How to Handle the Gaming Backlog - Luke's Game Room

Gaming Backogs get larger and larger as each year of new titles is released. I goes over my method for maintating the ever growing backlog as well explaining the types of games I play nowadays. And what you should do to focus on keeping your back log managable. Whether your a video game collector, competetive gamer, or filthy casual. So far I've beaten only 15 games in 2023, howver of those. Several have been been 40-60 hour games.
Intro music
"Your Mine" - Carpenter Brut (Furi Original soundtrack)
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[@off2cdawizard]

I've become more of an indie/small studio fan in recent years, as most AAA releases can't hold my interest anymore. It affords me more time to work on the backlog. You're absolutely right about the mental mood, and not being afraid to give up on a game. It's helped me tremendously. One thing that doesn't help is how much I bounce between games. At any given time I can be playing 2-6 games lol. Need to work on that. Excellent vid my man!

[@LukesGamerRoom]

If your bouncing between indie titles I can see it being much more manageable. I just beat three in anticipation of FF 16. Beat hunt down after gunborg. I just can’t get around playing multiple games. Even now playin FF 16 after the demo I feel a little lost trying to remember the combat hahaha. And that was only a few hours of playing

[@off2cdawizard]

@@LukesGamerRoom I've been that way for months with Hollow Knight myself. Play it for a while, start something else, lose where I'm at, and end up starting over. One of these days I might finish it lol

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Yea doing that to hollow knight can be tough. It’s easy to lose track of where you have been in it. Can only imagine after a break

[@MrMonki-zc4pr]

I’ve been doing the same thing this year, I used to be hard into competitive smash, but after getting burnt out on it earlier this year, I focused on my backlog. I’ve stuck to it and have gotten through 35 games these year! I really enjoyed how you like to focus on the more positive side of game reviewing.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

First off thank you for the compliment. I really try to focus on the good in games. However, don't get me wrong I will complain about games as much as the next person too if it is warranted haha, but i always try to give a game the benefit of the doubt....unless its a mobile game. Secondly well done on clearing out that many games in a year. 35 is impressive. I completely feel you with getting burned out on the competitive side of a game. For me I enjoy beating games more then I enjoy beating people. But I will admit it doesn't give the same thrill haha.

[@SamTalksGames]

that’s corridor of time at the beginning. it’s funny because i just beat chrono trigger for the first time yesterday

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Yes it’s one of my all time favorite songs and I just love the ephemeral nature of it. Perfectly encapsulates The Kingdom of Zeal so well. I recently beat chrono trigger for the first time a few years back. It’s a good one for sure

[@ryanprater8321]

I used to buy several games at a time during Steam sales. I found I ended up playing one or two and felt bad I purchased the others as they became a pile of shame. I’ve switched to a mode of only buying a game right when I’m ready to start it. I usually only play one game at a time and after I beat it I sometimes want to play a similar game and sometimes want to play something quite different. By waiting until buying right when I’m ready to start I don’t have to feel bad about not being on the mood for a certain type of game I’ve already bought. This method has worked great for me.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

I love it. That is an incredible method of playing what you buy but also enjoying what you buy as well. That is the problem with some of the sales. Your buying the deal and not the games. At least with physical media you have shelf candy but a steam collection had never appealed to me luckily. Well done

[@Neros_light]

I'm honestly glad my backlog is only like 30 gamed rn. My ADHD makes it hard though lol

[@bw2273]

You beat 14-15 games so far this year and call it "light"? Oh man, I've been slacking lol.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Hahaha, well for so long I was covering a game every week so I was getting up to 40-50 games a year beaten. So half way and I’m just at 15 lol

[@PixelatedCatMan]

Mercy mains🔥

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Hero's NEVER DIE

[@the_flushjackson]

I’ve definitely learned to take How Long to Beat with a grain of salt. It took me 104 hours to beat Ghost of Tsushima and 170 hours to beat AC: Odyssey - both games have something like 45 hours to “beat the game”. God of War 2018 was about on track with averages, and Horizon: Zero Dawn was about 30 hours off the average. 🤷🏼‍♂️ I would say that you could match some these timings if it was on easy and you knew precisely what to beat to storm through the game. I’m not someone who 100%’s things, but I will take side meanderings - enough apparently to over double or triple “time to beat”. So I kind of use it more for approximating shorter games.

