Why is it that so many people have huge "backlogs"?

[quote name='Organization_XIII']Or a good shove down a flight of stairs.[/QUOTE]

LOL
"While the chick probably sitting there thinking bout marriage I'm thinking abortion like a savage or an ON PURPOSE ACCIDENT to have a miscarriage." Joe Buddens: Padded Room track 7 or 8 "I couldn't help it"
 
[quote name='Vinny']Best two answers.

I don't get why having a huge backlog bothers some people so much. It's not like the world is going to end if a game isn't played. I'll get to those games when the time comes. Until then, they'll sit there and look pretty.[/QUOTE]

You could be spending time doing something you enjoy rather than shopping for something you dont need.
 
I don't know if what I have counts as a huge backlog or not. I have seven PS2 games that I haven't finished, and a couple 360 games that I'd like to get to some day.

My reasons:

I'm married. Very very happily. Spending time with her, going out and having fun, simply /talking about things,/ often interrupts gaming for weeks at a time. Then The Wife gets caught up in 14 hour work days for a couple months at a time doing legal work for various clients. So my uninterrupted gaming time is unpredictable.

We spontaneously decide to travel to various places. Which means I can be mid game, suddenly get shunted off to, say, Ireland, then return to the game a couple weeks later and have difficulty picking it up again.

My Xbox 360 keeps breaking.

That deserves a /repeat./ My Xbox 360 keeps breaking. So I've sort of started avoided playing games on it, including the ones I already have. Many of the ones I /have,/ such as The Darkness, are worth very little when it comes to trade in value.

As for spending time shopping for them, I spent very little of my life acquiring those games. I did intend to play all of them, but life repeatedly gets TOO AWESOME to do so.

What the hell is wrong with that? Honestly?
 
[quote name='Tony208']buying games for cheap is a hobby in itself[/QUOTE]

Exactly. I rarely pay over $10 for a game and I have a backlog going back to the 90s. Why? Because I can and the hunt is as fun as the spoils.

There was a time when I did pretty well on selling to small stores and on eBay, making my hobby nearly break even and occasionally profitable. I actually came out ahead several thousand dollars when Sega pulled the plug on the Saturn. I bought out the game inventory at so many Best Buy locations I got a call from Discover Card wanting assurance this was me and not some thief.

I haven't had any scores like that in a few years but at $10 or less I can indulge. It's a vice but a fairly harmless one.
 
[quote name='moothemagiccow']You could be spending time doing something you enjoy rather than shopping for something you dont need.[/QUOTE]

And what makes you think they aren't doing something they enjoy?

Also, as a tech hobbyist, I'm in it for more than just the playing. I like to see a wide variety of developers at their trade and how they execute their ideas. This means some stuff may only get lightly examined but it all matters to me.
 
I've been here more than 5 years. Till this day, I still can't understand the mindset of those that purchase without the intent the play. I know one thing, I cannot wait until I can waste money like that. I just recently purchased a Wii and just one game. This generation of titles is just a disappointment to me, I haven't really found any games that warrant me to rush to the store and buy them first day. To each his own :]
 
[quote name='Riyonuk']I've been here more than 5 years. Till this day, I still can't understand the mindset of those that purchase without the intent the play. I know one thing, I cannot wait until I can waste money like that. I just recently purchased a Wii and just one game. This generation of titles is just a disappointment to me, I haven't really found any games that warrant me to rush to the store and buy them first day. To each his own :][/QUOTE]

Let me guess, the game you picked up with your new Wii was a Metroid game?
 
Because usually any game that looks like I'd be a cool different story/experience I usually buy when it hits the $10-$15 price range. I mean, that's a pretty good price for the amount of gameplay you're getting, no?
 
[quote name='Organization_XIII']Let me guess, the game you picked up with your new Wii was a Metroid game?[/QUOTE]

Brawl my friend. Brawl.
 
People need to learn how to get a hobby game instead of buying every 8 hour title that gets hyped every month.

I played Counter-Strike for 5 years, Broodwar for 10 years, WoW for 5 years, and I'm currently playing SSF4 regularly for what's been a year and a half now.
 
