Because I have seen this often and on myself too I am going to ask, why do we even keep backlog?
Why do we even buy so much games and not going to play one of them?
Is it Analysis Paralysis (explenation here: https://youtu.be/_2LKrwiGFFs) because we buy during sales so much at once, that instead of being full of anticipiation for playing we get blocked and delay it to another day and so delaying it until we forget we even have them? Is it something else? And more important, what can we do against it?
(Before someone comments just buy less or invent time or cloning machine, thanks but no thanks)

I don't know about you but i'm stocking up for the end of the world, nuclear apocalypse maybe or whatever future disaster that may impact my ability to purchase games.

I have some rules, only buy things with a 80 - 90 % discount, if not i can wait. And even with free games, last times only claim games i want to play, these reduce games i am never going to play but are in the library. But it´s impossible to play ALL games we want, so, as Tim Schafer said, "only play good games, life is short to play bad games".

I'm simply stupid. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

lots of reasons:
hoarding (gotta catch em all)
retail therapy
sucker for marketing
got caught up in the hype of a new game
i really want to play it but i really wanna play this other thing first (and by the time i finish that i bought something else i really wanna play)
i was drunk when i bought it
it was on sale for so cheap that it's worth the couple of coppers to have it sit there for a rainy day
the devil made me do it
no one told me i'd have to justify my bad habits
if i keep it all digital no one will notice my addictive personality flaws
it had cthuhlu in the title so i bought it
i had it on another platform and didn't play it there but wanted to so i figure if i buy it again i might get around to playing it
it was payday
i was bored
i needed a reason to still be awake because i didn't want to go to sleep and shopping is a reason
i work for money, if i don't spend that money then how do i justify all that time wasted at work?


and finally, the twelve monkeys excuse:
There's the television. It's all right there - all right there. Look, listen, kneel, pray. Commercials! We're not productive anymore. We don't make things anymore. It's all automated. What are we *for* then? We're consumers, Jim. Yeah. Okay, okay. Buy a lot of stuff, you're a good citizen. But if you don't buy a lot of stuff, if you don't, what are you then, I ask you? What? Mentally *ill*.

Maybe it's a form of hoarding, but without 10,000 cats running around the house or junk strewn about everywhere?

1) I do usually get around to every FPS/RPG and hybrid of those I buy, as those are my favorite genres. It might take me a while, but I know I will play them, so I don't mind buying them.

2) I do predict there will be a day where the vast majority of new stuff won't interest me, either because of streaming or online or whatever else. It will be nice to have a lot of "new old stuff" to play at that time. I'll spend thousands on a refurbished old PC if I have to.

3) 90% of my backlog I doubt I never get to is stuff I bought super cheap in a sale, because it was well regarded or looked interesting. While a lot of this might end up a waste of money, at least it wasn't that much money, because it was all super cheap. I have a couple boxes of movies on DVD and Blu-ray the same thing applies to, bought for cheaper than rental prices from disc exchange places.

I tend think games' availability -- as sole purchasable products -- is about to become much, much less. Streaming, subscriptions, and online-only will effectively wall-off content... even the oldest of content (not to mention "classic" titles).

My household owns approx. 2000 movies and tv shows. Why would I have such a collection? For the day that Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, Disney+ etc. become too much of a burden... and when even those services don't have available the content I enjoy (which happens ever now!).

While not advocating mad poorhouse spending sprees, I do think it makes sense to buy what you can afford while you can... before you can't.

Some games are extremely long. I try to finish every game, before I start a new one, but sometimes it´s almost impossible. Playing Lords of the Fallen atm, and I already have 55 hours in it. Besides that, I have a 700 hours savegame in Titan Quest, and I´m still playing the game. The same in Oblivion, Fallout 3 and so on. It takes time before I can start one of my newly purchased games.

because the deals are too good to pass up. I mean, Pajama Sam Vol. 1 for only $4 on sale? whoa!

