2017 - 12 Month Pile Program

August update

Annual game budget remaining at start of August - £86

Incoming
Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles (PS4) - £20
Dying Light: The Following - Enhanced Edition (PS4) - £15
Warframe - FREE
Miracle Merchant (Android) - £1.00
Humble Mobile Bundle: Puzzles - £4.00
A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build, Hook, Human Resource Machine, Mini Metro, Slayaway Camp, Concrete Jungle, Deus Ex GO, Zenge, klocki (bold - played and enjoyed so far. italic dropped swiftly. regular yet to play)

Outgoing
Sold FFXV - £15
Sold Bloodborne - £15

Annual game budget remaining at end of August - £76

Plan for September

Play less games, but longer periods with those I do play. Game time was scattershot throughout August to say the least. More Warframe, does the pile no favours, but am enjoying it. Finish Yo-kai Watch. Finish Life is Strange (this one is getting old, it'll be in my GOTY list, if I finish it!). Pick a larger PS4 game from the pile and try to stick with it. Continue to work my way through trying out the puzzle games from the latest Humble Bundle purchase on tablet.

Biggest temptations this month...

Nier Automata. Monster Hunter Stories. Destiny 2. Warframe Platinum.

It's my birthday this month, I've just put in a tender for big project. If I get it I may cave and treat myself / houshold to a Switch, they are now available again on the Nintendo UK store and here and there in the wild. I'm going to try and resist a little longer though, a few more specific games need to be released / announced before I commit for sure! Also a Switch would blow my gaming budget out of the water, unless I switched out the PS4...

August was pretty light for me.

Finished:
Lego Batman 3 (PS4)

Made Progress in:
Knack (PS4) - I finished it last night so will count toward my September total
Muramusa Rebirth (Vita) - this game is really weird

Purchased:
Uncharted: Lost Legacy
Everybody's Golf

Both of my purchases were previously planned for so I feel good about that. Glancing at the rest of the year release schedule, my wallet appears to be safe. I have some interest in a couple games coming out but I haven't played earlier iterations in the series so I will hold out for a price drop/gap in gaming calendar. I still have Horizon Zero Dawn and Gravity Rush 2 to play this year. It will be hard not to jump into Everybody's Golf once in awhile though.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Eleima wrote:

Oh Clocky, I'm so so sorry. That must've been horribly unpleasant. :(

Thanks. It managed to hit me where I'm most vulnerable and frightened: the longterm care and treatment of my son with disabilities. It was doubly difficult because I wasn't expecting anything like that from Amnesia at all.

Oh yikes, that is NOT what I had imagined. The first Amnesia had me nope'ing out in the first few minutes but reading your post..... not gonna touch the second one with a ten foot pole for similar reasons.

I hope you don't mind me jumping in on this thread. I started a Backloggery and am hoping that keeping better track of my pile will help me to save a bit of money.

Added:
Subsurface Circular - $5
Castles and Kingdoms - $10
Dragon Quest Builders - $30
Pharaoh - owned already

Total spent for August: $45

Finished:
Subsurface Circular
Castles and Kingdoms

Significant Progress:
Pharaoh - This is perhaps my favorite game of all time - it is SO SATISFYING to watch those pyramids slowly get built. I always forget how LONG this game is, however. I expect I have another 20 hours or so left.

Not a ton of gaming this month, as we had a couple of vacations scheduled and my wife and I spent lots of time outside with the kids. As the weather gets colder, I expect that to change though.

Jump on in! The more the merrier. Be sure to add us, we have Backloggeries too. Besides, you're a good guy (person, sorry, I'm assuming from your avatar), I can tell. You like Pharaoh. **fist bump**

Someone with great taste, that is certain.
And now some annoying voice in my head is telling me I should go finish that latest Pharaoh playthrough I started years ago.

Shadout wrote:

And now some annoying tantalizing voice in my head is telling me I should go finish that latest Pharaoh playthrough I started years ago.

FTFY. I'm a heartbeat away from buying it on Steam because I'm too lazy to go dig for my old CD.

Edit: I just remembered I already have it on GOG......

Edit 2: Two hours later, it's now past midnight... And I'm building a mastaba.
You monster.

ccesarano wrote:

August report on the same page as July. Either we've all given up over-thinking the pile, have stopped caring about the pile, or are too damn busy to converse about the pile.