[quote name='epobirs']Exactly. I rarely pay over $10 for a game and I have a backlog going back to the 90s. Why? Because I can and the hunt is as fun as the spoils.[/QUOTE]

It's not my style but I 100% see where you are coming from. I build/restore arcade cabinets in my spare time and I think working on them is equal if not more fun than actually playing the games.... unless you involve beer. Beer + Arcade Games = FUN. Beer + Power Tools = NO FUN.
 
[quote name='Enuf']Really simple...when I was 11-16 I had time to beat/master most/all of my games to completion now I have a 65 hr work week, car that opens up my social life and by the way and MOST IMPORTANTLY PU$$Y, VJJ!!!! My girl 5-4 thick 165 lbs 40DD and a 38-40 in A$$ walkin around in boy shorts, sweats, tank tops n $hit beggin 2 get da pipe. The game don't go on pause the ps3 gets turned off. I'd much rather her play with my dual analog then me play with Sony's.
[/QUOTE]
Thick chicks 4 life! :D
Good post and that's my reason, though instead of a 65 hr work week I have 20 and college. I also got rid of DVR to stop watching mediocre tv shows and instead have more bedroom escapades. If I want to watch something I'll wait to rent on DVD, or find it "other" ways.

My other reason is Steam. PC and now Mac gamers know what I'm talking about. ;)
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']People need to learn how to get a hobby game instead of buying every 8 hour title that gets hyped every month.

I played Counter-Strike for 5 years, Broodwar for 10 years, WoW for 5 years, and I'm currently playing SSF4 regularly for what's been a year and a half now.[/QUOTE]
That isnt a hobby, thats an obsession. I would be bored to tears playing the same game for more than 2 months let alone YEARS! 10 years? REALLY? WOW. I probably have ADD though...
 
[quote name='Organization_XIII']This is something I never quite understood. How is it that I hear/read so many people have tens, if not tens of dozens, of games they bought and have yet to play? My whole life, I've only bought 1 or 2 games at a time (max) and beat them before I went out and picked up some more. Christmas of 2009 I got like 3 or 4 games and it urked me when I had a 2-game backlog, and there are people who list of 15 or more games they haven't played yet. Are you all just finding insanely good deals every 3 days, or am I missing the joy of having a butt-ton of games that have just been sitting on my shelf for display or something?[/QUOTE]

i think its a disease or something. i know i have a backlog of around 60+ games and i just keep buying for some reason.. i think i buy them cause i think i will not have another chance to get the games cheaper..

just like the new kingdom hearts ds game.. i told myself NOPE not going to buy it cause i will buy DQ6 and 2 other games in FEb... yet as soon as amazon did it for 19.99 after 15 buck credit i had to get it...
i doubt i will ever play it though

i really need to dump all of my stuff.... last count i have 145 + ds games over 90 will never be played again and probally at least 100 psp games .... i have them stacked off the floor in 4 paper bags and under 4 tables
 
[quote name='mang9432']For me, it's a combination of Puffa's comment, and my current situation.

- In my younger years, I had a nearly unlimited supply of time to play games, but no money to buy them.
- Now I have a reasonably sized disposable income, but my gaming time is somewhat precious.

Future me is buying all these games for past me.[/QUOTE]
Excellent way of putting it.


I think the main reason I have more unfinished games than I have finished ones is because if I play a game for too long, I'll be burned out and not want to play anything. Plus, I never ever ever sell or trade-in, so I'll have the games forever; in no rush to beat them. =P

EDIT: the backlog in my sig is definitely not up to date, I need to update...
 
I have a huge backlog because I buy a lot of games but have lost the need to finish games which fail to keep me interested.

They ain't bio-degrading anytime soon so if/when I get some free time or an itch to play then I'll revisit them but for the most part it's the media and peers which push us to buy-buy-buy and move on to the next.

The trick is not letting them bother you because they still have e-peen inflating trophies and achievements to be had. Fight the power!
 
