Steam Backlog

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Tzzird

Supreme [H]ardness
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May 9, 2006
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Anyone else out here like me and have stopped buying games because of a gigantic Steam backlog?

The last game I finished was King's Bounty (original and Armored Princess). Before that it was a number of other Steam games that were heavily discounted during the holidays. When I'm done with a game, I love being able to browse through 100 or so games that I've bought in the last two Christmas sales.

I installed Dirt 2 last night. I may not finish it as I don't like the presentation (mtv style) and the driving feels much less accurate and much more floaty compared to Forza 3. But it is a Windows Live game and so I collect achievements as I play.

In past years, I would have purchased AAA titles like Portal 2 at full price (or even 25% off). Now, I just don't mind being 1 year behind the curve. Guess I'm not as [H] as I used to be.
 
It's my New Year's resolution, although I'm fudging and buying more games.

It's also a tough job; Just Cause 2, DA:O and Puzzle Quest (of all things) were good for 100 hours each, plus Civ V is waiting in the wings, both Titan Quests will take time and there are a slew of AAA and indie titles I haven't touched yet. It goes back as far as Gothic II for me so it's going to be a job of work. :)

With all the big AAA titles out this year I can see the backlog getting larger, not smaller.

[grammar edit]
 
I have a backlog of 5 games that I havent started/completed yet.I am very cautious when it comes to deals as I have realised I am becoming selective when it comes to games. Its hard to get into a game if you play it occasionally. If you want to complete a game, just play it for a week and you will get absorbed into it as long as its a decent title.But the idea is... Be thought full before you jump on a deal, its not about $$ saved but about $$ you will end up wasting[if u end up not playing the game].

Unless steam lets us sell our titles for other steam members for store credit... I dont see an end to this unless the buyers get smart.
 
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eggrock said:
It's a tough job; Just Cause 2 and DA:O and Puzzle Quest (of all things) were good for 100 hours each

With all the big AAA titles out this year I can see the backlog getting larger, not smaller.
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Wow, 100 hours from Puzzle Quest? And I thought getting 100 hours out of King's Bounty was bang for the buck. I remember playing PQ on my DS and getting about 20 hours in one playthrough. You must have played through on multiple difficulties multiple times.
 
Tzzird said:
Wow, 100 hours from Puzzle Quest? And I thought getting 100 hours out of King's Bounty was bang for the buck. I remember playing PQ on my DS and getting about 20 hours in one playthrough. You must have played through on multiple difficulties multiple times.
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PQ was a boredom reliever that I played while my wife watched various shitty movies starring Denzel Washington and Kevin Costner. :D
 
eggrock said:
Looks like there are more than a few that you started, set the graphics options and keymappings, then quit. :)

[edit] I nominate you for a poof that contains "Flora's Fruit Farm" in the title.
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Can't poof a mod, or can you? :D
 
Oldie said:
Hey..that's a really fun game, don't knock it. :D
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I started it up and could not live with the ancient graphics and summarily shut it down.

Maybe they need to make a Flora's Fruit Farm HD.
 
I have a bit of a backlog, Steam & non-Steam. I still buy new games if I have the cash to get one. Most of the backlog serves the purpose of filler when I'm waiting for a game to come out & I've beaten all of the newer games that I own.
 
Just picked up the Potato sack, so that will give me a bit of a backlog.

I'm about 18 months into a self imposed 9 month game purchase delay, after 9 months I can usually pick up the new stuff with any DLC included for 60% or so of the original price. I make the occasional exception for console based multiplayer games that I want to play with friends.

My console backlog seems to be full of games that I decided I need to dedicate a decent amount of time to, like Bioshock 2, Assassin's Creed 2 and brotherhood. Been spending too much time hoping into games like Borderlands and Minecraft where I can play a 1/2 hour here and there and not forget where I was in the storyline.
 
I stop playing titles when I lose interest, not when I finish the title.

