How can I best defeat my gaming backlog?

Here is an idea.

1. Start the first game in your list starting with "A". Try to play as much of it as you can in the coming days, with penalty on yourself if you did not play at least 15 minutes everyday.
2. Decide on a penalty that is actually a penalty. Like what I am doing now, If I do not play my game for atleast half hour in the day, I do not get to smoke for the whole of the next day unless cover up by playing an extra Hour.
3. When you are done withe the 1st game, start the next game, but this time the game name will start with "B",
4. Repeat the process.
5. Will yourself to play through the game even if it is boring at times. You'll regain interest after some minutes.
6. If you see a different game that you might wanna play in between, play the game by all means, but do not count that towards the normal allotted time for your particular assigned game.

I believe that way you can slowly start clearing out the backlog and would actually be benefiting from the money you spent. In the past month only I have finished 7-8 games this way. Even though most of them were small indie games like Thomas was Alone and Braid, but still I cleared out one big game "Alan Wake" on steam and am 80% through Walking Dead. Also I cleared 6 big games from PS3 backlog.

Hope this technique helps. Have Fun. Enjoy your games

If you want my advise, first you need to realise one simple truth: You won't be able to complete all of them. From that point you can either continue buying them (like I did because I enjoy it), slow it, stop or do whatever pleases you.

Right now I have about 670 games on my account and about 200 others not yet added - my library started to freak me out to a point I couldn't decide what to play first. I'm trying to not add anything I don't have to, like if I know I'll play it right away until completion. But whenever I add something, I immidietely download it and check it to categorize the game - I don't need to spend that much time to see I won't play this... Ever. So it lands in the 'trash' category. If I like it, it lands in one of other various categories - among games I'm currently trying to 'beat', casual games I play from time to time, multiplayer ones, or games I'll reinstall someday to complete them. Games I already beaten are placed in another category, some games I played until the end when purchased retail versions years ago and they are there as well.

Recently I'm avoiding strategy games, I just know I'll keep playing for weeks when there's shitload of others to beat. Also, as a general rule I don't play games if I don't have all currently available DLCs.

Hope it was helpfull in any way, good luck.

I remembered something I heard once. The person put a limit ow how many not fihished games he was allowed to have, so make a list of all not finished games you have on your library, and set a number a bit below it.
If you want to buy another bundle, steam promo, or new game that launch, you will have to finish some untill the "not finished" number be under you chosen number.

PS: The text may be a bit messy, sorry english not my first language >.o

You know... a philatelist doesn't lick all of his collection either.
At least I haven't done that to approximately half of my sets and I don't feel a tad bad about it.

You can hire some chinese guys to play your games for you while you are procrastinating.

Yeah.. I feel ya.. I have 42 games and i play 1-2 at most.. Anyway you cant realy do anything about this 'urge' to get even more stuff because they are cheap (bundles sales etc.) I am in a sort of same situation. What do i do? Well i dont have paypal (yet) an that stops me from getting more stuff.
And to play one game until you finish it, well, ofc you have to like it ( mainly the story). I also never finish most of the games i play, but with games like Crysis, The Last of Us etc. etc. ( here i mean games that i realy liked) i sat and played till the end.
But if you just feel good collecting them, i dont think there's anything wrong with that.

Uninstall everything cept the one you are playing then you don't have a choice.

Get a girl, fuck her, have a son.
From that point, you can pass the responsibility of game completion to him.

I know how you feel man. I rarely get to buy anything, but when I do: I usually buy something that I will probably don't even play. I have this kind of thinking: "It's a great game, just because I don't feel like playing it now, I will surely play it later." Which actually paid out a few times already, but yeah.

I bought the Deep Silver Bundle (Or was it the one where Saints Row was included?) And even up to this day I didn't even activated them. I might just start giving away my stuff. It is better to give it to the people who need it, instead of making it gather dust in my library.

