Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Why would you ever have a backlog in the first place? Why would you buy a game and then not play it?
Put the games you want to play in the future on your wishlist. When you're ready to play a new game, pick one from your wishlist, buy it, play it.
The games aren't going away, they're not going to run out of digital copies. Why would you ever buy it before you're ready to play it? It doesn't matter whether it's sitting in your wishlist or your hard drive, so let them sit in your wishlist, where it's a lot cheaper for them to sit.
(Okay, sure, games go on sale on steam occasionally, and you might want to pick one up while it's on sale. Even then, though ... games tend to get cheaper over time as they get older. Just waiting and buying it later might ultimately be cheaper than the 'on sale' price.)
This is a black and white view on backlogs. Yes you can just not buy a game when you're not ready to play it. That's not usually how it always plays out. Yes I do buy games while they're on sale and have been out for 5+ years. I buy games with the intention to play them. That doesn't mean right away as soon as I buy it.
Most games I buy I fire up at least once. For the rare handful of games that I bought and never tried it's not a big deal because I only paid a few bucks for these games. If it doesn't click right away but I want to keep trying it goes on the back burner. If it doesn't click at all, I refund it. If it's a game I started and liked but fell off of for something else it goes in the backlog. Sometimes I just want a game in my collection. I know I won't play it right now but if I have the means to buy it, I'm gonna get it so it's in my collection and I don't have to worry about it later. That's a more rare situation and most games like that will sit in my Wishlist for years, but it does happen.
Sometimes games do go away. Command & Conquer wasn't on Steam for years and then all of a sudden the whole collection showed up. Same as Dino Crisis in the last couple days. I used to have physical copies of the games but they got lost to time, be it giving them away to friends who wanted to play them, or losing them in moves, or selling them. Some of my backlog is older generation games that have been freed from their console shackles. They just announced MGS4 for PS5 and PC. I last played that game almost 15 years ago on PS3. I would love to play it again in the future. Even if I wait for a sale, I know I want it in my collection.
Games don't always get cheaper as they get older either. Most Japanese games stay above $35 these days when not on sale. Even classics that are multiple generations old at this point. If I think a game is worth it at full price, I will pay full price.
Lastly my Wishlist isn't just a catch all for games I want to play in the future. If that was the case there would be thousands of games on it. It's a little bit more curated than that. It's mainly for smaller games I do wait for because they're in early access. Most big AAA games on my Wishlist are waiting for sales. The majority isn't released or I'm waiting for reviews to see the quality on. Yes there are games I'm interested in but are not 100% sure I would play. That's why I cull the list every few months or so.