Backlog
pressure can take many forms, and mix various subtle feelings. My own backlog
pressure feels like a persistent grinding (how ironic) on my gamer’s mind; it’s
not overwhelming, but it’s nagging enough to dampen my gaming enjoyment at
times. It often translates as guilt — but not just any guilt. One might
think I feel guilty every time I purchase a new game — because dear Arceus,
there are so many waiting already! — but NOPE! No matter how many games I own,
I always get this delicious kick when I get my greedy paws on a new game. My
guilt is all about the way I play my games — or don’t do so. I feel
guilty about not playing games I bought ten years ago, about playing a game in
depth at the expense of others, about tackling a Nth Pokemon
solo run when there are so many unplayed games waiting in line.
For many
years, I was totally immune to the backlog pressure; I was happy and proud
about that immunity, and even paraded a bit and flaunted it at times. So what
tipped the scales and allowed backlog pressure to worm its way into my gamer’s
mind? I
thought at first that the sheer accumulation of games was the main factor,
which prompted me to devise the New Classics Project. Now that the deed is
kinda done, I realise that the situation is more complex. See, as I was
discarding games like my life depended on it during the New Classics Project,
the backlog pressure didn’t abate like I thought it would. Bet you didn’t
expect that plot twist, hey!
After a
bit of soul-searching, I’ve come to realise that all my backlogging woes can be
blamed on a single factor, which is none other than loyalty. More precisely,
an excess of it; or an extension of the concept in places where it shouldn’t
exist. See, I feel a duty of sorts towards my games. I feel that I should
give them all a fair chance to shine, and that I shouldn’t discard them
before giving them said chance; and I just as strongly feel that I contracted
that obligation the very moment I purchased them.
The whole
thing is just over-the-top, and completely out of place. Loyalty is fine in
relationships with fellow humans, or living beings as a whole; but loyalty
towards objects is just plain unpractical and pointless. I’m basically chaining
myself to stuff, and creating obligations for myself out of thin air! When
one considers the timing and rationale behind every gaming purchase and realises
that circumstances may have changed wildly since said purchase, this clutching
to loyalty becomes all the more absurd and counter-productive. Case in point: I
purchased Tactics Ogre for the PSP back in mi-2013, at a time when I only
owned the PSP, the DS and 20-or-so games. Ten years later, I own six systems
and hundreds of games, and I’ve come to realise that I don’t fancy SRPG that
much. Forcing myself to play Tactics Ogre despite all that was a
complete waste of my loyalty.
But wait,
I hear you say, didn’t you want to play Tactics Ogre? What about
your gaming instinct? Well, that’s the trick: that loyalty of mine towards every
game I welcome into my Collection superseded my gaming instinct. Or, more
precisely, my gaming instinct operated inside the confines of my loyalty
towards my games. It speaks volumes that in all these years, I never did any sort of background maintenance of
my collection: it’s been the same since the very beginning, just growing ever
larger. It would have made sense to, let’s say, ditch this game I bought on a complete
whim, or that game that belongs to a genre I don’t fancy; but such natural
occurrences never happened. They never happened because they couldn’t happen:
until I uncovered that blinding, binding loyalty of mine, I was simply unable
to ditch a game before playing it. Hence the darn backlog pressure.
Does this mean that I am now able to ditch a game without playing it first? I honestly don’t know at that point. Identifying the cause of my
backlog pressure certainly removed a lot of said pressure; the consequences of
that epiphany on my Collection remain to be seen, and will probably take some
time to unfold. One thing is abundantly clear, though:
the New Classics Project is now officially defunct! My gaming instinct will run
the show from now on; and it will do so without being hindered by my overbearing
loyalty. This will be some sort of permanent maintenance, like a software
running in the background; and I just cannot wait to see how my gaming instinct
will fare ^^
One last
question for the road: what does make a game a Cult Classic? For me, it’s
always a natural and effortless gelling between several elements. It’s the way
a game scratches just the right itch, while inserting itself perfectly into my
life at that moment and generating tons of emotions and memories. This is
something that cannot be engineered, nor reproduced at will; it can happen with
perfectly crappy games, and not happen with undeniably excellent ones. The New
Classics project reminded me that you just have to breathe, relax, and let
things happen. Just play it your way, baby! 🤩