Reflecting on this year has made me realize how few games I'm ever going to play.

I play a lot of video games. Many more than most people, probably more than is strictly healthy. I (mostly) avoid it getting in the way of other things in my life and what I want to do, but it's my primary hobby and I make an effort to find time to do it. I've even been playing the Final Fantasy 1 Pixel Remaster on my treadmill so I don't have to stop gaming to get exercise. Touch grass? Me? NEVER*!

I also have a huge appetite for games. I buy too many, have a backlog, and am constantly looking over the horizon both towards what's next to be released and what I want to play next. I've had to make a real effort to slow down and actually finish games, and am trying to buy less, but when it comes to games my eyes are definitely bigger than my hard drive. Or my schedule.

I'm also getting older, and more reflective, as people do, and I've been looking back at my year in games thanks to the Xbox year in review feature (I assume others are forthcoming as well.) I played a lot of games this year but I didn't play THAT many. I only really played one racing game, and that was The Crew. Looking back at prior years that's generally been true too. There are years where I play a couple racing games and years where I don't seriously play any, but I tend to play about one a year seriously, dabbling in a few more (I booted up Gran Turismo 7 and Motor Toon Grand Prix at various points in the year, but not for long.)

And that's true for most genres. I only played the entirety of one FPS (Killing Time) with a few more dabbled in, didn't really play any sports games, etc... There were genres where I played more (it was a pretty RPG heavy year for me) and games I spent a lot of time with, but although I played a lot of games when I look through the list it seems pretty meager for an entire year.

Assuming that I have about 40 years left (fewer than that actuarily) and that my eyesight, brain, and dexterity hold up well enough that I can continue playing games during that period, that means I have a few dozen games left to play in each of these genres. That seems so few. Mathematically my backlog, from Humblebundles, steep sales, and more, is definitely bigger than I'll get to in my lifetime. If I stopped buying new games now I don't think I could play everything on my "want to play" list even if I never took breaks from gaming, which isn't healthy to begin with.

This is not an existential crisis, I have other, more important, things to cause those. It's more a sad realization. It's the same concept as that old Twilight Zone episode about the reader with the broken glasses, except my glasses aren't broken. Yet. And also I can still order pizza if I want to. So at least I have that going for me.

This is not the first time I've had this realization, but it's become more salient as time has gone on. Every time I sink time into a game I don't really enjoy just because I was curious or for the lulz of playing a bad game I realize I'm draining sand from my life's hourglass in something that may not be worth it. Every time I play something because it was cheap or just for the zeitgeist there's something else that I really want to play that I won't ever get to. I don't always regret these discursions; I'm kind of glad I played Balan Wonderworld even though it's not a very good game, but I'm realizing that a little goes a long way. When Gollum and Rise of Kong released last year I thought I'd play through them at some point. Now I'm thinking maybe not. Watching the Blight Clubs, something I can do while doing other things, is probably enough. Better to spend that game time somewhere more satisfying.

Likewise I'm starting to question my Vinnyitus. I've always been someone who wanted the context of earlier games before playing new ones, but that's slipping away too because often times the earlier games can be a slog. I want to spend times on games that are meaningful to me in some way. Games I care about and will remember. Games that will stick with me and not slough off into nothingness like so many of the mediocre titles I've played have.

I don't really know why I'm sharing this but it has been on my mind recently. We all change as we age and this has been something that's been happening for awhile. I used to be someone who would gleefully play trash or obscurities just so I'd know what they were really like, but while I can't say I never will again I can say I plan to curtail that. Life is short and precious and we all have limits that are hard to see when you're younger, and then as you age they appear all of a sudden and the end seems so close even when it's still, potentially, decades away. One day we will all put down the controller for the last time. I just hope for everyone reading this it's a very long time from now. And you aren't playing Gollum when it happens.

*This summer I spent a couple weeks this year in a house by a lake in the mountains and barely played games there, spending a lot of time walking in the woods and kayaking on the lake. I don't want people to think I actually have this much of a problem. I guess I touched more trees and lakeweed than grass, technically, but that counts.

"...when it comes to games my eyes are definitely bigger than my hard drive. Or my schedule."

*Looks at Steam backlog. Looks at Epic backlog. Looks at GoG backlog. Looks at large CD case full of mostly unplayed PS3, 2, and 1 games, next to case of Wii and GC games.*

It's possible I might also have this problem.

@judaspete: Nah, man, don't let my musings get you down. You're definitely going to get around to that copy of NFL Gameday 97 at some point. You'll probably play like 5 seasons and love it the whole time.

