I think that it is one of those things that comes hand in hand with most geeky pursuits, whether that be reading books, watching movies, playing video games etc.
Mine particularly refers to video games.
I was a collector of video games since I could afford my own games and systems, and in 2016 I was deeply trapped in the whole trophy hunting culture. Fast forward a little to 2018 and after having taken a break from gaming almost entirely for the previous year and discovered minimalism. Wanting to declutter but also not wanting to miss out on the gaming experiences that I had paid hard-earned money for I came up with a plan to tackle the mountain of games that I had accumulated.
My first step was to realise that I was holding on to games that I had already completed, knowing that I so rarely replay games once I’ve finished them, I felt comfortable decluttering them. I also had a number of older systems and games to go with them, they took up quite a lot of space, space that I wanted back. That left me with the PS4, 3DS, switch and the games I had collected for them.
The next step I took was to make a spreadsheet to catalog the games I owned. The first spreadsheet I made listed over 200 games. I utilised howlongtobeat.com to get an idea of the length of each of the games on the list. Using a random number generator to pick a game for me, I decided that I would at the very least try every game, with the caveat that if I wasn’t enjoying it I would drop it, remove it from the backlog and if it was a physical copy, sell it, if digital, uninstall it.
I also set a goal that I would initially be able to buy one new game for every 10 games removed from the backlog. To incentivise myself further I also started another spreadsheet logging my completed games. This tactic worked fabulously, and my current backlog now stands at 16 games. I have however developed another list, the wish list, which has grown to almost 60 games currently. This is the list of games from which I can buy new games from.
My goal now is to get my backlog down to 5 games and to maintain at that number and no more. Once I am at my five games, this will be maintained on a one-in-one-out basis, again utilising a random number generator to decide which game I am playing at a time.
I will log every week in this blog what games I have played the previous week and whether or not they got dropped or not. I will start reviewing games going forward and look forward to reaching my backlog goal and sharing that experience with you.