I've had my head firmly buried in the sand trying to pretend that I don't have a problem. I have a problem.

I'm stepping back from it. No purchases, no gifts, no loans, no subscriptions, no browsing storefronts until... I don't know when until.

I want to get together a plan for how to handle not the pile but the urge to acquire. I've found myself yet again in a place I've found myself so many times before: I have more things than I can play. I keep getting more things. I'm actively getting in the way of playing things I want to play and getting things I want to get.

I've tried a lot of tricks and gimmicks and plans and resolutions, but clearly none of them are addressing the root of the problem. I need to figure out what to do from here.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I want to get together a plan for how to handle not the pile but the urge to acquire. I've found myself yet again in a place I've found myself so many times before: I have more things than I can play. I keep getting more things. I'm actively getting in the way of playing things I want to play and getting things I want to get.

This. If you figure it out can let me know please!?

My tactic of trying to stick to a modest annual budget is all well and good in keeping the spending down. However it's meant I'm still purchasing way more games than I need, just finding them at super saver prices and selling or trading in some physical games before I give them a fair chance to get their hooks in. Just so I can acquire something else whilst sticking to my self imposed budget. Say bye bye Bloodborne and FFXV last month for example!

... Damn, writing it down has kind of solidified this thought.

Hang on I see how this new thought sounds...

What is the one fairly long AAA I've spent the most time with this year and actually completed?

Horizon Zero Dawn. Purchased launch week because I was very keen to play it. I loved it, but asking myself did I give it more of a shot to impress than bargain games no matter the quality? Maybe I squeezed as much as I could out of it because it was a new game, more of an monetary investment and part of a fresh conversation.

Maybe that's what I should try... Still stick to a budget, however spend it on fairly fresh releases. Buy fewer, more expensive games closer to launch because I have been looking forward to their release and excited to give them a go.

Thinking back a few months, as an example I'd have bought Nier Automata at full price, when I was really very keen. Rather than still not owning it, even now because of my insistence on budget buying.

Maybe it's time to change. I can still pick up a bargain of course but only if going to play on purchase, rather than the current buy because it's cheap and hope it sticks plan...

...mmm..

I find that it's less expensive to just buy the game at the time I want and plan to play it, regardless of the price, than to buy a whole bunch of games I might never get around to playing, even if they're on sale. They'll likely still be around to buy whenever and if-ever I get to them.

The vast majority of my incoming games now are those I get with Xbox Games with Gold or they are free on Origin, GoG, etc. for a time.

Also, by waiting to buy a game until I'm actually planning to play it, chances are it will end up being one of the above free games by the time I get to it.

Oh, and playing a game for me means to really dig down and play it, with the intention (even if it doesn't happen) of playing all the way through. Buying games just to "try out" for a few minutes each and then put on a shelf to get back to a "later" that almost never comes isn't very helpful.

bekkilyn wrote:

I find that it's less expensive to just buy the game at the time I want and plan to play it, regardless of the price, than to buy a whole bunch of games I might never get around to playing, even if they're on sale. They'll likely still be around to buy whenever and if-ever I get to them.

This. Don't buy a game unless you plan to play it that very same day (or the day it comes in the mail, if you're buying a physical release) and commit to it for at least a week (or to the game's completion, for short games). If the game can't hold your interest for at least a week, get rid of it or otherwise put it down forever; don't put it on a pile and make yourself feel guilty about some game. Life's too short.

If you don't think you'll want to play it right away and play it for a week, don't buy it.

My sympathies to those of you with pile problems, new or ongoing.

I've been pretty boned this year due to an insanely busy work schedule, rolling out a new ERP system that finally went live this week. Compounding that, the release of two Final Fantasy games (XV and XII) that I wanted to thoroughly play smashed any momentum I might have had for months. (On the bright side, there's a reason I'm willing to drop months into those games.)

So, I don't know what's in store for the rest of the year... but here's hoping I can start playing more! As usual, I have been viewing this year's challenge less as "play more" and more as "buy less." I need to adjust to the idea of being one who prefers to drink deeply of a handful of games, rather than sip from many. Even if that means missing out on a few flavors.

(Related aside: when I have anxiety dreams, a recurring theme is having to make a choice among too many things. Who else has nightmares set in convenience stores?)

beeporama wrote:

(Related aside: when I have anxiety dreams, a recurring theme is having to make a choice among too many things. Who else has nightmares set in convenience stores?)

