On Having a Backlog and Purchasing Games

Over the past year or so, I’ve managed to develop quite a backlog of games. I’m kinda proud of what my backlog has become. It isn’t probably the best thing in the world to be proud of the fact you own a variety of games you haven’t played at all, but I’ve grown fond of my collection.

It’s incredible to see a giant backlog in it’s entirety. After sorting my collection into a backlog site, (shout outs to the Backloggery) I found that I have 128 titles in my backlog, with 114 of those titles having never been played. If one may ask why I have such a backlog, I would point towards my time spent doing other things outside of gaming, as well as the games I always play when I have the time to do so. I’m not a fully committed gamer, but whenever I see a good game, I’ll try and get it.

Now, I am not a rich person who buys everything at full price, but I built this backlog thanks to a variety of offers. Most of my backlog comes from Twitch Prime freebies. I will admit, I didn’t think Twitch Prime would be worth it at first, but the site has been killing it with some of their offerings. I got games like The Messenger, SUPERHOT, Hyper Light Drifter, and more. I also have had a bit of a trend to pick up Epic Games Store’s free game of the week. (Look, Epic Games Store might not be the most user-friendly site out there, but a free game is a free game, especially quality ones like The Witness or Transitor.)

While it might sound like I simply scourge for free games, I do purchase games. Now, I’m what one might refer to as a conservative buyer. I take a wait and see approach to buying games, checking the lowest sale price and seeing if it matches or something of the sort. I tend to keep some money on those wallets for “emergency purchases” (IE something drops extremely low.) I don’t know if something others do, but it is something that could come in handy.

There always is a bit of an urge to just go at it when a game goes on sale, but I always tend to be careful. I struggled a bit at deciding my cart for Steam’s Summer Sale, especially when trying to figure out how much it would cost. I wanted to save some cash for those emergencies after all. I ended up buying two games from the sale. It cost around 5 bucks, which is a fairly good deal. That being said, now I have 130 games in my backlog, and by the time anyone reads this, it will probably have gone up.

Maybe at one point, I’ll be able to clear out the backlog. Maybe I’ll give thoughts on the games that I play on here. But until then, I will retain the mark of shame that is not having played over 130 games…