The problem I have these days, with so many great titles being released, is that I'm moving on to new titles WITHOUT having lost interest in the previous one - that bothers me. I feel guilty, because in those situations it wasn't the game's fault, but mine for wanting to try a bit of everything instead of focusing on just the one title.

I take exception to one thing about this post though. The suggestion is that we all buy our games from Steam.

Right now, in my opinion, the digital download site that's offering the best service for PC Gamers is D2D. They're consistently offering vastly better day one prices (I'm talking ten dollars on each title), and their sales are more substantial and far more frequent. In the past six months Steam has let me down. More and more I'm buying from D2D.
 
I am currently in a steam gift war with a friend, and we have each gifted about 100+ games to each other, 90% of which I havent played yet. Thats not stoping me from getting new games though.
 
It's sad to say, but the reason I stopped buying games is, because of the backlog. Wanted to get Shogun II and Portal 2, but I don't have time to play them so I have not. I might have to not play some of the steam games that I have.
 
Tzzird said:
In past years, I would have purchased AAA titles like Portal 2 at full price (or even 25% off). Now, I just don't mind being 1 year behind the curve. Guess I'm not as [H] as I used to be.
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I think having a little or a lot patience can really pay off. Killer sales on Steam, D2D and Amazon have kept me from buying new AAA games at their high prices. The more I see that ridiculous $59.99 price the more I laugh. :D
 
I also have a backlog of hundreds of game but I keep buying more.. I'll die happy.
 
dark_reign said:
The more I see that ridiculous $59.99 price the more I laugh. :D
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Same here. And to think that I paid $59.99 for the 25 or so 360 and ps3 games in the last 5 years. I just can't justify this anymore.
 
ive got a ton of them ive not played yet, but i also do that with boxed games to, buy them on sale and not always in a hurry to play them, got black ops and starcraft 2 sealed still, among others.
 
Like other people, I have a backlog on both Steam and non Steam. It hasn't stopped me from buying games, but I now will wait until I can get a decent sale price. There are a few exceptions though, such as games from Atlus (which always have a low print of games, so if you don't buy new, you won't find them at all), or where there's a nice prebuy incentive, etc.
 
I still buy games occasionally but I do find that I'm waiting for sales more often then not. Only bought 4 games this year so far so I'm doing okay.
 
I bet I have the largest Steam catalog.

Many times, I buy a game just because its on sale and also to support PC gaming as a whole, but never get to playing the game, or even launching it! (!)
 
I mostly stopped but made an exception for Mafia I because it was $2.50 on steam and I'd been meaning to play it for some time.

If were gonna wave epen's around my steam catalog is at 235
 
piscian18 said:
I mostly stopped but made an exception for Mafia I because it was $2.50 on steam and I'd been meaning to play it for some time.

If were gonna wave epen's around my steam catalog is at 235
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This is not necessarily something to brag about though. There comes a point (and I know from personal experience) where having too much becomes an unhealthy obsession rather than a source of pride. For example, what would you think if someone came on and said they had roughly 2000 games on Steam? (Not me mind you, I'm just giving a hypothetical example).
 
Both Bulletstorm and Two Worlds 2 are going to be 50% off at D2D soon, so Steam had better step it up this weekend with an Easter sale that shows us what they're all about. Thank you.
 
Nytegard said:
This is not necessarily something to brag about though. There comes a point (and I know from personal experience) where having too much becomes an unhealthy obsession rather than a source of pride. For example, what would you think if someone came on and said they had roughly 2000 games on Steam? (Not me mind you, I'm just giving a hypothetical example).
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I think at one point it may have been cool, but most of my steam purchases I regret. Yeah, most. I bought Chronicles of Riddick on steam despite already having it on D2D just because it was simpler to keep track of, times played -0. Assassin's creed, $10 bucks down the drain. To each his own, but I thought it was awful. GTA collection haven't spent a full minute on. I have a fair number of games I'm absolutely certain I'll never play and I'm kicking myself for it.
 
