2024: Year of the Backlog?

How much content is too much content?

There’s no objective answer to that, of course. But I’m not sure there’s a subjective one either – the idea of having “too much” depends on one’s every changing mood, the capacity to think ahead, and the energy to do so.

Like many others though, my games backlog is beyond huge. There’s no way I can get through it all – if the numerous itch.io bundles didn’t mean effectively unlimited things to install, the slightly-more-dubious state of retro gaming, emulation, and Wii U homebrew ensure that a significant chunk of gaming history is pretty much free to play. That’s on top of my own physical, Steam and Switch libraries that have all gradually built up.

At some point I realised I probably didn’t actually need to buy any more games ever, and could realistically just play through the existing backlog (at my levels of time and energy, restrained largely by work and home life) until I pass on. It’s a noble thought, and certainly a money saving one.

Around the end of 2023 then, I thought I would try making 2024 “Year of the Backlog”. The grand plan was to avoid buying any more games, and work through what I already had. I could blog them as I went, with some screenshots and mini reviews and everything.

Well, it’s late April now and I’m only just posting about it. Which probably says a lot about how well I’ve been able to stick to the plan.

To be fair, I hadn’t anticipated a full on Playdate sale to celebrate the one-year anniversary of their catalogue. And it’s been really nice to get Steam and Nintendo gift cards as presents. And, well, some games are indeed classics that deserve to be played, especially for a good price.

In other words, the backlog has definitely grown a bit.

But on the other hand, I’ve also been good. I’ve been going through some of the older, unplayed stuff and been snapping away while I’ve done so. I’ve pushed myself to start finishing a few and to revisit others. And I’ve set up a new blog (this one), so that I’m happier having a place to post such randomness.

So here we are, this is something of an introduction, and I guess the next post may well be about a game or two. This might be Year of the Backlog, but nobody said it had to start on January 1st, right?