Mitigating Backlog FOMO
I'm playing Final Fantasy Resonance just about every day this past week and I'm loving every session. The game feels truly like a traditional 2D Final Fantasy game with modern writing and design that shows real love for what made the classic Final Fantasy turn based combat special. I'm not sure that the stagger system is something that I'm interested in, but for the moment I find the modern take on decades old combat to show the wisdom of those years and what makes this combat really fun.
While I make my way through Final Fantasy, I'm thinking of ways to use my new every day carry, the Nintendo Switch Lite. Researching all of the titles that I've missed out on in the second half of this devices life has ballooned my backlog to monstrous proportions and even caused me to go on a bit of a shopping spree. The side effect of this is that my excitement and anticipation for the next few games on my backlog is starting to eclipse the excitement I have in finishing Final Fantasy. I can tell that it grows so much that at the first significant Final Fantasy hurdle, I may jump ship onto one of the many Switch games I now have waiting in the wings.
My solution to this is simple and hopefully effective. A new backlog list that ranks each game by my excitement and a mental commitment to that lists flexibility. I am allowed to change my ranking at any time, but when it's time to pick a new game I must only take one game off the pile at a time. (With the exception of some long term multiplayer games like WoW Forever). The list also makes me think if I want to quit a game for another, for example I was really excited about Xenoblade Chronicles X that I have in the mail right now. But now that I've bookmarked that excitement in the backlog excitement list, I feel less inclined to give into the temporary whim of popping it in today because I've made a note to give it the time and dedication that it deserves after I've finished with Final Fantasy. The app I am using for this is an iOS app called Checkpoint, there are so many apps out there but I found that this one has only the features that I want out of this experiment.
I'm keeping this list pretty small for now as to not overwhelm myself, but the idea is to be as honest with myself as possible and move games up and down the list as I feel excitement for different games grow and diminish. Hopefully this reveals to me trends in the types of games that I am anticipating most of the time and which ones are fleets of fancy. A very scientific approach, but data collection has always been my strong suit.
Perhaps all of this is out the window as we approach the release of WoW Forever tomorrow. But for now, this approach to the backlog has put that nagging feeling that I could never possibly play everything to rest and let my overactive brain focus on the activities and long term goals that give me fulfillment in the present.