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Game Sales! + Game Sales! = Game Backlogs
AlBQuirky
Member EpicPosts: 7,432
With the ease of game shopping these days (click on website, look at games, click to add to cart, click to buy), all the sales that seem almost continuous, with specific websites that track games and their pricing fluctuations, is it any wonder so many gamers have huge backlogs of games now? Or are you a lucky one that plays all their games as you purchase them?
Now, for the reminisce part: I remember the days before digital downloading. I'd physically go to the local game store (usually Wal-Mart) and buy 1, maybe 2 games. I head back home, install the games, and sit down to try them out. Rarely did I have games on my PC that I had not played.
Good Old Games aka: GoG has been either a godsend or a devilpit, I'm not sure which. I have used the site to "repurchase" many of the old games I once loved playing or missed out when they first released. Unfortunately, the also have a good selection of newer games, even some "pre-purchase" titles. I have currently 223 games in my GoG library, over half of them I have never played, half of the rest I played long ago but have yet to replay. That's a lot of games yet to be played from this one website alone. Steam is not as bad, but my game collection there is about the same percentage-wise.
There is such a glut of new games coming out almost every day. I look at my backlog and think I may never need buy another game for the rest of my life. Yet I do
Where do you sit with the accessibility of games today and how big is your backlog, if any? Have you found any "magic answers" to help keep your games under control? Have newer games helped facilitate this by being less "in depth" or "replayable", generally speaking?
Now, for the reminisce part: I remember the days before digital downloading. I'd physically go to the local game store (usually Wal-Mart) and buy 1, maybe 2 games. I head back home, install the games, and sit down to try them out. Rarely did I have games on my PC that I had not played.
Good Old Games aka: GoG has been either a godsend or a devilpit, I'm not sure which. I have used the site to "repurchase" many of the old games I once loved playing or missed out when they first released. Unfortunately, the also have a good selection of newer games, even some "pre-purchase" titles. I have currently 223 games in my GoG library, over half of them I have never played, half of the rest I played long ago but have yet to replay. That's a lot of games yet to be played from this one website alone. Steam is not as bad, but my game collection there is about the same percentage-wise.
There is such a glut of new games coming out almost every day. I look at my backlog and think I may never need buy another game for the rest of my life. Yet I do
Where do you sit with the accessibility of games today and how big is your backlog, if any? Have you found any "magic answers" to help keep your games under control? Have newer games helped facilitate this by being less "in depth" or "replayable", generally speaking?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Comments
I do play games to the very end, if I think it was good enough to buy, then its going to be good enough to finish. I rarely replay games, if ever, this is one of the reasons I am so annoyed about what I call Ever Early Access. I don't play a MMO and then come back to it in six months time when it has had a big update. Launch damn you.
I find the replay-ability of games to be very shallow. If it has a multiplayer element I will always try that usually for quite some time. But once its gone its gone.
I was like you, I would buy one game when I went out, go home, play the hell out of it, and when I was done maybe go buy another or play it longer. I think from when I started playing computer games until digital games came out, I had played every single game I had ever bought at least for a few hours.
Also if there were games I really wanted to play that I didn't want to buy, I would go to the local LAN center and play them there.
Once steam came out, and digital games became more prominent, and sales were outrageously good, my brain broke or something. Because I now have almost 600 games on my steam account alone and I have maybe played around 200 of them. I keep buying games on sale, even if I have no urge to ever play them just because I might have heard one time that it was fun.
The same thing happened with my playstation account and Xbox account where I have this huge backlog due to sales.
I hope to at some point just go through all my single player games and beat them one by one, but I know I will always end up playing some MMORPG or multiplayer game instead.
I do like the fact that there are so many great games coming out, and that there are a lot more resources to see how good a game is prior to purchase, because back in the day you would be stuck with whatever crap you decided to buy.
I bought Witcher 3 about a year after it launched, and still haven't finished it yet. I also have Kingdom Come Deliverance, but have only played through the prologue. Not to mention about 20 other games on steam that I have yet to either play or complete.
On top of that, I have 5 MMORPG's on deck that I've KickStarted, which haven't launch yet.
