For me personally, opinions of other gamers/reviews matter too if I can't make up my mind. I read e.g. MobyGames user reviews because they carry them also for old games, but I take them too with a grain of salt. That's why I am ready to give games like U:EA, MOO1-2 and Civ games another chance. But at some point I just need to admit to myself that I don't necessarily like certain genre, even the good titles in it. That's why at some point I started skipping adventure games, even though occasionally I found some of them quite enjoyable. Oh and beat'em up games too, I think I've given Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution enough attention already.

But there is still the point of whether you have paid money for it or not. If I watch a movie from TV or during a flight and it just doesn't seem interesting, I skip it just like that. But if I have rented it or even went to movie theater, it'd have to be very obnoxious if I decided to walk out of the theater (I've never done that, even though I've considered many movies quite poor).

Yes I know if it different to talk about a 20 hour game vs 2h movie, but the idea is still the same.

I understand your attitude and respect it but don't you think that time is more important than money and that some games that are bad should just be written off as a loss?

Of course. I usually try not to buy such games in the first place.

I am of the "start every game and finish them if you want" camp. I must have AT LEAST 30-40 games that I've started and gotten 10-20% into. I don't like to stress about not finishing them but it's been fun to actually complete a bunch of them last year with the old "list of finished games" posts.

The only thing discouraging about my backlog is that I enjoy finding good deals on and playing new games, and I can't really justify that now.

But man, did I get some awesome deals on some awesome games.

I just play the games I feel "in the mood" for. Not a good or effective system, but when I try to play a game I'm not in the mood for, I jsut get bored, and it may be an awesome game. So I think to myself, "Do I feel like RPG, fantasy, etc?"

I keep going through the games until I get addicted to one, then I play it through. :P

Like my user-tag suggests, I love sales. I'm constantly looking, and I jsut bought 7 games this weekend from the Amazon sales. 0.0 I usually won't consider buying a game unless it is under $5, so it does add up over time, but I don't notice it as much. ;)

I'd have to say that JC2 gave it away, RPG Fans may like FNV and KoA:R (myself included.) but i think it takes someone who actually really likes open worlds to actually appreciate the world JC2 hands you... I've seen Game-worlds out there that have heaps of content and looks the same everywhere you go, but JC2 completely blows that away. Apart from the story, this game provides enough over the top action and interesting locations that look unique to keep a person entertained for a long time. Oh, and then there's the stupid stuff you can do with the grappling hook just for the hell of it. one of the best inventions in gaming history...

Since I've got more games than I could ever hope to play unless they invent an immortaility potion real soon - I'd prefer that to being an undead gamer ;-) - I've focused on trying to play the games that will already have a shorter lifespan than me. These would be games that:
a) only run on Windows 98
b) won't run on anything higher than Windows XP
c) have DRM

Once the above are out of the way, I'll take it slowly with the rest of my games collection and just play what I feel in the mood for.

I've really been enjoying reading everyone's individual take on our gaming hobby. Thank you all for sharing your stories!

I've started playing EverQuest II again and still intend to play WoW very casually, which means just solo leveling my little alt army for fun. On top of that I may spend a little time in LoTRO and DDO. Considering this and the time it takes, I took another look at the old backlog and most especially the little wishlists under each genre category I keep listed in a text file. This text file has a running list of what I am playing now and then broken down by genres, all of the games I own but have not played yet. Within each category I keep track of games I'd like to buy when they are on sale as well as games I am interested in that are in development. This helps me to see how much gaming I am really looking at in each category before I spend yet more money on games I don't really have time for.

I have such a hard time with this because basically, there are more excellent or at least good games that I would like to play than I have time for. So anyway, this weekend I undertook the hard task of pruning down the wishlists which was good. I felt better afterwards. I know, this is so crazy isn't it? I am envious of the more easy going and sensible people who've posted here that they don't bother with any of this at all, they just play what they feel like when they feel like it. If only I could be so "normal!"

Lastly, I deleted out the "games I've played" list I kept under the other ones. I felt like I was turning this into a chore of sorts with some crazy need to finish each game which is dumb. As someone above pointed out, time is precious. It is much too precious to waste playing stuff I find myself not really enjoying.

So now I just move something from the "playlist" to the playing now list and play it. If for some reason I don't like it that much, I'm ditching it and deleting it off the list then on to something else that is actually fun. With so many games there is no reason at all to waste any time on anything I don't really enjoy.

I like to think I'm moving towards a little more sanity here but I know I am crazy about this hobby. Ultimately though, I could have far worse habits and I don't so I guess I shouldn't feel too badly.