How to Finally Beat Unfinished Games in Your Never-Ending Backlog
In a world of regular Steam sales and cheap used games, it’s easy to amass a huge stock of games that you never seem to have time to get to. Well, there is actually time, but you have to get the right approach to your lag. Here’s how to do it.
Make a master list for your entire backlog
Start by making a list of the games you have on hand or in your library that you haven’t played properly or haven’t touched at all. When I say “played to your pleasure,” I mean you haven’t played enough of them to feel like you paid for your money. Your list can be short or very long. It doesn’t matter as long as they’re all here.
This is your actual lag. You know what it is, but you may not have had a chance to look at it in its entirety before. The era of digital downloads allows us to forget about things. In our minds, the lag simply turns into an amorphous drop of lost digital content. If you’re using a client like Steam, you can see a list of everything you’ve bought there, but chances are you have games on other clients like Origin EA or Ubisoft’s Uplay. You probably also have standalone games and console games gathering dust on a shelf somewhere. By making a list, you will know everything. This is no longer just a formless “lag”, this is a list of “to play”, which will soon be drawn up.
Select and prioritize your newly generated “to play” list
When you have a To Play list, review it and remove any games you know you will never play. You probably bought some of them on impulse, but didn’t even install or unpack them. If you own physical games, you can sell them to get cashback . If they are digital only, you may have some way out if you can redeem codes, sell on the Steam marketplace, or sell back to a service that uses digital games like Green Man Gaming . If you want to help yourself in the future, you can make a “shameful list” of these games to remind yourself which games you’ve never bothered with.
I also find it helpful to uninstall multiplayer games. These games themselves can be overwhelming. You end up playing the same game over and over for just one round or match, while your backlog screams in the corner. Remember, you can always come back to them later (and you might want to if one of your games you want to play isn’t very interesting).
With some games removed, reorganize your list so that the game you want to play the most is at the top. Then keep scrolling through your list until it is ordered from most interesting to play to least played to. Take one last look at the games at the bottom of the list — the ones you care less about — and decide if you ever play them. You might find a couple of stragglers holding on to a little thread of interest. By organizing your games this way, you can create motivation to beat them all. You have video game debt, and the explosion in your dynamics can help you pay it off like real debt .
Disable new games at source
As you work your way through your backlog, it is obvious that you are not adding it. The game you want so badly may go on sale, but chances are it will go on sale again, perhaps cheaper, during the next Steam sale. Resist the urge to buy new games until you’ve made at least some progress on your list of games.
To help yourself, do a brief game news blackout. Give yourself time to marvel at what you’ve already bought before a full-speed positive review sends you to your nearest play store. Remember, all of these new releases will remain in stock when you finish your backlog. Yes, and remember, never pre-order games .
Remove or hide anything not in your playlist
Now that you have a neatly organized To Play list, give the impression that these are the only games you have. Uninstall other games from your Mac or PC so you won’t be tempted to go back to games you’ve already played. On Steam, you can also hide games by creating your own playlists. Basically, it will look like you only have games on your To-Play list. Grab your console games and stash them in the vault so it’s hard to get them. You can even ask someone to hide (or play whatever) them for you if you like.
It might sound a little extreme, but it saves you the distractions from other games so you can focus on your goal of closing the gap. If you wish, you can create a one in, one out system where you can reinstall or revert the game after you play the pending game and remove it from your play list.
Plan your play time and stay satisfied
You probably only have a certain amount of time to play games each day, but a little planning can help you knock games out more efficiently. If you have an hour to play every day, schedule delayed play most of the time. You can set a timer so you don’t get distracted from the task, but always start your playing time with an unfulfilled game. This way, you will either be drawn into yourself and continue with the allotted playing time, or you will move on to something else, giving it a little time. Some progress is always better than no progress.
If you don’t like the game, don’t torture yourself with it. Play until you’re satisfied and move on. There is also nothing wrong with playing a game without the intention of ending it . You may well know that you do not have time to complete the game, but you still want to try it for your own pleasure. Or maybe you want to talk to your friends about the game, so you play it just enough to understand it at their level. Whichever way you decide to approach games from the “To-Play” list, always pay attention to your personal satisfaction.
When you finish the game, enjoy your success.
As you go through the list, keep an eye on the games you actually complete and share it with others . Announce this to your friends and earn some trust, or post to your favorite online community. It’s nice to see right through something, so you can enjoy it as much as possible. Who knows, maybe you can get by with some of them and get them to take over their own affairs.