Mine usually have to do with suddenly realizing in the middle of a public place that I'm not wearing any pants (in both U.S. and U.K. sense of the word) or even might be completely naked, and then wondering why no one else around me has even noticed, or even why *I* hadn't noticed, even when having conversations with others. I'm also usually lost or late or both and end up finding myself in weird places...without pants.

Not sure if it relates to the pile in any way or not, but could symbolize something like the idea that if I only didn't bother taking time to put on pants or clothes while playing games or other things, the pile would never have happened.

After extensive testing I can conclude that the pile is not diminished by playing without pants. For science!

beeporama wrote:

(Related aside: when I have anxiety dreams, a recurring theme is having to make a choice among too many things. Who else has nightmares set in convenience stores?)

That's so interesting! My anxiety dreams are a kaleidoscope of body horror, feeling extremely out of place in gendered spaces like restrooms and locker rooms, and getting stuck in small spaces filled with spiders.

Shadout wrote:

After extensive testing I can conclude that the pile is not diminished by playing without pants. For science!

It's also not increasing when not wearing pants, so wearing pants or not is really just a preference! Unless your playing in a public place.

Everyone who is not wearing pants whilst gaming, are you going commando OR not wearing trousers?

Personally I go sans trouser, but keep the undercrackers. In this state I tend to be gaming so it does have an effect on the pile, if only a smidge.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
beeporama wrote:

(Related aside: when I have anxiety dreams, a recurring theme is having to make a choice among too many things. Who else has nightmares set in convenience stores?)

That's so interesting! My anxiety dreams are a kaleidoscope of body horror, feeling extremely out of place in gendered spaces like restrooms and locker rooms, and getting stuck in small spaces filled with spiders.

My anxiety dreams usually involve the coming of the zombie apocalypse, with everyone I know and love either dead or turned. And I'm usually running for my life. Typically one or both my kids have been killed or turned.

But the Pile! Yeah, I'm gonna agree with the "play today what you buy today" rule, although I'm a terrible example. As for playing... sometimes, there are days you don't have the energy to dive into something new. That just happens. These past days. I've just been playing Pharaoh while watching a Star Trek movie. Just zoning out. And sometimes, that's what you need. No way to get around that, no sense in guilting yourself over it.

Eleima wrote:

Besides, you're a good guy (person, sorry, I'm assuming from your avatar), I can tell. You like Pharaoh. **fist bump**

Shadout wrote:

Someone with great taste, that is certain.

Thanks, folks! It's great to hear that there are still people playing these old Impressions games.

I've made some significant progress with Pharaoh over the last few days and think I am about ten hours away from the end. Would like to complete another replay of Zeus and then Empire: Rise of the Middle Kingdom (the latter being Impression's best city builder, in my opinion) but think I'm going to need a palette cleanser of some other games first.

Bubblefuzz wrote:

Everyone who is not wearing pants whilst gaming, are you going commando OR not wearing trousers?

Personally I go sans trouser, but keep the undercrackers. In this state I tend to be gaming so it does have an effect on the pile, if only a smidge.

Oh I'm not wearing anything in the dreams, but then again I'm not playing games there either, so not sure if my perspective counts for this particular question! Of course, tonight I'll have a dream where I'm playing something *and* won't have pants or underpants or trousers or crackers or anything, but I'll simply have to deal with it when/if it happens.

Oh and Eleima, I had a really fantastic zombie apocalypse dream once and me and someone that never existed in real life were riding about in a vehicle trying to find non-zombie survivors in the town/city we were in. The streets were all dirty and half flooded and zombies were everywhere. It was great! I was so mad when I had to wake up!

I never really have *bad* as in nightmare dreams per se...mine are usually all just weird and can get unpleasant, so not necessarily good dreams. I've had people attack me and chase me and whatnot, but then I usually end up just winning the fight and/or escaping them in some way, even if such escapes turn out weird too. I remember getting into dreams where there are shooters in parking lots or stores, but nothing really bad ever happens to me and I can often drive them away or call the police to get them or whatever needs to be done.

And yes, sometimes it all happens without pants!

There are days when I know that I've played games too much though because I'll have a dream where everything is happening through some sort of virtual game interface, though it's kind of tied into my thoughts too, like if I had a Kinect or mouse or controller built into my brain or something.