[@spikygoldfish]

One thing I do to make my backlog more manageable is to track it on a project management app (like ClickUp) and only keep track of the games I'm actually interested in. I have 100s of games across Nintendo, Playstation, and Steam, but I'm only tracking around 30. I can pull more games later, but I want to enjoy gaming and not make it into a chore.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

This guy is busting out a spreadsheet! Mad respect to you.

[@spikygoldfish]

@@LukesGamerRoom backlog management is serious business

[@drex8891]

The way im handling my backlog is simple. 1 game at a time. 1 long game or medium game (20 to 100+ hour game), 3-4 short gamea after. Then back to the one medium to long game. I have cleared 22 games this year, getting 100% completion in at least half of them

[@LukesGamerRoom]

This right here. Brilliant work. Spread out the lengths, 100 percent what you want. People listen to this man! Haha

[@IskandarTheWack]

56 in. I probably don’t need whatever is in this video lol. We all got huge backlogs

[@LukesGamerRoom]

It’s more advice for tackling it, a lot of people get paralyzed by “what should I play next” only to play nothing or something short like online multiplayer games. Also as someone who still plays current games just throwing out what I do. This year had been particularly tough do to the amount of quality releases their has been

[@beefypeanuts]

personally i can't even start any new games and it's been like this for a while

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Well that backlog just gonna keep growing that way hahaha. But I hear ya

[@Hossmcpizza]

So glad you played infernax, that was one of my favorite games last year, rocked it right before elden ring came out. Great classic platforming metroidvania. A few more modern bangers you might wanna peep would be salt and sanctuary, tunic, dredge, and divinity 1 & 2. And not sure how you feel about roguelites/roguelikes but I love them, some suggestions would include risk of rain, dead cells, death road to canada, children of morta, and rogue legacy 2. Some of those are local co op and me and the wife had fun running through them. Hopefully you find a game in there you didnt play that you enjoy, Cheers brother!

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Yes infernax is one of my new favorite indie titles for sure. I might go back and do the third play through while I wait for FF16. I have salt and sanctuary but haven’t played it yet. I’d love to play tunic but it’s digital only atm. Never heard of dredge. I tried playing divinity 2 but lost interest. So much dialogue and soooo open. I got glasses soon after I gave up though so that might help me like it more now not eye straining constantly. Loveee roguelites and rogue games. Dead cells was on my top 50 games of all time. Love risk or rain. One of the few games i bought for steam. 2 is good too. Death road to Canada I covered in 2018, great game. Love the first rogue legacy, haven’t picked up 2 yet cause digital lol. Never heard of morta though. Ty for the tips bud. The co op is def a thing I look to for the future with the kid as well

[@Hossmcpizza]

@@LukesGamerRoom glad I could at least put you on to children of morta and dredge, some simple games that were fun to beat in less than a weeks time. I’m just trying to finish exploring the depths in totk then it’s ff16 for me too

[@Hossmcpizza]

Def give salt and sanctuary a shot though, great game, wish I could forget it and replay it. The sequel was not nearly as good in my opinion though

[@LukesGamerRoom]

I know it’s supposedly the dark souls of 2d games from when it came out, def want to play it

[@DD93AFC]

I usually will buy digital, ONLY if the game in question is stupidly priced physically, but the digital is really cheap and at a fair price.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Yea I don’t blame you there. And it’s super convenient no doubt. But I just love having my shelves filled so I still stupidly over spend on stuff haha. What’s really crazy is when digital and physical are the same price

[@DD93AFC]

@@LukesGamerRoom I do that myself, stupidly spend, but mine's more taking advantage of deals, they don't last forever. That's when the backlog gets massive, so I've cut down alot on game spending. It also helps when you've got all the games you want aswell, the industry just being really shitty in general atm, makes it so much easier.