Looking at my backlong, I see about 5 or 6 games that I haven't even touched yet. However, there are approximately 20 games that fit that description too, however I have no intentions of playing them. Ever. They have simply been extra games that came along with a bundle or something. Frankly, if I could give those games away, I would.
 
Tzzird said:
Wow, 100 hours from Puzzle Quest? And I thought getting 100 hours out of King's Bounty was bang for the buck. I remember playing PQ on my DS and getting about 20 hours in one playthrough. You must have played through on multiple difficulties multiple times.
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don't know. 114 for me on one play through. game was long as balls.
 
piscian18 said:
I think at one point it may have been cool, but most of my steam purchases I regret. Yeah, most. I bought Chronicles of Riddick on steam despite already having it on D2D just because it was simpler to keep track of, times played -0. Assassin's creed, $10 bucks down the drain. To each his own, but I thought it was awful. GTA collection haven't spent a full minute on. I have a fair number of games I'm absolutely certain I'll never play and I'm kicking myself for it.
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If I cared about the money, I would regret most of my purchases. (I'm fortunate enough that my job easily supplies my gaming addiction). This is another area where Valve is a little manipulative. Deals are great, but I personally wonder how many people buy the game(s) because they want to play them, versus how many people buy the game(s) because they thought they were a good deal. In the end, it doesn't matter if you spent $1 or $100. If you didn't play the game, you spent too much money.

I took a little bit of time to look at the games I really enjoyed within the past 5 years. Not games I bought or played, but games I really enjoyed and thought they were worth the money I spent.

Here's my list:

The World Ends With You (DS)
Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (DS)
Professor Layton and the Curious Village (DS)
A Vampyre Story (PC)
Call of Duty Modern Warfare (PC)
Lego Harry Potter (PC)
3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3)
1 vs 100 (XBox 360 [Yes, I realize it was free, but it was fun])
Rock Band (XBox 360)
Kingdom of Keflings (XBox 360)

In no way am I stating that you'll enjoy these games. Enjoyment is a personal trait.

What's the point of this?

First off, I collect games. I have pretty much every AAA title within the past 5 years on every platform, and more. I won't state how much exactly (because it doesn't just border on unhealthy obsession, it easily surpasses it), but I would be very surprised if anyone on [H] owns more games than me. Heck, I'd be very surprised if anyone here even pirated as many games as I own.

And yes, I haven't played even 5% of the games I have, but I have tried every AAA title for at least an hour. And out of all those games, I only really enjoyed playing about 10 games within the past 5 years.
 
Right now I have 43/85 Steam games that haven't even been played once, so I would say I do buy a fair amount of games that I have yet to get around to playing.

Add in a certain amount of Wii games and I'm backlogged for a long time.
 
Nytegard said:
I won't state how much exactly (because it doesn't just border on unhealthy obsession, it easily surpasses it)
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Wow. Now I'm curious exactly how many games you own or how many games you buy a year. I'd say anything more than 2 full priced game purchases a month is an "unhealthy obsession" while anything more than 1 full priced game a week could be classified as "easily surpasses it".

But then again, it's all relative.
 
I always end up buying a lot of Indie games in the packs, but I only end up playing one game from the pack. I feel good about supporting Indie devs, but when half the games are either confusing as hell, boring or just not fun/dumb, I don't play them.

I've got a huge back log of Indie games, but that's more because a lot of them aren't fun.

But yea, thanks to Steam, I now add 6 months to a year to release dates to figure out when I'll end up buying it. I just don't have the money to buy computer games at 49.99 without a demo. When it sinks to $20 for big name games and $10 for not so big name games is when I consider buying. I love Steam sales.
 
Tzzird said:
But then again, it's all relative.
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Yeah, suffice it to say some of us have quite a bit more disposable income than others. ;)

The wife and kids are going out of town next month for about a week and I can't go. I plan to put a healthy dent in mine then. :)
 
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