As I was putting together my list of games that mattered to me in 2020, I spent some time combing through my Steam Library to figure out what games I actually played last year. And for the first time I had a startling revelation: I own A LOT of games. 367 games to be exact. And do you know how many of those games I’ve actually played?
114.
While that might sound like a lot, that’s only around ~31% of my library. That means I haven’t played 69% of the games I own on Steam!
Do I own too many games?…naw, I should probably get some more.
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably in a similar boat. Between new releases, Steam Sales, and Humble Bundles, your library has grown steadily over the years. But when it comes time to pick something to play, you find yourself playing to the same ol’ games. Don’t get me wrong, the games you keep coming back to are likely really good (believe me, I’m very happy with all the time I’ve spent playing Hades, Hearthstone, Slay the Spire, Spelunky, and The Binding of Isaac). But playing the same things over and over again does nothing to chip at your ever-growing backlog of games.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of incredible games out there, and if you keep yourself limited to only a handful of them you’re missing out on so many amazing experiences. Especially as a game designer, I want to play as many different games as possible so that I can make the best games I can.
So, how can you actually start playing your unplayed games? Here are my two suggestions.
Suggestion #1: Pick A (New) Theme
Last year I watched this excellent video by CGP Grey about New Year’s resolutions. Specifically, they advocate against going for resolutions and instead going for a personal theme. Example themes could be something like “Year of Learning” or “Year of Health”. Once you’ve picked your theme, you then base your choices throughout the year around that theme. So for example, if you chose the theme “Year of Health”, you might choose to go for a walk instead of staying home and reading a book.
If you want to try to play more new games this year, you could choose a theme that fits with that goal (e.g. “Year of Novelty” or “Year of Experiences”). That way, whenever you’re given the choice between playing something new and playing something you’ve already played, you have a little bit of encouragement to pick the new game. Sure, you’re still going to pick the old game sometimes, and that’s okay. The goal is progress, not perfection. Even if you just pick the new game slightly more often than before, you’re doing great.
Suggestion #2: Go On A “Gamer Date”
I got this idea after learning about Julia Cameron’s “Artist’s Dates”. An Artist Date is a solo adventure you go on once a week where you do something that interests you. It can be anything you want, such as going to a museum or going to see a movie. The goal is to woo yourself through these expeditions and expose yourself to new things to keep your creative well full of inspiration. It’s an excellent activity that I highly recommend in its own right, but for me I put a slight spin on it and instead go on “Gamer Dates”.
What’s a Gamer Date? The idea is that once a week you set aside a block of time (e.g. 1-4hrs) to play a game. You can play whatever game you want and with whomever you want, but the game must be something you’ve never played before. So far this year I’ve gone on two Gamer Dates with myself and I have tried Dead Cells and Return of the Obra Dinn (both of which are excellent btw). What I like about this approach is that it doesn’t feel like I’m losing anything to do it. Sometimes I just want to play Hearthstone, but if I feel an obligation to play something new all the time it can make me feel guilty. But by setting aside this dedicated time for new gaming experiences, playing Hearthstone during the rest of the week doesn’t feel like the “wrong” decision.
Feel free to use either of these suggestions if you think they’ll be useful to you. At least for me personally, I’m really excited about using 2021 as an opportunity to shrink my Steam backlog. And who knows, maybe I can get my library up to 50% played by this time next year…
…Or I could just keep buying more games.