I suppose that means I have a pile in my dream life as well as my real one. Can't ever really get away from it, can we?

bekkilyn wrote:

I find that it's less expensive to just buy the game at the time I want and plan to play it, regardless of the price, than to buy a whole bunch of games I might never get around to playing, even if they're on sale. They'll likely still be around to buy whenever and if-ever I get to them.

I really need to do this.

I was doing good for a while, not buying too many games, not doing the retail therapy thing (or doing it with non-game things at least). But with the stress of moving, and work and depression, etc, the last couple months have been all Magpie Mode: Activated.

I did just go through my HLTB and did a mini purge, and marked a bunch of games as retired. I still have 57 games on my list (+DLC in some cases), and 39 days of playtime there. it's daunting.

I'm tempted honestly, to try not tracking my backlog at all, or maybe just track what I played, but not what's left, and just focus on playing good games. And also unlearning that impulse to finish every game. I have hate played way too many games, and even a few games I mostly love, kind of slog at the end.

Demyx wrote:
bekkilyn wrote:

I find that it's less expensive to just buy the game at the time I want and plan to play it, regardless of the price, than to buy a whole bunch of games I might never get around to playing, even if they're on sale. They'll likely still be around to buy whenever and if-ever I get to them.

This. Don't buy a game unless you plan to play it that very same day (or the day it comes in the mail, if you're buying a physical release) and commit to it for at least a week (or to the game's completion, for short games). If the game can't hold your interest for at least a week, get rid of it or otherwise put it down forever; don't put it on a pile and make yourself feel guilty about some game. Life's too short.

If you don't think you'll want to play it right away and play it for a week, don't buy it.

Adding to this that I've found it incredibly helpful to keep a document on file for tracking when the games I'm interested in are coming out and a rough gauge of my level of interest (day 1 vs. wait for reviews). This has helped a ton with prioritizing releases and helps me better resist the urge to just buy everything that's coming out in a week.

It's also not a perfect system and I'm only human so sometimes I slip a little like last month, but it works.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

I'm stepping back from it. No purchases, no gifts, no loans, no subscriptions, no browsing storefronts until... I don't know when until.

I've tried a lot of tricks and gimmicks and plans and resolutions, but clearly none of them are addressing the root of the problem. I need to figure out what to do from here.

Not to go into armchair psychology but maybe it's the act of chasing the sale that's more appealing to you than the actual ownership? Or maybe you're currently more of a "grazer" than a "finisher"?

Also, don't beat yourself up over sales, subscriptions, etc. These are systems that are designed to get people to spend money on things they didn't really intend to buy in the first place. It also doesn't help that so much of gaming is a consumer culture where you're being constantly encouraged to buy the new shiny for any number of reasons.

My unsolicited advice would be to prioritize everything you've acquired recently and purge anything that isn't something you really want to play within the next 6-12 months. I would also encourage not setting some arbitrary self-imposed restriction on your purchases, simply because I don't find those to be super helpful as they tend to create a downward guilt spiral if/when you break the restriction.

And by all means, if you feel the need to just call it quits on buying stuff and do some self-reflection, go for it! Those games aren't going anywhere and will still be there when you're ready for them.

shoptroll wrote:

Not to go into armchair psychology but maybe it's the act of chasing the sale that's more appealing to you than the actual ownership?

A game unto itself. One I need to quit.

I'm going to test my theory...

GAME voucher received. Destiny 2 ordered because I want to play it now.

(I missed all the Destiny expansions, so complaints it's more of the same don't really apply. A fresh start seems a good time to jump in).

I was thinking about...

bekkilyn wrote:

buy the game at the time I want and plan to play it, regardless of the price

Demyx wrote:

This. Life's too short.

Good advice I reckon.

I was going to set a limit for a certain number of AAA games (old or new) + a limit for Indies on the side. So a restriction on quantity of games rather than the cost.

But then again...

shoptroll wrote:

My unsolicited advice would be to prioritize everything you've acquired recently and purge anything that isn't something you really want to play within the next 6-12 months. I would also encourage not setting some arbitrary self-imposed restriction on your purchases, simply because I don't find those to be super helpful as they tend to create a downward guilt spiral if/when you break the restriction.

... seems sensible. I might actually try that, and....

shoptroll wrote:

tracking when the games I'm interested in are coming out and a rough gauge of my level of interest (day 1 vs. wait for reviews).

