Organising your backlog

[Eblait]

I've used PSNP+'s game lists to keep track of specific games, but other than that, I don't really organize all of my backlog. I know for a fact that I'll never fully complete it, so I don't stress about it too much. Nowadays I just do some research before committing to a new game.

 

Currently, my approach to tackling my backlog is alternating between playing games without 100% completion in my profile and doing blind playthroughs of new games that I'm interested in. This year, I'm focusing more on incomplete games with any online trophies that may become unobtainable soon, so I can do the single player portion at my own pace.

 

It's going okay, but between playing PS3, PS4/PS5 and Switch games, I have more games in progress than I'd like. I also try not to buy new games, but I don't always succeed on that regard, haha. This year I've purchased mostly Switch games and some DLC for PlayStation games I want to hit 100%, but there were a few new games as well.

[Jelly Soup]

4 hours ago, Feral said:

I’m old fashioned and have a book that I list my backlog in. It’s extremely satisfying to write with a pen that a game is finished.

 

Don’t include any particulars outside what console the game is on. Otherwise it would probably put me off certain games.

 

 

 

Every now and then I'm reminded of this, but I used to follow a blog by someone who did this years ago. But he was way way more into it. I know it's just a thing these days to refer to anything overly detailed as a sign of autism, but I believe, from his own sharing, he had major autism and ADD/ADHD issues that meds weren't helping. He self managed by keeping absurdly meticulous hand written logs on all his gaming habits. All his lists were done in a business ledgers and read as follows (number are just examples):

 

-Super Mario RPG - System -New/Used - Genre - Date Bought - Price

-- Date Started - Date Finished

--#7 RPG Acquired, #2 for [System], #1 Beaten on [System], #4 of [Genre] Beaten overall

--#2 RPG Bought [Year], and then it gets really damn specific from this point. Like how many games per system per genre bought within several time frames, price adjusted for inflation and accounting for going third-market rates, etc. We're talking pages and pages of hand written statistics per game across a very large collection.

 

Was amazing to read scans of. He just started doing that one day as a way to keep an extra backup of his notes.

[Feral]

53 minutes ago, Jelly Soup said:

 

Every now and then I'm reminded of this, but I used to follow a blog by someone who did this years ago. But he was way way more into it. I know it's just a thing these days to refer to anything overly detailed as a sign of autism, but I believe, from his own sharing, he had major autism and ADD/ADHD issues that meds weren't helping. He self managed by keeping absurdly meticulous hand written logs on all his gaming habits. All his lists were done in a business ledgers and read as follows (number are just examples):

 

-Super Mario RPG - System -New/Used - Genre - Date Bought - Price

-- Date Started - Date Finished

--#7 RPG Acquired, #2 for [System], #1 Beaten on [System], #4 of [Genre] Beaten overall

--#2 RPG Bought [Year], and then it gets really damn specific from this point. Like how many games per system per genre bought within several time frames, price adjusted for inflation and accounting for going third-market rates, etc. We're talking pages and pages of hand written statistics per game across a very large collection.

 

Was amazing to read scans of. He just started doing that one day as a way to keep an extra backup of his notes.

Damn, he redefined the definition of detailed. That’s pretty cool though, I quite like it. 
 

He needed that backup because imagine losing all that info would send him around the bend. 

[Tsundokuist]

I’ve actually just reached a point where I have zero backlog but I thought the IGN “Playlist” app was pretty useful for tracking games, it probably doesn’t work if you are into stacking (multiple regions etc) though.

[setobox]

So for my playstation games I use Backloggd and this website.

 

First I go by how much time to finish it, then how much fun it is or will it make me frustrated, and third is this a game i can put down and come back to months or a year later and still play.

 

For example, I haven't touched MGS 5 since 2017ish. Eight months ago when the rumors of the collection came out I redownloaded it and after just a few minutes of fumbling around and doing some easy missions I was able to get back into the groove. I am on track to complete and plat it.

