Bundle Madness Broke my Gaming Goals for 2023

Posted on December 27, 2023 by Aywren

One of my top gaming goals for this year was to reach 75% of my Steam backlog played. I would have done this, and more, had I not been so quick to jump on bundle game deals. It was just tough to pass up the prices for games that I’d already been interested in when they hit the bundles.

My trouble started with Fanatical. A bundle of three here. A bundle of three there. Then they tempt you with an offer of two random games for about a dollar on top of that, and sometimes that turned into five games.

No, I didn’t buy into any bundle that didn’t have at least two or so games that I knew I wanted to play. Yes, the prices were super cheap, sometimes getting games normally priced at $20 for $3.99.

I don’t at all regret the money I spent because the deals were good and the games were good. I was even at 74.9% of my backlog played during December – I’d almost… allllmost… met my goal despite my bundle buys. This was also despite me trying to adopt an attitude of “don’t care” when it came to my gaming library.

And then Jingle Jam dropped upon me. Even though I didn’t redeem all of the games, I racked in at least 40 games from that bundle alone. That shattered any hopes I had of meeting my backlog goal for the year. But dang, the price was good for the games I got – I know I paid maybe $1 a game, even not redeeming them all.

2024 – The Year of the Steam Challenge

So, 2023 was a wash. But, 2024 is on the horizon. What am I going to do about this next year?

I intend 2024 to be the Year of the Renewed Steam Challenge.

Many of the indie games I bought this year are quite short in nature. Or, they’re the type of game that you can play a bit of and put down – there’s no story and no true ending to it.

Like years past when I first worked up the idea of a personal Steam Challenge, I want to focus on playing those shorter games, and blogging about it. Basically, turning my backlog into content the best I can.

You might say – but you blog about plenty of games – and I kinda do. There were far more games that I’ve played that I’ve not written a word about lately (and that’s on me). I’ve fallen out of the habit of blogging new games I pick up because I am so eager to get it done, experience it, and then go on to the next game.

This year, I want to make progress, but I don’t want to be in a rush. If that makes sense. I might not even assign a percentage goal to this, and just see where it takes me.

Other Approaches to Remedying the Backlog Explosion

The other things I’ve done to help me better focus on my Steam backlog:

• Canceled my Game Pass subscription (for now)
• Unsubscribed from Fanatical promotional emails

So, while I enjoy Game Pass, as I noted in a post before this, I have too many games on Steam to keep paying monthly for a service that might distract me. I have a lot of games I want to try out on Game Pass, too. But for now, I just want to focus on what I own. I might come back to it later, though.

In fact, I’ve gone as far as purchasing some of the games from Game Pass on Steam that I enjoyed and knew I’d miss. So, right now, I’m not hurting for a gaming subscription at all.

And yes, the second logical thing I did was unsubscribe from Fanatical promotional emails. If I can’t see the bundles next year, I won’t be tempted to buy them like I was this year. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what I hope.

I want to severely cut my gaming additions next year to only the games I absolutely want to play right away. I tend to be a bargain shopper, which is good and bad – I have a hard time not picking up something when I think it’s a great deal. With the number of indie games I’ve picked up this year, I’ve actually knocked down my wishlist quite a bit.

So, that’s the story of how bundle games broke my backlog goals for this year… and what I intend to try to do about it in 2024.

How was your gaming year? Any similar experiences?

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