[quote name='Fell Open Ian']I have a huge backlog because I buy a lot of games but have lost the need to finish games which fail to keep me interested.

They ain't bio-degrading anytime soon so if/when I get some free time or an itch to play then I'll revisit them but for the most part it's the media and peers which push us to buy-buy-buy and move on to the next.

The trick is not letting them bother you because they still have e-peen inflating trophies and achievements to be had. Fight the power![/QUOTE]

Well put. This is what happens to me a lot. I will buy a game, get about halfway through it, and lose interest in it. One good example is infamous, I bought it for $10, loved the first few hours, got about halfway through it, and have not bothered to pick it up since because it just got boring to me. It has nothing to do with the number of games I have or how big of a backlog, it's just some games just don't keep me interested to play the whole time and then they just pile up in my collection as unfinished.
 
I have a pretty large backlog. Got rid of all my previous generation stuff even though I didn't get around to playing a lot of it. Basically have the backlog because the games were cheap. All games are purchased between $5-$20. It's cheaper than renting if you sell the games after you are finished on ebay.
 
if you could have gotten a brand new game for 15 bucks that you were interested in possibly playing at some point in your life then why spend 8 or so to rent it when i can pay 15.89 to own it forever. Granted I have become a collector and I have 400ish games with around 80 unopened and 150 unplayed, but when I got into some law trouble paying 5 for a copy of earthbound back in 99 really paid off when i sold it on ebay for 240. So it is a win win for me, I get a game, that I wanna play (maybe) and if I don't ever get around to it then I have the possibility of selling it.
 
For me it's pretty simple. I have a list of games I'd like to play some day, and if I come across a killer deal for one even though I may not get around to playing it for months, then when I finally do, it won't cost me as much and I save money in the long run. Besides, since games are my main entertainment, I kind of like knowing I will always have something new to play.
 
I use to buy a lot more games say like 4-5 years ago to make up for my younger years of having no games plus i was in college had a little free time and some $$

Now my backlog is very small 4 games if i dont play it in a few months i either sell or trade them either here ir goozex. Work, my house, my wife, and the real world take my time

In the end I buy very few games at full price maybe 2-3 a year, and most of that is with store credit The rest I wait to drop to a decent price or i get them on goozex

i think there was a thread someplace with gaming budgets for the year holy cow some of us spend $2k a year or more on games
 
More income+cheap games-lack of time (due to maintaining more income)=Backlog

My main problem is I jumped on the PS3 bandwagon very late. So I got a lot of the killer apps (most for a decent price) and its taking me awhile to catch up on 3 years of console games.
 
[quote name='wrencrest']That isnt a hobby, thats an obsession. I would be bored to tears playing the same game for more than 2 months let alone YEARS! 10 years? REALLY? WOW. I probably have ADD though...[/QUOTE]

People play many sports all their lives, and that hardly means it's an everyday thing. What I'm saying is, always have a game you can go back to to.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']People play many sports all their lives, and that hardly means it's an everyday thing. What I'm saying is, always have a game you can go back to to.[/QUOTE]
I hear ya, different strokes for different folks, no problem there. I was being more tongue in cheek than anything. I am pretty sure I really do have ADD though. I dont care what the game is, I cant play it more than a couple times. That being said I will go back to games to do multiple play throughs. But only after playing other games in between.
 
[quote name='panzerfaust']People need to learn how to get a hobby game instead of buying every 8 hour title that gets hyped every month.

I played Counter-Strike for 5 years, Broodwar for 10 years, WoW for 5 years, and I'm currently playing SSF4 regularly for what's been a year and a half now.[/QUOTE]

I think you've hit on the difference between multiplayer and single player experiences. I'm sure your playing all those games online against other people.

Online multiplayer games have much longer legs than primarily single player experiences.

I love to play first person shooters online. I spent years playing Team Fortress Classic and Counterstrike. Nowadays I play Call of Duty and Battlefield games regularly.

But even with those I still need a fresh singleplayer game to play every few weeks or so. So I tend to buy alot of games, but I will always go back to those tried and true multiplayer games.

