Having a backlog hurts my soul, face and hands. While it’s nice knowing that I have a large variety of untapped experiences in my closet or on my hard drive, both now are overflowing with unfinished titles. However, part of me still wants to complete everything in my backlog. Through that I’ve become a little obsessive about managing it.
In January of last year, whilst hiding in my sister’s apartment from the rest of the world, I started archiving my collection on Backloggery – a website where you can not only record your gaming collection but also your progress in completing it.
After nearly a month of sporadic updating between being lazy and being even more lazy, my list was comprehensive enough for me to accurately evaluate the status of my collection. With about a 60% completion rate, I was somewhat sad but fairly satisfied that the edge was in my favor.
Unfortunately a wild beast dwells within my wallet and I cannot control what it purchases. Between purchasing new games and adding titles that I had missed in my original count, I had started to lose ground.
Instead of actually beating games, I decided to refine how I categorize them in my collection in hopes to twist things in my favor. I started asking myself questions.” How should I categorize multiple copies? Should titles I have with faulty discs count against me? Should I even count MMOs? How do you “beat” Animal Crossing?” It was a mess, but somehow I emerged from it with some general rules. For example a “finished” Animal Crossing is paying off all debt, rather than having a 100% file. These half efforts did little to stave off the growing shame.
My Current Progress
Silver/Gold: Beaten
Red: Unfinished
Black: Null
I’m now down to about 55% completion, a 5% drop from early last year. I’ve recently been significantly increasing the rate at which I’ve completed my games. Despite these efforts, my 2013 breakdown shows a grim future.
Green N = New Games
Silver B = Beaten Games
What do I need to do to stop this madness? The obvious answer is to throw my wallet down the staircase and stop buying things. As much as I’d love for that to happen, it won’t. I’ve already preordered Project X Zone and Animal Crossing: New Leaf is looking scrumptious.
I shall fight this losing battle against my game collection until the day I die.