Food for thought all, this thread

Bubblefuzz wrote:

I was going to set a limit for a certain number of AAA games (old or new) + a limit for Indies on the side. So a restriction on quantity of games rather than the cost.

This kind of works, but...not really. Yes, it can help in helping you spend less money because you're only buying 15 games instead of 20, but then you're still buying 15 games.

And if you haven't yet bought 15 games, you're thinking in the back of your mind, "I can still buy games since I haven't reached my limit yet." but then you typically only play 3 or 4 out of those 15 and the rest are either just "tasted" or are still in real or virtual shrinkwrap on the shelf.

So you still end up paying more than you needed to pay and your pile has still tremendously increased with unplayed or barely played game.

So while having a limit is a bit better than no limit, it still encourages more pile build-up.

Now if you're buying games with the *intention* of simply the joy of collecting games, then a game limit makes more sense because you *want* as many games as possible to be added to the pile, but may not want to go into debt over it.

I solved most of the problem when I switched from PS3 to PS4 and gave it a fresh start.
Now I am really just buying selected games which I really want to play 100%

That's the problem with Steam and the Pc. Some of the games in my spreadsheet have been languishing for 1000days and more. Whoops.
I'll get to you soon, Depression Quest, I promise!

My PC "Unbeaten" % on Backloggery right now is something like 82% which is one of the worst ones (let's not talk about the PS3 and PSP piles...). That's largely due to the age of the platform and buying way too many bundles and compilations over the years.

It's quite late for a mid-year review, and I haven't posted a monthly update in ages, so please don't mind me as I just ramble largely to myself:

I've mostly sworn off minding the pile so far this year, and it hasn't been terrible. I'm still unhappy with how much time I spend getting sucked into frustrated one-more-round multiplayer stuff, but I've made some progress in not allowing that sort of thing to consume all of my available time. Earlier this year, I had a visit from one of my amazing younger cousins, and as our conversation turned to our shared interest in smaller/indie games, it dawned on me that I had almost nothing new to say that wasn't gleaned from podcasts and others' experiences of the games sitting untouched in my pile. It was a bit disheartening, but has helped me a little with motivation to refocus.

Year to date, I've done more buying for immediate play than in the past, so that feels like a small victory even though on balance I know I've still increased the ever-indomitable pile. I have acquired an absurdly large storage drive, so my next step is to take the majority of the 75 (!!) Steam games I can't seem to bring myself to uninstall, back them up to the drive to avoid having to re-download them, and thereafter stick more closely to only keeping the games I'm actively making progress with installed. Also planning to break up longer games in progress with alphabetical runs through the shorter games in the pile.

Maybe I'll get back to a more numbers-oriented analysis of the pile, but this seems to be more my speed right now.

Ramble on. This is definitely the place for Pile musings!! And who cares if you don't have numbers! To each their own, we can't have the same methods.

Now playing Destiny 2 and Yo-kai Watch. Plus...

Bubblefuzz wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

My unsolicited advice would be to prioritize everything you've acquired recently and purge anything that isn't something you really want to play within the next 6-12 months. I would also encourage not setting some arbitrary self-imposed restriction on your purchases, simply because I don't find those to be super helpful as they tend to create a downward guilt spiral if/when you break the restriction.

... seems sensible. I might actually try that, and....

shoptroll wrote:

tracking when the games I'm interested in are coming out and a rough gauge of my level of interest (day 1 vs. wait for reviews).

Food for thought all, this thread :)

So I've had a look at games own, I've been fairly harsh and condensed down to a list am still keen to play, or at least give a good chunk of time to see if it's for me (includes a couple I dropped for no good reason and need to get back to)...

On PS4.
Witcher 3
Infamous Second Son / First Light
The Witness
Uncharted 4
Dying Light
Tales of the Borderlands
Walking Dead Season 2
Until Dawn
Cosmic Star Heroine
Yonder (solo)
Hitman

3DS
Fire Emblem Awakening
Zelda: Link between Worlds

As for tracking upcoming games would want to pick up and a few recent releases I really want to pick up at some point...

Upcoming...
South Park: Fractured but whole.
HZD Frozen Wilds DLC
Monster Hunter Worlds
Ni No Kuni 2
Yo-kai Watch: Psychic Specters

Catch up...
Titanfall 2
Nier Automata
Xcom 2 (Inc War of the Chosen)

I'm probably missing something, but if it's not off the top of my head, then probably ok to leave off hey.