Join us as we embark on a quest to clear our lives (and closets) of shrink-wrapped, unplayed, and unbeaten games before the next generation of gaming arrives this fall.
Sales. 25% off. Buy 2 Get 1 Free. Free plush with pre-order. Free soundtrack. Midnight launch party. $20 gift card. Clearance. Pre-owned discount. The internet. Hype. Coupons. Ads. Friends. Family. The guy who sits the next cubicle over and always seems to have the latest game.
This is how a backlog grows. No one just wakes up and decides they'll buy dozens and dozens of videogames they won't find the time to play. You come into a new game system immaculate and clean, without any gaming debts. Then five or six years later, due to a combination of human weakness and all the temptations mentioned above plus more, you find yourself guiltily staring at a pile of games you haven't touched, but that apparently at one point in your life you desired enough to purchase, borrow, or (god forbid) steal.
This is what a backlog is, an unavoidable testament to irrationality, to money spent but not enjoyed, to games owned but never experienced. And because of these stacks of unplayed games, many of us will not be able to come to the Wii U freely when it launches this fall. We'll always have our backlogs weighing us down a little, a history of hesitation that prevents us from completely looking forward to a brighter gaming future.
But it doesn't have to be that way. The Wii U isn't out yet, and we still have a lot of time before anyone expects it to arrive on the scene. We have months to get clean. Mario, Link, and Samus always fight till the end and so will we.
Some of us here at Nintendo World Report have resolved to shine the light on our secret backlog shame and mend our ways before the Wii U comes out. We're making resolutions to shed games the same way people make resolutions to shed weight, and we invite you to join us over the next few months as we keep you updated on our attempts to do just that, all the way right up until the Wii U launch. If you'd like, you might even want to think about joining us in our quest, and maybe we can all enter the next generation of gaming a little lighter, a little wiser, and a little better at videogames as a result.