I clear my mind of the concept of a backlog, and embrace the idea that games are for my entertainment - thus if I am not currently feeling entertained, I can put the game down and not play it without guilt.

TL:DR; There is no backlog.

Simple, I don’t. I play whatever I feel like playing, sometimes I stick with it, sometimes I start again after a year and well sometimes, I never touch that game again.

I don’t have a backlog, I have a collection.

If I spend more than 5 minutes trying to decide what to play, I use one of the Steam game pickers and just go with it.

I install only two games: one AAA or long one, and one indie/short one. I choose on of the two per day depending on my mood, but I won’t install any other one until I finish them. It worked well so far, and it also helped with the limited storage the deck has (yes, playing mostly on deck, but I guess it helps no matter the setup)

Gave up on that a long time ago 🤣

These days I mostly just have a nebulous list in the back of my mind of what games I want to get to and when I finish one (which, the Steam Deck has been a huge help with focusing down one game at a time), I move along to the next.

Also, I started cataloging what I’ve played on Grouvee, which is as close as I was able to find to Goodreads for games. Helps to be able to go back and look over what I’ve “accomplished” in the list of completed games.

I don’t have a backlog, I have a lot of options what I might be playing next. There is no pressure to finish or even play any of them.

I install all the games I have purchased but did not play. If I run out of storage, that absolutely means I shouldn’t purchase new games.

Luckily that hasn’t been the issue. Ever since doing this I’ve gone through my backlog and played a lot of games I had, and I’m close to being done. This summer sale will be my first time in a while to purchase a lot of games.

By not having a backlog in the first place.

I do have thousands of games on my library, but it’s a library. I only pick up the game I’m having an exact itch for, and I put them on hold until I get the itch again, exactly like I do with music albums.

No pressure, no rushing. I can recommend every single game from my library from firsthand experience because I’ve enjoyed every single second of my time playing them.

I just consider it a collection and not a backlog. Makes me feel a little better about all the $$ I’ve wasted.

I have around 200 games that I’ve accumulated over the 15+ years I’ve had my steam account. Most of them came from summer sales over the years and weren’t played.

I bought a steamdeck a year ago and played more games since than I have in the decade prior. I think the convenience of the steamdeck + being able to play wherever I want is the biggest factor for me. I don’t play AAA games, so it works great for me.

I don’t even add all my humble bundle games any more.

Occasionally I’ll see a humble bundle games that peaks my interest, only to find it already in my library.

I’ve really tried to stop purchasing anything, especially anything new, although it looks like AAA developers have caught onto this and are doing their best to keep “goty” versions as close in price to the original release price as possible. An excellent trick by them, release a game with a bunch of cut/"planned"content, sell 60% of the game at 100% price, then a year down the road sell the full game at 100% price, but look at the 40% extra content you get for your money!

I recently finished two games I’ve had for years (God of War: Origins Collection, PS3). My process is to plan ahead, categorize my games by genre. When I’m in the mood for a genre, I’ll narrow them down to one game/series & play as much as I can. when I’m bored, I’ll move onto another genre, that way I’m not overwhelming myself with the same types of games. of course this means I have a lot of half-finished games as well. Try to finish games when you can before starting a new one. I often switch between long & short games to avoid monotony.

So far for this year it’s looking like the answer is: I’m not.

Too many good games coming out this year!

Another point of consideration, why do you want to finish all of these games?

Personally, I rarely finish games. So many times I’ll play for 6-8 hours and just start to lose interest. At that point I quit the game, maybe to come back to it a few weeks, months, years later, but maybe not.

You have to remind yourself that games are 1) fun, 2) art, and 3) time wasters. The whole point of playing a video game is to waste time, so don’t spend that time playing something that isn’t fun.

But that’s me and how I do it. Good luck!

The only game in my backlog is the Final Fantasy VII Remake and my strategy for clearing my backlog is “when my kids are sufficiently independent”. Right now that is not even a little bit a possibility.