[@PixelatedCatMan]

Yeah I need to not look at hltb. I used to guess when the game would be over and it would keep my playing thinking i’m close even if I wasn’t.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Yea it set too much expectation and dissapointment, either wow i beat that way faster people suck, or wow i took much longer to beat it, i suck lol

[@civilwarfare101]

I basically beat 12-13 games a month and I have come to realize that my backlog will never be finished and it's best just to finish all the games I recently buy before my interest in playing them dies out. If I buy a game at full price, I play it right away. Sale games I try to play as soon as I can but if I don't play them soon, I'll lose interest. That's how I view the backlog now, I will beat some long time backlog games too, but it will never be finished thanks to new releases. The best I can hope for is to buy games less and have the backlog not regenerate as quickly.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Excellent points all around. I couldn’t say it better myself. Maintenance of games you purchase is paramount. I’m the same way with full price releases and sales on games. One caveat is I can get that way with big ticket retro games I buy as well. Or retro games everyone raves about like xenogears or chrono trigger. As long as I’m continuously beating games I’m looking forward to the backlog doesn’t bother me too much

[@civilwarfare101]

​@@LukesGamerRoom Yup, I have gotten quite the addiction to beating games but I am trying to not take it as seriously now. If the backlog did run out, I would've cleared it years ago. When it comes to retro games, they have to capture my interest in some way for me to try them. If someone makes a well made video on a game that could encourage me to play the game myself even replay a game too.

[@real1mem3s]

Must be nice not having a job

[@civilwarfare101]

@@real1mem3s You must have one if you are throwing insults at people online.

[@soxnpats4lyfe]

I have 3 kids and I work standardly about 45-50 hours a week. This leaves me roughly 1-2 hours to play. I have a few things I do I construct in advance and am always looking to add a game in to the schedule I focus on main story (I was a chronic 70% and stop person before I did this and now I beat everything I play) I switch up consoles so aim utilizing everything I have. 2023 A Link To The Past Super Metroid Hogwarts Legacy God Of War Ragnarok Bioshock Infinite Stray Jedi Survivor Tears Of The Kingdom Chrono Trigger Starfield Borderlands 2 Final Fantasy X Spiderman 2 and then open after that.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Those are some impressive beats for the year and love it. Great strategy and love the switch up of consoles to keep track hinge fresh. Nice combo of king games and shorter games too. How did you like Jedi survivor and starfield?

[@soxnpats4lyfe]

@@LukesGamerRoom Jedi Survivor was very much like seeing old friends again and it was just an extension Fallen Order and that is in no way a bad thing. Starfield had an unbelievable main story that posed some very deep and philosophical questions about our existence. The side parts of the game felt a little empty to me so I am glad I was focused on the main aspect of the game.

[@STOPTHECLOWNS581]

My backlog is over 600 games I have no Idea how to start.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Well you have to pick a lane somehow. Id decide what kind of gaming mood I’m in. Then either focus on a genre of game to play first or a certain console or era if your on pc. Then I’d pick maybe 4 or 5 games in that grouping that I’d want to beat in let’s say the next 6 months to a year (provided your playing modern releases still) them see how you do. Hardest part is landing on something to play. It’s like scrolling through Netflix when you don’t know what ti watch. I’m guessing based on the size your talking about a steam library. I will admit I can’t get motivated to play games on pc myself so I dunno if that is a problem too.

[@spacechannelfiver]

Don't treat it as a backlog, treat it as a library. Just pick something you feel like playing from the library and don't stress the rest.

[@LukesGamerRoom]

I dunno I get stressed looking at a library too. Also the library at least you can do a page count. Games could be 2 hours or 200 lol

[@Hossmcpizza]

Let’s gooo

[@mokhot]

Have you played killed is dead on 360

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Just looked it up and I see a game called killer is dead. Never heard of it but color me intrigued. May have to pick it up

[@LukesGamerRoom]

Picked it up for 20 bucks on eBay. Looking forward to it