My fun new past-time is buying the sequels to games I haven't even played yet - why simply own Judgement, when I can own both Judgement and Lost Judgement, and all the DLC, and affix myself into a permanent state of intending to play both, but in actuality playing neither.

I think I've managed to get a pretty good handle on reigning in my own "eyes bigger" issue and making progress on my backlog. Over the last two years I've managed to cull my log down from over 500 to 396. I'm still pretty optimistic about clearing it out one day. It's just going to take me while.

The hilarious thing I realized from that Xbox Year in Review thing is that most of my time spent on Xbox is farming rewards points to maintain my 6 year streak of free Game Pass. According to them, my third most played game this year was Flintlock with 30 hours. I've barely made it out of the tutorial for that game. The other 28 hours came from sitting on the title screen for 15 minutes a day to earn rewards points. Vampire Survivors is second on the list with 42 hours, some of which is honest gameplay time, but I finished that game last year, so the majority of that is also just farming rewards points. My top played game was Arcade Paradise, which I did playthrough and enjoy mostly honestly, but it was also a pretty good game for farming out the earning one achievement per day reward.

The rest of my list is a pretty good mix of old backlog stuff and new Game Pass releases. Since I'm getting Game Pass for free, the only game on the list that I actually gave Xbox money for in this year is Star Wars KOTOR, which is sitting at number 20. Enjoy your $5, Phil. Lost Odyssey is somehow on the list at both 5 and 17. Maybe because it's a multi-disk game? Solitaire, my time killer game, sits at number 6. For as poorly as this speaks to my current gaming habits, I bet my PlayStation and Nintendo reviews won't be much better.

Like judaspete, I have loads of PC games split across different services - but it occurred to me whilst I was reading this that maybe I should first look at it from a hardware perspective rather than the number. I've grown up with PCs but did buy a few consoles and have consoles with just a few games which are the problem. I expect to be moving in a couple of years and I don't want to be carrying unnecessary hardware with an ever-decreasing chance of finding replacement stuff like CRTs, controllers or the consoles themselves. Emulation seems to be the answer there, but on the other hand I'm reading that eBay doesn't offer anything concrete in the way of seller protection. Sending someone a fully working console can be a bad idea because it could be deliberately flagged as faulty and returned with a worn-out optical drive (for example). So the seller is then left out of pocket with the task of taking it to the recycling centre when the original intention was that the hardware would find a good home.

That's one of a whole set of thoughts for and against keeping older games and hardware (others could be the sentimental value of game artwork, or an old console can be used for watching DVDs) which probably deserve their own conversation thread - sorry for posting in here, but it is sorta relevant because I think moving will force my hand further toward accepting the backlog and trying to reduce it.

@bigsocrates: did you previously make a topic/blog post with a very similar title and delete it? That sentence gives me a nasty case of deja vu and I can't place why.

@criticaldamage: Why not sell locally? Either to a retro gaming story (most major metros have at least one at this point) or a local collector? You might not get as much money as you do from Ebay but you can avoid the risks you mention.

@stopallthewords: No. I may have posted something similar in the past (I've definitely discussed these topics before) but I haven't, to my memory, deleted any of it. If it exists it should be somewhere in my post history or blog if it's bothering you enough to sift through that stuff.

Not nearly as far down the road as some folks in this thread, but I empathize with this. It's not just games, either -- I'm realizing I'll never be able to read as many books, watch as many movies as I want to in my lifetime. These simple pleasures, while great, are just not as important as building a life with my fiance, or seeing more of the world, or finally finishing that dang novel. It's bittersweet, because there was a time that media played a much bigger role in my life, helping me through some of the darkest moments of early adulthood, but now I just fit it in the gaps of a much fuller existence.

I'm probably being melodramatic. I still keep up games and film much more than my friends, and it's not like I'm unhappy. It's mostly just the classic mortal realization, "aw, I'm not going to be able to do all I want to do." Even if it's for something trivial like media.

We spend all life trying to build memories and the slate gets wiped clean at the point of death.

I restrict my backlog by only counting stuff I've paid money for. The Epic and PS+ freebies are just garnish. There was a lovely year in my life where I crushed it down from 52 to single figures. It goes in waves for me. I'll clear a lot out and then find myself buying cheap steam bundles.

I just want you to know.. that I have wanted to respond for days but couldn't find the words.. today I can't either, but you are not alone. I, at best, only have 200 of your human years left in this body and I won't get to everything I want to do.

I could probably not buy another game and easily play games into my sixties just based on what I already own, but I'll keep buying more even knowing they will out live me. And I'll waste precious moments of my life playing bad games, or games over again, or grinding pokemon levels for my kids instead of making progress in other games.

Thus is life, but you have to forge on.. for those of us that will never have a chance to play the crew.