With all the shady business and pushy live services present in the modern video game industry, it’s very tempting to think that there’s very little worth getting these days. That is, of course, absolutely false. There’s still plenty to get excited for every year, more than ever before actually. It’s great, but it’s also kind of bothersome because it requires a bit more self-control from us gamers. It’s so easy to get caught up in the hype now that one has to mentally keep themselves from getting swept away. Just about every serious gamer has a backlog now, and it’s all we can do to hold it back sometimes.

There are so many fun-looking games coming out these days that just picking what to play can be difficult, especially in a month packed with releases like March. Personally, I think there’s at least 7 games I’d love to get my hands on coming out this month, and they’re mostly from developers I want to  support. Division 2 looks fun; Devil May Cry 5 looks like a blast; Liar Princess and the Blind Prince looks sweet, and I’ve been waiting years for a new Yoshi game. In days past, I might have tried to justify picking them all up and spending some proper time on each, but those days are past. If I bought them all, most would wind up getting banished to the backlog, and that’s not good for anyone.

I’ve been trying something else for a good while now. It kind of works in that it mostly keeps me from buying games I don’t need, but it doesn’t fully solve the problem at hand. See, what I  do now is keep a list of all the games I’d like to play. It’s a tidy little .txt document I keep tucked away in a corner of my computer’s desktop. Every time I see a game I think I’d like to play, I add it to the list along with its genre and release date. I originally thought I’d be going back to this list whenever I wanted a new game to play and would be able to pick up something from the list at some sort of discount. Unfortunately, it doesn’t  really work that way.

I don’t think I’ve gone back and bought even a single game off that list yet. Instead, I’ll just pick one upcoming game and wait for that instead of picking one out from the dozens that make up that list now. The motivation is just not there;  it’s even less than that of having a physical backlog since there’s no obligation. I never bought any, so there’s pressure whatsoever to actually go out and get them. It’s great from a money-saving perspective, but it still leaves one feeling like they’re missing the bus on many excellent experiences and topics of conversation.

Perhaps once we get into 2019’s  summer slump I’ll finally be able to turn this around and start choosing interesting older games instead of yet another flashy new title. There’s been plenty of excellent releases over the past several years, so it’s not like I’m going to be hard up for choice, right?

What do you do to manage your backlog? Do you ever get the feeling that you’re missing out even though you’re already playing plenty of games?

Lede image from Division 2 promotional website