My Backlog Progress in 2022

Looking through my progress in defeating my gaming backlog.

Most gamers have gaming backlogs, but whether or not someone cares about it and how big it is depends per person. Some keep the backlog in the back of their mind while others don’t care as much and see it as a collection (with some even buying more to bloat out their games owned stat on Steam). Some gamers also only have a couple games in their backlog, some are just in double digits, some are in the triple, and some have the enormous quadruple digits. I find myself in the triple digits.

Luckily, my triple digits fell in the less-than-500 half rather than the more-than-500 half of the triple digit qualification. As many others, I didn’t have a backlog as a kid, but it built up as I grew up. It also didn’t help when I finally got internet and thus able to join Steam. It introduced me to PC games, whereas before I was only able to get physical copies of console games. It’s pretty hard to tell yourself no when you see a game you want on discount, whether or not it’s something you’re really interested in or somewhat. Humble Bundle added more games to the mix as well with it’s bundles.

Last year, actually on Christmas, I got in the mood of putting all of my games on a Google Sheet so I would have a list of all games I haven’t played on PC and consoles. I then went through the games, deciding if it’s a game I would like or ones that I would not. Those that I knew I wouldn’t like were taken off, and honestly it’s kind of sad. Some were going to be games off of Humble Bundles, but there were some that I probably would be into back when I first got it, but I’m not know. Maybe if I played it right away I would have had a good time, or if I just waited longer I wouldn’t have wasted money on it. After that, I was left with games that I still wanted to play. From here, I decided that just completing the main campaign would count towards completing the game. I took the same stance I had for getting 100% achievements, I won’t force myself to do everything unless I really love a game.

However, if I’m just not feeling the game after an hour or two, I decided that I would just drop it. I can’t help if I don’t end up enjoying a game as much as I thought I would and the time I would be using forcing myself to complete a game I dislike could go into other games. I gave it a good try, often through a couple days just in case it was just the mood I was in, and that’s all that matters.

I started 2022 with 422 games in my backlog. By the end of 2022, I’m down to 227. I thought about listing my progress by month, but instead I thought doing it in graph form would be a bit better to visualize and less long winded:

You can really see where I got busy or slacked off a bit. It also doesn’t help that I got into Gamefly, Playstation Plus Extra, and Xbox Game Pass, throwing even more games in the mix that I could play (but wouldn’t factor into my backlog). Though, you could make an argument that it would help me not buy as many games.

Hopefully, I’ll make another dent in my backlog in 2023. I’m definitely going to try to buy less games next year. I’ve been thinking about several conditions, like one game per month, letting myself get additional games per month if I complete a game off my backlog (how many depends on how long the game is, like finishing a GTA game will equal to one game, while two 5-ish hour games will equal to one game), and only getting a game if I’m going to play it right away (otherwise, in my wishlist to wait for a discount and time when I will play it immediately).

I think I’ll aim to get it to the 100s by the end of 2023. I won’t be too hard for myself, so that means even if it’s at 199, it’ll count. 28 games probably doesn’t sound too bad, but that’s before I buy any games to add to it.