with my goal, sometimes with a good margin.

Not that there’s anything wrong with buying a game whenever you feel like it, but I think it’s interesting to write down the games you play and buy, just to get an idea of your habits, you might be surprised.

What it means to finish a game?

For some people it is 100% the game, get the platinum, badge or all achievement points. But for the most part when say we are done with a game when the story is finished, or the credits row.

I have always been stubborn with books and would force myself to finish them, no matter how bad it was. But then, one day, I decided to read Sophie’s World.

What a mistake that was, I could not go past it’s half, I could not handle that much bullshit, a philosophy book poorly disguised as a novel.

I had to put it down. And that felt great, a liberating experience.

Not so long ago the same thing happened with games, and the game that made me realize I did not have to play (or finish) every game might come as shock to most people, since it is well liked: Darksiders.

I played about two hours of it, and could not stand it anymore. From the character design to the art style, the gameplay and the overall structure of the game, everything on that game made me go “ugh”. From the very beginning everything felt like a chore.

And then I was free, my eyes were open again: there are too many games out there, there is no point in wasting time playing something you don’t like.

Just move on!

Going back to my excel table, I won’t write down as finished a game I played for 1 hour and did not like, but if I feel like I play it for a good amount of time and that I’m satisfied with the game that is fine, no need to see the credits or force myself through the end.

What about the hype?

That is a tough one.

We get really excited about games, and sometimes we channel that excitement into buying a game on impulse or maybe even something crazy like preordering a game.

I think the only game I have ever preordered was Bioshock Infinite, because I was very excited about it and it also came with a copy of X-COM: Enemy Unknown. Turned out to be a good deal for me, but I know that some people would disagree.

So I came up with an idea earlier this year that would help me clean the backlog and also appease the hype feeling.

At the end of January Dying Light was released. It was the only big game coming out in that windows and everyone was talking about it. I watched the Quick Look and it seemed pretty cool.

Suddenly I found myself excited for a game that was not on my radar at all.

White pondering wether to buy the game or not I remembered I owned Dead Island on Steam, but never played it, it was probably sitting there for a good two years.

Since the overall opinion was that the games were very similar I decided to give Dead Island a try and maybe play Dying Light later on, when the price would be lower. And it worked pretty well, I liked the game a lot (the analog melee combat system is pretty cool) and by the time I was done with it I no longer felt the need to play Dying Light, and other interesting games were already coming out.

Since then I did the same thing a number of times:

- When Mortal Kombat X came out, I played Mortal Kombat

- When the Witcher 3 was almost coming out I played The Witcher 2

- One month before Arkham Knight came out I played Arkham City

Of course you need a huge backlog to do this, but it has been working really well for me.

Post is already long so I end it here for today.

Thank you for reading =)

TL,DR: You don't have to finish every game. If you're hyped for a game, try a similar one on your backlog to cure the itch.

Also, the questions if you would like to answer:

1. Did you buy any games at the Steam Summer Sale? Which ones?

2. Were they related to E3 excitement?

3. Do you plan on playing them anytime soon?