The answer will of course be different for everyone, but for me, when I started buying games again in 2012 after a 6 year hiatus after being very disappointed with the gaming industry, it was GOG with DRM-free gaming that lured me back in, and I branched out a bit from there. Overall my experience with gaming has been better with digital distribution than it was in the days of physical media, and so I embraced it again at that time and since.

I believe digital distribution has ended up making it so that each year - is the best year ever in the history of gaming to be a gamer, because not only is there an endless stream of new games coming out every year and it seems to be an ever increasing amount which gives maximum choice in the marketplace, but we have the entire ever growing backlog of video games previously released which are available, with older titles that haven't been available for a while for various reasons also slowly being brought back to life and re-released in a playable form on modern computers.

In addition to the massive availability that unlimited shelf space brings, the costs to distribute the games are much lower than physical copies to the point of negligibility, so games that wouldn't have made business sense to put on store shelves can be made available now and at prices that wouldn't have been profitable enough to be worthwhile in physical form. Also due to the massive availability and competition for entertainment dollars, it leads to many seasonal sales every year with massive discounts, as well as lots of other sales, bundles etc.

This means there is almost always a "bargain bin" of games out there for dirt cheap, whether they are ancient classics, top games of a decade ago or yesteryear, and often even games less than a year old being sold for a song and a dance. This makes it super easy and affordable to someone such as myself to stock up on a multitude of games I always wanted to play or even just try out from years ago, as well as stockpile newer titles all at the price of a cup of coffee or two.

For me it falls into the "pocket change" category to grab 1-10 titles for $3 or less or a bundle etc. as the amount of money it costs is completely meaningless to me. This secures me my own personal library of both newer games and classics to be able to decide to play or even just try out some time in the future whimsically without having to have a strong feeling about them and be willing to pay more.

I don't buy games with the notion that I **must** play them all, but rather because they're so cheap that it's worth it to me to have a collection of tonnes of games to choose from when I'm bored, and they cost next to nothing.

Since 2012 I think I've only spent around $1500-2000 CAD tops on games if that, with 99% of them being $3 or less, and maybe 10 costing more than $5. I've bought one new release - Witcher 3. Add on all of the plethora of free game promotions from various stores, publishers, giveaway sites, GOG forum giveaways, gifts from friends and community members, games that come free with hardware purchase, etc. and I've accumulated 1400 games since 2012. If I divide the total money spent by the number of games owned including freebies, it works out to less than $1.50 per game.

Contrast that with someone who only buys and plays a small number of brand new AAA titles at $60-80 per game as a new release, and the same amount of money would only buy them about 25 games in the same time frame. Nothing wrong with that if that's one's gaming preference/style, but I much prefer a massive library to explore over time and find the gems within, acquired for peanuts.

I don't ever plan to (and never could) play every single one of them, plus any others I acquire going forward, but that's not my intention either.

In short, I'm not buying games to play them. I'm buying games opportunistically to have the option but not the obligation to play them in the future if I feel like it, and for a price that is meaningless to me so no thought needs to be put into it, it's just pull the trigger.

I treat games as collectible items. It's the main reason why I buy more games than I'll probably play in the future. It's nice to add more of them to your collection, especially when it comes to older titles that were hard to get before they arrived on GOG. :) Why do something about it? If it brings pleasure and doesn't hurt other people why not leave it as it is? :)

We buy games so we can remove them from our wishlist.

We play games so we can experience them.

To me it is a similar question as why people take lots of photos all the time, without the intention to watch them ever again.

I do buy games in order to play them at some point, but since finishing Icewind Dale 2 can take several weeks while buying it takes only 30 seconds or so, it is understandable I keep buying games faster than I finish them.

Only buying a game when you are actually going to play it doesn't work because at that point of time the game might not be on sale, or available at all anymore. Like, say, next Saturday, what if got an urge to play Requiem, and then learn that GOG had delisted the game just a day before? Wouldn't I be like "Shit, I should have bought the game before it was delisted and not wait."?

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/requiem_avenging_angel_uprising_join_or_die_and_uprising_2_lead_and_destroy_delisting/page1