Spoiler

I just gotta learn how to let Quiet go. 😭

 

On the other hand, FarCry 4 after not playing it for the same amount of time kicked my butt so hard. 

[MAUSZX]

I use howlongtobeat sometimes, when I really want to reduce my backlog, so I tend to look for the shorter ones, or play a short and a long game at the same time. I don't know, participating in events has helped me choose what games to play next, because I remember there was a time I just looked at my list just thinking what to play next. I still do that with the events, but at least the events make the list shorter.

[SoliDeoGloriaIHS]

I'm reading through some of these responses and I don't feel so bad with my measly backlog of 20 or so games give or take.  I thought it was a lot and I count as my backlog only those games that I intend on playing/platinuming at some point.  I probably have another 20 to 30 or so games from PS+ in my library that I have no intention of ever playing so I won't count those.  Still, when I read some of these posts and people are saying they have 100, 200+ or more games in their backlog, I don't feel so bad. 

[Moridin83]

I keep an average of 4-5 games in rotation. 1 disc based game, 1 long haul digital game, 1 short digital game that caught my interest, 1 grind game for when I'm listening to podcasts and 1 random game from my digital backlog. I have a spreadsheet with all my digital games, and when I finish the random one, I pull up a random number generator on google, with the max number of games I have, and let it rip. It keeps it interesting in terms of genre and game length.

[Mina]

I have a list on my Notes app that I can access quickly on my phone. Recently, I’ve dropped my other consoles and exclusively track PlayStation only.

 

My list is ordered by difficulty first, then by hours it’d roughly take to complete and then whether it’s offline or online (or both). I’ll make little notes about the game being possibly buggy or if there might be an unobtainable. Or if someone specifically asked to play a game with me, I’ll add their username.

 

Many years ago I’d waste what little time I had to game and not know what to play next. Rather than do that, I made a list which I maintain and this now serves nicely as a guide. I don’t always follow it but it’s great to have a backup plan. It’s also helped me answer the “what are you playing next?” question which tends to be thrown around quite a lot. It often works in my favour as the person asking ends up joining me.

[Jelly Soup]

24 minutes ago, Spider-Man916 said:

I'm reading through some of these responses and I don't feel so bad with my measly backlog of 20 or so games give or take.  I thought it was a lot and I count as my backlog only those games that I intend on playing/platinuming at some point.  I probably have another 20 to 30 or so games from PS+ in my library that I have no intention of ever playing so I won't count those.  Still, when I read some of these posts and people are saying they have 100, 200+ or more games in their backlog, I don't feel so bad. 

 

The benefit of starting small is it's easier to organize right from the start if you're really interested in doing it. Large chuck of the userbase here has been kicking around for 10+ years, so we have pretty large piles behind us. Starting fresh from this point is...a lot. The most extensive list I have is a script pull of my licenses from when the PS3 store was going to be shut down and a link to the actively updated Google doc of PSN+ games.

[SoliDeoGloriaIHS]

6 minutes ago, Jelly Soup said:

 

The benefit of starting small is it's easier to organize right from the start if you're really interested in doing it. Large chuck of the userbase here has been kicking around for 10+ years, so we have pretty large piles behind us. Starting fresh from this point is...a lot. The most extensive list I have is a script pull of my licenses from when the PS3 store was going to be shut down and a link to the actively updated Google doc of PSN+ games.

👍Gotcha!  Yeah, I've been gaming and trophy hunting for almost 13 years and I've been on here for about 10.  I guess I just never went crazy with buying tons of games.  Money is a huge factor.  My money has always been limited so I try to buy what I am pretty certain I will eventually get to.  But yeah, if someone has 100, 200+ games in their backlog, Google doc and spreadsheets can certainly help.  No doubt.

