Steam Challenge: 50% Milestone Goal Met!
One of my goals for 2018 was to reach a milestone of having played (over) 50% of the games in my Steam backlog. This month, I’ve been nudging closer by prompting myself to try a new Steam game each week.
Last night, for the first time in years, the calculator reported that I’ve played 50% of the Steam games in my library! Given that this number is 245 games, this is no little thing!
My other goal this year was to not buy a new game if I wasn’t interested in playing it almost immediately. I’ve pretty much stuck to this.
This week, for example, I obtained my Project: Gorgon Steam key from the Kickstarter, so I made sure to install the game and poke around in it a little bit last night. Once I have more time to sit down with it, I’ll be sure to post about my new experiences in P:G.
Aside from this, I finished Back to the Future: Episode 3 last week. I had an itch to try a city builder this week (mostly because I’m interested in Surviving Mars), but didn’t want to buy another game right now. So I started playing around in Tropico 4 last night instead. I put in about 2.2 hours, making it through all the tutorials and starting my first island.
A Look Back
When I first started the Steam Challenge, my backlog looked like this:
Dang. I was worried about just 60 unplayed games back then? Now I’ve played 123!
This was back in 2014, so that’s an average of about 46 new games a year. Wow! What was I thinking? Also, keep in mind some of these games came from bundles and some were gifts over the years.
Also, this counts software titles in the stats, such as RPG Maker and GameMaker Studio, Art Software (Spriter Pro), and other things that are not games. For example, my “games” number shot up over the holidays because I picked up several pieces of game making and art software… not because I bought actual games.
Most of these games I bought between 2014-2016. Last year, I cut back on buying games for Steam… because of the Switch. Games are often more expensive on the Switch, which leads me to cull Steam purchases.
I also notice that my Steam wishlist has shrunk significantly last year (and a number of these are actually DLC for games I already own). I’ve been moving indies off of my Steam wishlist to my Switch wishlist as they’ve been announced. I’m also finding that I’m turning away from tempting sales, staying away from bundles, and skipping out on everything except good deals on games I really, really want to play here and now.
Surviving Mars is an example of that. I’m interested in it. I just have too many other games between Steam and Switch to justify getting a new game right now. So, instead of picking up Surviving Mars, I decided to play Tropico 4 (which it was compared to).
I have absolutely no interest in systems like Humble Monthly be cause I absolutely shudder to think of the mass influx of games it would bring to my backlog… Most of which I’m not interested in, or already own if I am interested in it.
In fact… I’ve gotten to the point where I won’t even take freebies or cheap games because the thought of inflating my backlog numbers turns me away. Not to mention, most (not all, but most) of these cheapie games are probably shovelware anyhow. (Sorry.)
My Top 10 Games
I decided to take a moment to list my top 10 games by time played. I will note that some of the numbers are vastly inaccurate, because Steam (at one point) didn’t record my time if I listed myself as offline, or if the Net was down. I pretty much always list myself offline (if I’m not playing with friends) just so I can focus on the game I’m playing without interruption.
Luv you guys, but I’m so easily distracted! <3
Starbound, for example, should have a ton more hours to it. There are some games that didn’t make this list that might have if the hours were more accurately reflected here. But, oh well.
I also listed more than just 10 here since RPG Maker, Spriter and GameMaker Studio 2 are not-games. As I noted before, software titles get tossed in with the games.
Yep, 7D2D beats out all the rest of my Steam games by a long shot. Starbound just overtook Stardew this past week as second place (again, my Starbound numbers should be a lot higher). And I’m ashamed to have played so much H1Z1 (Just Survive) in the past.
As you can see, I have issues clearing my backlog because these endless sandbox or tactical games always suck me in. Only Torchlight II and Walking Dead are games that have any sort of true ending on this list. It’s pretty terrible, but I really do love good sandboxes!
Anyhow! It feels good to finally have a balanced point on my backlog. My next goal is to reach for 60% of all backlog played. I may spend some time culling some titles — for example, the backlog also includes duplicate titles. Like this:
So, I didn’t actually purchase a second copy of the game, but the new GOTY or Definitive Edition was automatically added to my Steam account because I owned the original. This still counts as two games in the backlog stats, though! Not fair! I have several of these.
So, I’m going to see how many of these I can clear out to get a better idea of where my stats actually stand. I’m probably going to do the same thing for any software-not-games I’ve purchased but never launched, just to clear up those stats as well.
How goes your Steam backlog? What does the Calculator say?