I also have the Nintendo Classic Mini and the Super Nintendo Mini, which gives me like 55 games I need to play.
Most recently though, I was gifted a Nintendo Switch, so I've been playing BoTW. Then when that's done, I have Mario Odyssey.
So with my backlog and KS frontlog(?), it will be a while here before I buy a new PC game. Unless it's a must have game, but I don't see any of those on the horizon.
Play more, Buy less.
The light bulb went on when I almost burchased D:OS2 and had barely played the first one. I won't buy it until I do and then it will likely be 80% off or something
Wa min God! Se æx on min heafod is!
One day! haha
I'd never sale my accounts but one day may pass them on to other gamers in the family.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Admittedly, for a very long time I was wary of steam, I didn't like the concept of it. Additionally, for 7 years I played nothing but MMORPGs and would only occasionally buy a console game to play couch-coop with my brother. So, I only jumped on the steam bandwagon in 2014.
I have about 120 games in my library. Think I've completed maybe 30 of them, tried another 60, and never touched the remaining 30.
For me, it's a price thing. Due to my time playing nothing but MMOs there were a lot of "great" games that I missed out on. So, when I jumped on the Steam bandwagon I started collecting a lot of these games for very cheap. But, due to low price, I feel much more comfortable stopping playing if I'm not enjoying it, whereas if I'd paid full price I'd probably soldier through.
A good example is Bioshock. I was in my MMO phase when the series came out so I completely missed it. Picked up 1, 2 and 3 for £10 in a sale. I played maybe 2 hours of the first one, hated it and so never touched the series again. I may come back to it in the future, but probably not. But, in my mind, £10 is cheaper than a cinema ticket, so even though it's a bit of a waste of money I don't feel like I've wasted much.
But, the rare game I pick up full price I do generally put in a lot of hours and get my money's worth.
I am also completely fine with the situation. Probably 75% of my library I purchased for less than £10, and I like the idea of being able to come back to games in the future if/when the mood finally takes me. I don't feel guilty about not playing games, instead I am pleased with having so much choice available at my finger tips. I also have enough self control that my spending on games probably averages £20 per month, I spend more on tobacco than I do on gaming, so the convenience of it all isn't ruining my bank account.
I have now set the default install directly for Steam to be my slow 1TB hard drive. #RoughingIt
Noooooooooooo!
Even if a game I thought was cool was on a super low sale like thw long dark recently, I still won't buy a game until I'm ready to actually play it.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
More importantly where do all my poems go if I am using the storage drive for games, I have an awfully big poem collection? (its too hot to be serious guys)
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
Good question on the poems lol. I can't answer that. It depends on if the poems are 1byte, 1KB, 1MB, 1GB, or 1TB.
I replay RPGs often and good strategy games can be replayed again and again when scenarios differ. 1500+ hours in Morrowind and 2200+ hours in Skyrim. 1000+ hours in Falout 3 and 750+ hours in Fallout: New Vegas. I've played through XCom 2 to multiple endings, and yet have to try an "Ironman" run. I've played lots of hours in Master of Magic and Rail Empires: Iron Dragon, too.
Now heavily written storybook games like Telltale makes, I could never replay. In all honesty, I can't play them through once
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
You play games the same way I do, almost always to the end and generally only one at a time until I finish. Replays are very rare, in the last year only Fallout 4 was worthy of a 2nd play through.
In the past year only one game has beaten me, Legends of Grimrock 1. I was 7 or 8 levels in and came to a room with stupid magic missles streaming from 5 or 6 nozzles.
You have to dodge between lanes as the missiles ramp up in frequency. I finally quit after failing ever night for week.
What's worse is I think that challenge is optional, and I don't need the loot but I just have to finish everything, or I can't move on.
May have to pay my son to finish it, he has "young" reflexes.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Person A: Walks by a store having a sale ... walks in and spends $40 on crap. Walks out $40 less than they started but tells everyone how much money they saved.
Person B: Walks by a store having a sale ... keeps on walking because they don't need extra crap. Still has all their money.
I'm person B. I don't buy the crap to begin with. I see crap for what it is: crap. I save my money for quality that lasts a very long time. There isn't a lot of quality in gaming atm.
You stay sassy!
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."