[PhyrxianLibrarin]

The most important thing I do is separate "games I paid real life money for" from "games that Sony gave me for free." If you're subscribed to PS+, you'll get free games faster than you can finish them, so your backlog will be constantly increasing if you try to get through them all. But those cost me $0, so if I never play them, I'm OK with that. They're freebies to fill the gaps in between the games I really do want to play, and am willing to pay real dollars for.

[Pray_4_the_End]

4 minutes ago, Spider-Man916 said:

I'm reading through some of these responses and I don't feel so bad with my measly backlog of 20 or so games give or take.  I thought it was a lot and I count as my backlog only those games that I intend on playing/platinuming at some point.  I probably have another 20 to 30 or so games from PS+ in my library that I have no intention of ever playing so I won't count those.  Still, when I read some of these posts and people are saying they have 100, 200+ or more games in their backlog, I don't feel so bad. 

Yea those are rookie numbers for sure. I don't think my backlog has been under 100 games in, at minimum, 4ish years. (Not a flex, I just have a problem lol) That's just on the PS side of things mind you, and doesn't take into account my Steam/Switch backlog, which is easily another 40-50ish games. I've also had PS+ since like '15 and I've been collecting all those "free" monthly games which is easily another 150+. I'm at peace with the fact that I'll likely never be "finished" with my backlog at this point lol.

 

I used to keep track of the backlog with an excel spreadsheet, but for the past year or so I've been using the PSNP+ extension on here for all my tracking needs. It's been working like a charm and is easily the most used psnp+ feature for me personally.

 

[SoliDeoGloriaIHS]

5 minutes ago, Pray_4_the_End said:

Yea those are rookie numbers for sure. I don't think my backlog has been under 100 games in, at minimum, 4ish years. (Not a flex, I just have a problem lol) That's just on the PS side of things mind you, and doesn't take into account my Steam/Switch backlog, which is easily another 40-50ish games. I've also had PS+ since like '15 and I've been collecting all those "free" monthly games which is easily another 150+. I'm at peace with the fact that I'll likely never be "finished" with my backlog at this point lol.

 

I used to keep track of the backlog with an excel spreadsheet, but for the past year or so I've been using the PSNP+ extension on here for all my tracking needs. It's been working like a charm and is easily the most used psnp+ feature for me personally.

 

Hahaha Yeah, I guess they are rookie numbers. Lol Hey!  It is what it is.  Different strokes, different folks. 

[Pray_4_the_End]

1 minute ago, Spider-Man916 said:

Hahaha Yeah, I guess they are rookie numbers. Lol Hey!  It is what it is.  Different strokes, different folks. 

For sure, not talking shit or anything lol. I'm actually envious of people with low backlog counts, must be soo freeing knowing you're not drowning in options. Paralysis by analyses is quite the bitch when you have soo much to choose from. Fuck'n 1st world problems man 😅

[SoliDeoGloriaIHS]

2 minutes ago, Pray_4_the_End said:

For sure, not talking shit or anything lol. I'm actually envious of people with low backlog counts, must be soo freeing knowing you're not drowning in options. Paralysis by analyses is quite the bitch when you have soo much to choose from. Fuck'n 1st world problems man 😅

Amen, brotha!  I know you weren't talking shit.  I never took it that way.  No worries.  And yeah, let's hear it for all of our first world problems.  Speaking of which, this afternoon I go on my PS4 and I can't connect to PSN.  It took about 10 minutes and two or three tries before I was finally able to connect.  By the same token, there are many people who will go to bed hungry tonight and I'm not one of them.  Thank God!  I guess I'm digressing quite a bit now - thinking and writing "out loud" so to speak - but it provides some perspective.  Anyways, no prob and be well. 😊😎👍

[cappone-ceraio]

I have a spreadsheet with every games that I bought (digital or physical), games that I receive through PS+ or with free promotions (like Play At Home or the Epic Games free weekly games), and Free-to-play games that have free trophies. For each game I keep track of the completion status (Never played, want to go back for trophies/completing the story, abandoned and completed), if the game have trophies/achievements and the rating that i give to the game (only for games that I played). I also use backloggd and a PSNP+ list as a backup.

