Too many damn games, or too little time...

[J T]

Aye Captain! Steer this thread hard towards the starboard! It's about to be derailed by another discussion of pirates!

[Erik_Twice]

Ok, let's get this on track!

I kind of feel bad for game developers that put a lot of time and energy into making really long games where most people that buy it won't ever even look at the last half of it.

I think many games, specially JRPGs, are too long for the content they have. Persona 3 FES, which I think is the best JPRG I have ever played is 80 hours long but a third of those hours are spent grinding on a randomly-generated dungeon that is nowhere as fun as the plot dungeons. Without that, the game would be far more fun and I would have finished it.

But alas, videogamers still think too much about how long a game is.

[Wolfman]

At least in my case is too little time. When i was 15 to 18 i had lots of time and played lots of games. Now i only play on weekends and for some hours, not whole days like i used to. That's one of the reasons i've been picking only games i REALLY want, not everything people say it's good. Otherwise i'd have a ton of games i never played by now hahah.

Back in the day a 8 hours game would feel fast, now i feel like it's been really long. I miss the old days.

[Ivo]

I think about this kind of stuff once in a while.

Like others in the thread, I've pondered about "prioritising" games that I could play better when young, but I'm not sure if that is the correct approach for me personally. For all you know you could die early and then you would have more truly great strategic games unplayed (and I think those may be my favourite type of games even).
I like dexterity and reflex games a lot but I am not sure I should play just those until a given age and then swap out.

On the main issue of too many games: definitively there are already far more high quality games *right now* than I could play for the rest of my life, and they keep making them. No chance to play everything I would like to, even if I could retire and play games full time (which I don't think I would want to even if I could - but I think I would play quite a lot more than I do right now, if I could).

I have also started skipping games more frequently when I don't feel like continuing them. I may miss out on some pleasant surprises of turning out to really like the game after insisting a bit (which has happened before) but when considering that if I don't skip the game that basically means I won't get the time to play something else instead, I think being a bit more liberal in skipping a game you're not liking so much ends up being generally worth it.

Ivo.

[bryan_65]

The fewer games I have the more I play them, oddly enough.

Same with me here. Its just like the huge DVD collection I have also, I was spending too much time thinking of what to play or watch instead of just playing something. In the last year or two I have really made some good strides to fix this problem. Now if the game can't hold my attention even if it is a great title, its gone.

[3DSStrider]

Think this feeling sucks when you're an adult? How about when you're 13? I probably can beat all the games I have in my lifetime, my backlog is overwhelming. Since I'm not much of a collector, I'm only trying to buy games that are well regarded (mostly by you guys, I don't bother with professional reviews) at least I will be playing the best games possible, but often I'm just unmotivated, since video games are something that requires effort. Honestly, I read more about video games than I play them. Hopefully I can change that soon.

[Xeogred]

I don't really worry about this sort of thing myself, per se'. Especially since I see myself getting pickier and pickier about what I play in the future generations. That said I have a knack for hating when I don't finish a game. Bad or not, it's kind of like me with watching shows and stuff... I'm not even a completionist in games anymore, but I guess I just hate leaving stuff unfinished. I haven't touched Lost Odyssey in two years but I still have it on my backlog frontpage because it bothers me being incomplete, haha... oh and I still think about Shining Force which I never finished. Yeah, you guys remember that Together Retro last year? lol...

Maybe I'll get over that someday. I've been like that forever though.

[dsheinem]

So no one agrees with the math from my post on the first page? I think it is entirely doable to beat a very large backlog of all the games you might want to play in one lifetime if you remain an active gamer for 50+ years.

[Cronozilla]

I was worried about this myself for awhile. I'd always get a lot of guff from friends saying, "you're never going to play all those games". Currently I've got about 600+ or so in my collection, and most of them I haven't had the time to play. Of course, I think everyone has something of an issue with buying games faster than they can be played.

However, I don't think it's that much of an actual problem.

I did a rough calculation about 6 or so months ago with some time averages on games campaigns. I assume most will be in the 12-15 hour range as an average (a lot are 6-8 and plenty are 20. But only a handful are over 20 hours, like RPGs)

Using this as a metric I calculated a rough total time required to play all these to some sort of completion and then I applied it to playing a few hours a day. Like, 2-5 to get varying amounts.

And I found that, as long as I play diligently, and consistently, not just like ... stare at the mountain of games and wonder how I'll ever play them all ... but actually put in some hours, at least like, 7-10 a week or so, I will actually play every game I own within 5 years.

So ... not as daunting as it seems. If casually playing allows me to get through the entire thing in something as trivial as a few years.

So, I stopped worrying about it.

[Ivo]

So no one agrees with the math from my post on the first page? I think it is entirely doable to beat a very large backlog of all the games you might want to play in one lifetime if you remain an active gamer for 50+ years.

I agree that it is very possible to eliminate most "backlogs" if one keeps the backlog static and just hacks away with it.

My "issue" is
1. I count any free games I want to play in my backlog. I guess most people won't count it that way, but I do. After all it is a matter of time, not money being the limiting factor to me.
2. They keep making new games (free or not) that I want to play, and apparently at a higher rate than I play them.

It is not a big problem. It is a sort of "1st world problem". Too much choice. But I think for those (like me) who have it, it is worth thinking about it to make better choices.

Ivo.