And you need some serious self-control and dedication in my opinion. Gaming is a fun thing to do, but buying over 900 games is already considered computer addiction.

how about quitting your dayjob, and just try making money off a "let's play" video for every single one of your games :D

One day I will beat all the games in my library - I still have 30-40 years for this.

Pick up one game, play it to the end, repeat

Defeat one game, challenge another!

Go to your steam library, change the view to "grids". stare at grids. You'll start playing a game in no time.

Give up. It's clear you've lost the battle.

I can think of only one method:
Contact your bank and make sure that they block any and all purchases from all known gaming sites.
Tell your friends that you no longer want to see them
Quit your job/school
Contact a psychiatrist, claim that you have some some for of problem that for one reason or another makes it impossible for you to work and function in normal society (make sure that you live in a country where the government gives you money if you can't work), so cover any food expenses.
Spend the rest of your life (or at least the next 5 or so years) playing games, alone, in your home.
Order food online.

That is obviously not what you want to do, so just accept the fact that you have a backlog and that it will keep growing. But try to only buy bundles with games that you are actually interested in. I'm not saying that you should only buy bundles with games that you know about, of course not (some of my own best indie discoveries have been due to bundles), but try to some some constraint.
Realize that Fnord does not listen to his own advice and that you should listen to what he says, not do what he does.

Hooray, I just finished a game!
I came to terms with the fact that I can probably never beat all of my games. With that realization came the acceptance of playing on easy and cheating the everloving crap out of a story-focused game if I get stuck for a prolonged amount of time. Obviously that does not count for games like Super Meat Boy or Dark Souls, where the tough journey is the goal in itself, but I'll see. I will try out strategy games and rougelikes, but most of them are to time consuming or based around endless repetition, eating time like no ones business.
I will reduce the amount of bundles I buy, already skipped some this month, and will resist the urge to buy newer games on sale unless it's the goty at 75% or something like that. Achievmenthunting will also have to take a backseat, I will prioritize beating the game at all above all else and won't come back to it unless I have a lot of fun doing the achievments.
Last but not least I will try to check the games at howlongtobeat.com to get a grasp of the time I would have to spend on them.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, I will continue to collect games without feeling bad about it and I hope to tame the backlog some day and force it upon my enemies.

Resolve: Cancel out your credit card. Buy a account card only which you can't use it on internet.

build a time machine and tie yourself up. Then start!

Digital hoarding is still hoarding by any other name.

If you are serious about at least trying all the games in your library I suggest make a rotating list of 10-15 games you'll play per month. My library is no where near the size of yours but I've played about 75% of the games on my list. And if I find a game that I particularly enjoy I don't mind keeping on my rotation longer.

Never go to college/get a job and you'll be fine.

1) don't sleep, you'll have loads of time to do it when you are dead
2) no relationship, unless it is for co-op to finish games faster
3) no job, well, at least not one that you can't play at work
4) stop buying new games, get only DLCs if any new available
5) stuck in a game ? no problem, quit it, resume later, it will go better that time

hope this helps

edit: oh, yes, fire your teachers and quit school if you are studying (that takes too much time, just let it go!!!!)

Sometimes I just force myself to play, no matter how much I don't want to. Another thing to do is to pick games you want to play in advance, like challenge yourself to finish this game, this game, and this game by next weekend (can use to HowLongToBeat.com to get an estimate on how much time you need to give yourself). I find having a specific goal in mind can help me jump into some games. You could also find some friends who have games with co-op and bug them to play with you, co-op always making things more enticing (at least for me). Also, if you're a completionist in general, try to break the habit of wanting to get every single achievement in every game, you'll won't get very far unless you can spend every day playing games from dawn to dusk, especially games with story modes, just focus on beating the story mode and then move on unless you really like the game

I have created a folder for myself where i can place 4 games in it at a time, and cant play anything else. 3 of them need achievements, and after i defeat all (or half) of the achievments on them, then i add a new game. The fourth i keep for games without achievements. I also have a folder that acts as my quene