 

When I have to choose what game I played I randomly select 5 games and between these I chose the one that seems the most interesting.

[Jeanolt]

I only have notes on my phone of games I want to buy, ordered just by the wish I have to play it at the moment, in different consoles, but I check it once a month probably.

 

Sometimes I keep track of the offers on psprices and write an estimate on when the game will be at the price I want it to be. For the rest, I use the Steam wishlist which is nice.

 

Once the game is mine, I don't bother anymore. I don't need to have all of the trophies to feel that I gained something out of it, it's not my philosophy.

 

It only bothers me if I never touched that game, which are only a few, or those games I left and promised to come back later, like Persona 5 which is super long.

[ChilledBrandon]

I have certain games I have in mind I'd like to play next or complete, but I've never made a list for it or planned out a route. Usually I like to mix up the genres.

 

So if I just did like an RPG I'll look for a shooter or something ideally different to avoid burn-out. 

[RedDevil757]

On 8/24/2023 at 11:14 PM, PhyrxianLibrarin said:

The most important thing I do is separate "games I paid real life money for" from "games that Sony gave me for free." If you're subscribed to PS+, you'll get free games faster than you can finish them, so your backlog will be constantly increasing if you try to get through them all. But those cost me $0, so if I never play them, I'm OK with that. They're freebies to fill the gaps in between the games I really do want to play, and am willing to pay real dollars for.

Nice way of looking at it. I like that. I think I'll separate plus games from the games I paid money for too.

On 8/24/2023 at 11:22 PM, Pray_4_the_End said:

PSNP+ extension on here for all my tracking needs. It's been working like a charm and is easily the most used psnp+ feature for me personally.

 

I've only just figured out how to get PSNP+ on my phone so using extensions on it will probably take me a few years to figure out 😂 

Edited August 28, 2023 by RedDevil757

[Lava_Yuki]

I use the Notes app on my phone and computer and manually write all my games into sections.

The categories I have are:

Vita backlog (all otome games)

PS5 backlog 

Played and completed games

Games on my to buy list, which I also track on the PS5 app wish list but for Vita games I write them in. 

 

In terms of the order, I have not sorted them by order, but when I choose what game to play next, i prioritise Extra catalog games first as they sometimes go, then I go by what game I like the best or seems most fun. I used to go from shortest and easiest to longest, but I prefer to play by preference rather than game difficulty or length

[plafix68]

Like most others, I have an insane backlog that I realize I'll probably never be able to fully get through. I don't use anything to officially keep track of it. I try to focus on no more than one or two games at a time. Otherwise I get too distracted. It also means a lot of games go untouched for a while. I don't plan it out too much and mostly just next play whatever I'm feeling at the time. I do try to balance a few different parts of the backlog like short vs. long games and games I've purchased vs. PS Plus games. I also tend to not focus on a particular series at once and mix up the series and genres of what I'm playing. Otherwise it starts to feel like too much of more of the same.

[Mr_Fluffy_Pants_]

The notes app on my phone. I have a list of games I want to play (immediately or in the near future) that are installed on my ps5, then under that just a big list of other ones to get to at some point.
 

I pretty much add anything I own or is on Ps plus (that may interest me) to this secondary list though, so I definitely won’t be playing all those, but it narrows it down instead of having to scroll through all the Ps plus games.