Not everyone is into the competetive multiplayer thing though, so not everyone can have a 'hobby game' like that.
 
I've finally in the last year, stopped forcing myself through games and admit that the game is just not for me. If I don't like it in the first 2 hours, I get rid of it. I NEVER used to do that. This has helped a lot.
 
[quote name='mang9432']I've finally in the last year, stopped forcing myself through games and admit that the game is just not for me. If I don't like it in the first 2 hours, I get rid of it. I NEVER used to do that. This has helped a lot.[/QUOTE]

That's what I need to start doing. I have a backlog dating back to the NES days. Like mang9432 said, "Future me is buying all these games for past me."

I pick up games really cheap and hardly ever spend more than $10 on any game. It's easy to get carried away and before you know it, you have more games than you have free time.

I've cut back a bit this generation though, only picking up games I know I will like and not buying stuff just because it's $5.
 
Because it's really hard to resist paying less than $10 for a game when you see it. If you don't buy it then you might be missing the chance and it will be GONE FOREVER.
Sure you might not play it for a few months or a year, but....
 
[quote name='mang9432']For me, it's a combination of Puffa's comment, and my current situation.

- In my younger years, I had a nearly unlimited supply of time to play games, but no money to buy them.
- Now I have a reasonably sized disposable income, but my gaming time is somewhat precious.

Future me is buying all these games for past me.[/QUOTE]

As others have pointed out, this sums up my situation as well.

I think it's also exacerbated by the fact that games these days are so damn good. When I had all the time in the world, back when I was a kid, or in college, there were only a handful of great games to play. But now that gaming has become more mainstream, a lot more games are being developed, and so many of them are good. I want to experience them all, but just don't have time for it.
 
Gamefly is my backlog...I just got it for X-mas and my list is already 35 games long. I can't imagine actually having like 6 to 10 or even 15 of these sitting on my shelf, that would eat me alive.
 
[quote name='porieux']I don't look at my game collection as a 'backlog'.....I see it as a 'library'.[/QUOTE]

That's another good way to put it. It's great when cousins or younger children come to visit. The look on their eyes when they see the amount of games they can play is priceless.
 
[quote name='porieux']I don't look at my game collection as a 'backlog'.....I see it as a 'library'.[/QUOTE]

This!


I dont look at my 'backlog' as some enemy to fight against. Its there when I want it.

I also kinda look at it as unemployment insurance. If I ever find my self unemployed, I can live for a year or two just from ebaying my gaming stuff. Then I would move on to my Lego.... :whistle2:#
 
When I do surveys and swagbucks, etc. online and I get free gift cards. Combine that with a good game deal, and you get a backlog! :)
 
[quote name='dyeknom']constipation is the leading cause of backlogs.[/QUOTE]

That's when I get most of my gaming done.

Edit: Caught up with the thread. I grew up pretty poor, and I had Sim City 2000, Doom 1/2, StarCraft/BroodWars and almost nothing else from 13-18. In college, I started pirating a lot (and borrowed a few games), because I was still poor. I never had a console growing up either. And my family had one TV. I always had the intention to buy games when I started making money. So fast forward to a few years ago, when I started having disposable income. Now I have a big library, with 1 single sports game (FIFA World Cup, from GameFly's year-end sale). So it's my way of catching up, but of course, with the disposable income comes less time. So yes, a big part of it is that I'm buying because I never had them.

Also, I don't buy them to profit, but it is nice to say, yea, I have a sealed copy of Infinite Space, or some other game I find are underrated. It's not like I go out and buy Modern Warfare etc either, since I have 0 of them. Most of my collection is RPG/SRPG, which like someone else said, causes a bigger backlog due to their length.

