Gaming Backlog: Why Don’t We Finish Games Anymore?

Whether you’re a casual gamer or a completionist, there’s something pretty magical about playing your way through a story from beginning to end, and nothing more satisfying than completing all the achievements… but with an increase in popularity in gaming over the recent years, the market has become fast-paced and saturated with so much to offer, and not finishing games seems to be an increasing thing in the gamer world.

Things in my world have changed drastically recently. With a certain pandemic occurring, I found myself out of a job and with plenty of time on my hands, so I was working through some of my gaming backlog… however, since becoming a parent I found myself having almost zero time for gaming and soon my backlog pile was bigger than it had ever been before! Looking at my backlog list, I realised that having a bunch of games that remain unfinished or even not started isn’t something new for me; in fact, it seems to be quite the common thing for me to have unfinished – or unstarted – games tucked away for a rainy day… and it got me thinking, why is it that so many of us never finish games anymore? After some thought I realised a few reasons why I have such a backlog and don’t finish games, but I knew I wasn’t the only one out there that does this, so I put the question out to my instagram community and there were some great responses…

Reasons for not finishing games:

Not Enough Time:

Let’s face it, real life can be pretty demanding and things can get super busy juggling work and family, and that means that sometimes there just isn’t enough time to sit down and play games. Specifically, open world games like Skyrim or Breath of The Wild have so many hours of play time and it can be overwhelming and difficult to sit down and pick up the controller and play these kinds of games as they do require a lot of commitment. Then there are the games that just never end. Games like The Sims, Jurassic World, and Animal Crossing have endless hours of play time, which can be daunting for some gamers if they don’t have the time to commit to them, so these games can often find themselves on the backlog pile as gamers get game anxiety about their created worlds not being as good as others as they fall behind the community. However, some would argue that these are the types of games that are the best to play when you have little time as they can be picked up and put down at any point and they are easy to play for even just 10 minutes of R&R time.

Too Many Games to play:

Gaming has come a long way since its beginning, and these days we are kind of spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing what we want to play. Not only is there a massive encyclopaedia of titles to choose from, but there are so many genres and different platforms to play on. It’s no wonder that with so much variety our backlog pile can quickly turn into a backlog mountain. And this brings me to my next point…

Want to play the hot new game:

Building on the point that there are too many games to play is the point of wanting to play the newest games. We live in a great time for gaming where new and amazing titles are constantly being released, but this also means that there are just too many games to play and often current games will get bumped to play the newest games, leaving them unfinished and added to the backlog pile.

Also, some games have times constraints and exclusivity of seasons that puts pressure to play a certain game over another (eg Call of Duty, Fortnite, Fall Guys). This is a sure way to build that backlog pile high.

Don’t have the skillset:

Let’s be honest, some games are just too bloody hard, and no matter how much you want to play it’s just not fun when you can’t get through it. I can’t do games like The Division or Call of Duty or Tomb Raider, even though I love them, I just suck at them and it gets frustrating to play. I mean, I’ll play, but I never end up playing for very long because the frustration hits. Even certain platformers like Hollow Knight and Ori; I just get to a point where I get stuck and I just can’t get through it and out of frustration it ends up on my backlog most likely to never be played again.

Playing a game too much and burning out and not wanting to play it anymore:

Sometimes a game is just too good and just too much fun to put down… so you don’t put it down and play nothing else but that game 24/7 until you eventually get bored and burn yourself out on it. I have done this on multiple occasions… games like Animal Crossing, Pokémon, Breath of the Wild… if I’m honest, these are games that I will NEVER tire of completely, but I have played them endlessly until it felt like my eyes were bleeding from exhaustion and I have had to take a break from them and play something else for awhile.

Simply just got bored with the game:

We’ve all faced the situation where a game just doesn’t live up to the hype, or once the hype has died off you find that your hype-blinders are removed and you find yourself playing a truly boring game. This has happened to me on a few occasions, but one of my biggest let downs of recent times was The Division… but my biggest let down of the decade would have to be Red Dead Redemption 2. I was sooooo hyped for that game, and the release kept getting pushed back so the long wait kind of killed the hype, so once I finally got to play I had some high expectations due to the amount of times the release had been pushed and I was severely let down and was so bored with it, so into the backlog it went.

I’ve also found myself getting caught up in the hype of remasters with the nostalgia that they bring, but once I get playing and the novelty of the improved graphics wares off I just get bored because I’ve played it before and I just want to play something new and exciting. Remasters like Destroy All Humans and even my childhood favourite Tony Hawk Pro Skater quickly became new additions to the backlog pile for the simple fact that I had done it all before and I quickly became bored once the hype wore off.

Not feeling immersed or invested in the story:

This kind of ties in with getting bored with a game and generally happens to me when I get a game that I wasn’t particularly interested in but I got as part of a bundle so figured I would give it a go anyway. This is how I came to play the Nathan Drake games, and they will forever remain unfinished because I got bored with the story. Even my beloved Pokémon not captivate me, and I think Pokemon Sun/Moon was the first Pokémon game that I hated the story I just couldn’t play it. Like a good movie or book, a good story is just essential; games like Spider-Man and Zelda have some of the immersive stories and to this day, the most captivating game I have played has been Breath of the Wild and it sets a pretty high bar when it comes to my investment in a story.

Too scared:

I’m not gonna lie, there have been games that I haven’t been able to finish for the simple fact that it was just too damn scary! Games like Resident Evil, The Evil Within, Dead By Daylight, and Days Gone… they are just too damn scary! There used to be a time where I enjoyed horror games, but I could never finish them because they were too scary. Now, I just don’t even bother because I don’t want to be scared when I’m gaming – I want to enjoy the experience.

Starting over because you don’t like your character or what you have built:

I am guilty of this. I couldn’t tell you the amount of times I restarted a game because I wasn’t happy with some aspect of my character (eg. Skyrim, World of Warcraft), regardless of the fact of putting in something like 60+ hours of gameplay, or because I wasn’t happy with how things were progressing (eg. Jurassic World, The Sims). I just can’t seem to get a character I am happy with in Skyrim, and I found myself continuously rebuilding my park in Jurassic World, and with both games I just wasn’t getting anywhere, so into the backlog they went as I began to play other games.

Not wanting the story to end:

This is kind of a dumb excuse, but I am guilty of it. Spider-Man, one of my most favourite games I have ever played, remains unfinished because I just simply can’t bring myself to finish the story, and if I am honest, this will probably happen again as I get closer to finishing Spider-Man: Miles Morales. It’s like when you finish a good book or a tv series that has completely encapsulated you and then you don’t know what to do with yourself when it ends, and I don’t know if I am emotionally ready for my Spider-Man adventures to end, even if that means I just stop playing the game and let it sit unfinished in the backlog pile.

So, what’s the reason?

With gaming having so much to offer, it seems that it’s more than likely a case of too many games and too little time. Whatever the reason, it seems that there will always be those games in our extensive gaming libraries that will just go unfinished… and with so many great games releasing with next-gen gaming, that pile is bound to turn into a mountain pretty fast.

What are your reasons for your gaming backlog, and what games are in that pile? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time…

– MuffinBear.🐻