 

if you care to see:

 

(PS4)

a hat in time 10:00

Aven Colony

Cotton 100%

Cult of the Lamb

Deponia Doomsday

Hotel Transylvania

Humanity

hundred days: winemaking

I am Dead

It takes two

Metal Gear Solid 5 Ground Zeros 

Metal Gear Solid 5

PJ Masks

Resident Evil

Resident Evil 3 (PS4)

Resident Evil 4

Resident Evil 4 Remake

Resident Evil Code Veronica X

Sakuna of Rice and Ruin

SpongeBob 

Spyro 2

Spyro 3

Story of Seasons friends of mineral town

The messenger picnic panic dlc

the wild at heart 17:00

TMNT

Twisted metal 2

Two Point Hospital

Vampyr

 

(PS5)

Bugsnax

Hotel Transylvania

hundred days: winemaking

I am Dead

Last Stop

Life is strange true colors

MediEvil: Resurrection

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom

Outer Wilds

PJ Masks

Pursuit Force

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice

Resident Evil 4 Remake

Twisted metal 2

Uncharted Legacy of Thieves

 

Backlog not installed:

Arcadegedon

Alan Wake (PS4)

Assassin Creed Games

Axiom Verge 2

Bioshock 2

Bioshock Infinite

Blasphemous 

Bloodstained Curse of the Moon (no plat)

Bunny Raiders (East Plat)

Castlevania Anniversary (no plat)

Castlevania Requiem

Call of Duty Black Ops 3

Call of Duty Black Ops Cold War

Call of Duty Modern Warfare

Chivalry 2

Circus Electrique

City Skylines (PS4)

City Skylines Remastered (PS5)

Civ 6

Control

Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy

Dead Cells

Destroy all Humans 1&2

Detroit Become Human

Dishonoured 2

Dishonoured Death of the Outsider

Disney Afternoon Collection (No Plat)

Doom 2016

Dragon ball Z Kakorot

Empire of Sin

Erica

Evil Genius 2

Far Cry Games

Final Fantasy Games

Forager (no plat)

Ghostbusters the video game remastered

God of War

Grid Legends

Gris (PS5)

Haven

Heavenly Bodies

Horror Tales: The Wine (PS4)

Hollow Knight

Horizon Zero Dawn

Infamous Games

Jurassic World Evolution 2

Killzone Liberation (PS4)

Kingdom Two Crowns

Kingdom Hearts Games

Konami Arcade Classics Anniversary

Lake (PS5)

Little Big Planet 3

Mass Effect Trilogy

MediEvil

Megaman Legacy Collection (no plat)

Megaman Legacy Collection 2 (no plat)

Megaman X Legacy Collection

Megaman X Legacy Collection 2

Megaman Zero Collection

Minecraft Dungeons

Monopoly Madness

Moving Out 2 (PS5)

Mr. Driller Drill Land

Mudrunner

Nioh 1&2

Odd World New N Tasty

Odd world Soulstorm

Observation (No Plat)

Observer System Redux

Overcooked 2

Paw Patrol MPSAB (2 hour plat)

Returnal 

Rune Factory 4 Special

Sega Genesis Classics Collection

Siren (No Plat)

Snowrunner

Spider-Man Miles Morales (PS4)

Star Ocean First Departure R

Star Trek Bridge Crew

Stardew Valley

Stellaris

Story of Seasons pioneers of olive town

Strider

Subnautica 

Surviving Mars

Syphon Filter Games

Tails of Iron 

The Evil Within

The Forest 

The Raven Remastered 

The Talos Principle

Thief 

Tomb Raider

Tomb Raider, Rise of

Tomb Raider, Shadow of

Trials of Mana

Tropico 5

Uncharted The Nathan Drake Collection

Watch Dogs Legion

Wolfenstein the new order

Wolfenstein the old blood

Wolfenstein 2 The New Colossus

Wolfenstein Young Blood

Yakuza Games / Judgement Games

 

[Dinniestar]

I started buying no more games only 

only play games in my backlog try play PS3 as much as possible 

I play rocket league in-between those games as a breather 

I keep my eye locked on server closure forum and any game with upcoming server closure becomes priority  

I also paly my VITA on the way to and from work 

aiming to get 75% currently on 52% 

also have yearly stats list from last few years on my notes 

I mostly just use PSNP for my list to go for can remember which game I'm going for at any giving time even though might be playing 2-5 games 

[craig_obviously]

like others here I keep track of mine via the lists feature of PSNP+... it's a godsend having it all in one place