And about the hobby games... I'll admit that I spent a lot more money than I should have playing Tekken Tag/4 at arcades. I estimated about $10k spent on those in 5~6 years, because it was almost all I played from 2000-2005. Almost all the money I made while working in college (and then some) went to that. I don't really regret it, because it's pretty much the only competitive game I didn't get bored with after a few months. I played Counter Strike for a few years, and I was the one using scouts and pistols. And still ending up on the top of the list in most games. I wasn't that good, but most people just sucked. I played FFXI for several years, and our Linkshell accomplished some pretty nice stuff, like supposedly the first North American Linkshell to kill Tiamat. I do wish I was that competitive still, a lot of times. I try to get my GF to play Tekken and other fighting games, but she won't, because she says I cheat =P

tl;dr: I see it as a library, I'm making up for not having games when I was young.
 
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Hmm, if you take a look at my collection, 95% of it is backlog.

Honestly, I have every intention to play the games when I buy them. Just don't have the time. I also always pick them up when I can find them sub-$20, especially RPGs which may increase in price once OOP.
 
Great deals with limited time to play mostly. Although generally when I buy a game I will play it for a bit regardless. It's just a matter of what holds my interest and games often times get pushed to the back burner. End of 2009 and beginning of 2010 a lot of other games got pushed aside so I could spend more time on Borderlands. MW2 got just enough time for me to finish the campaign once and play a bit of multiplayer before Borderlands took over again.

It's basically a digital version of ADD. Just because I'm playing something right now doesn't necessarily mean I will be playing it a month, week, day, hour, or even 5 minutes from now. I typically buy games right away if I know I'll spend the time on it and just wait on everything else until it's cheap or until a friend wants to part with it.
 
I bought Final Fantasy XIII like 3 days ago and only had time to play an hour or so. I have no intention to pick up any more games (unless a Ratchet and Clank Collection is released) until I make my way through this game: estimated time of completion - sometime late March - early April.
 
Not sure if it has been mentioned, but sports games create "backlogs". A game that never ends can take much of your video game time. I also agree with everyone who says it is more of a library than a backlog. I have about 25 PS3 games and it is nice to be able to grab one when I get in the mood for it.
 
[quote name='eldergamer']Because it's really hard to resist paying less than $10 for a game when you see it. If you don't buy it then you might be missing the chance and it will be GONE FOREVER.
Sure you might not play it for a few months or a year, but....[/QUOTE]
this. you don't see games drop too far below $10. So you might as well pick it up now rather than never.
[quote name='porieux']I don't look at my game collection as a 'backlog'.....I see it as a 'library'.[/QUOTE]
same here. at 100+ games now. but it is great when i see my 2 baby brothers a few times a year, i give them a stack of games: "here try these out and I'll see ya in 5 months to swap them out.

If your game gets boring, sell it.
Click to expand...
how much do you really think your gonna get for a year old game you bought for $10?!??? I'd rather keep the game to just have than trade it in for a dollar and some change. If I really need $1.47 I will dig in my couch cushions.

I've calmed down alot the past year. LBP2 will be my first dayone release buy in well over a year and my first buy over $20 in 8 months
 
[quote name='moothemagiccow']If your game gets boring, sell it.[/QUOTE]
how much do you really think your gonna get for a year old game you bought for $10?!??? I'd rather keep the game to just have than trade it in for a dollar and some change. If I really need $1.47 I will dig in my couch cushions
 
I am really wondering where the hell you guys are seeing recent console games for ten dollars.
Not on this site, not regularly. Maybe $20 occasionally. The only things I see for $10 are used games on half.com, and they're generally 18 months old by then.

And you'll get maybe about $7 for it after fees if you're smart and don't sell it to the biggest used games retailer in the country.
If you don't like it, why are you holding onto it?
 
Every now and then you can find games for that price. Older games of course. GoHastings tends to have decent $10 games when they have their sales.
 
I only have 4 games that I haven't played yet. Whenever I retire (if I make it that far) and have enough money to support myself and whomever else, then I will have enough games to play until I die. Instead of golfing, I'll be playing video games. :D
 
[quote name='Vinny']I don't get why having a huge backlog bothers some people so much. It's not like the world is going to end if a game isn't played. I'll get to those games when the time comes. Until then, they'll sit there and look pretty.[/QUOTE]

Lol this is exactly my way of thinking...:applause:
 
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