Until recently my usual tendency with games was to binge on them. That meant playing a single game to the exclusion of any other games. This had the advantage of having a higher chance of me finishing said game, which considering my ADD and history of unfinished games is a big deal. The downside is that there is a high chance I will instead burn out of the game and only coming back to it months later when I don’t remember anymore the controls or what I was going to do next. Not the best of positions to be in.
I decided then to try something different. Instead of just playing one game to the exclusion of all others I’d instead try to mix things a bit, playing a bit of one game then playing a bit of another the other night, just mixing things up to see how it goes. Initially I did it with Batman: Arkham Asylum and Tomb Raider. Then decided to add The Sims 3 to the mix. So far it has been working well. I found that Batman and Tomb Raider are excellent games for this style of playing games as I can just finish a zone or getting to a certain story point and stop for the night, feeling fullfilled. I also keep getting a nice progression through both games. The Sims 3 is a lot more tricky. Since there is always something I am planning to do, to build or to see how the game reacts to it I just find it harder to find a good point to stop. I have to actually make take a look at the clock and decide to stop rigth there otherwise I will keep playing without noticing how much time has passed. :p
Now I am thinking about adding Everquest 2 to the mix just to see how a MMO would work with it. I am also wondering if having a rotation of more than 3 games would work out well for me. My concern is that I might ran into the same issues with The Sims 3, of always having something to keep me busy on it, that I will return to my bingeing tendencies. If it does I will have to come up with a better way to do this. We’ll see how it goes!
Good luck with this attempt in dealing with your unfinished games! I know when I’ve tried the “play multiple games” approach, I’d also end up getting focused on one at the cost of the others and then end up having even *more* unfinished games due to the ones I started but didn’t focus on. It never seems to end!
So far, staying away from MMO’s and trying to focus on one new (to me) game and one to clear up achievements has been working for me…mostly. I still end up focusing on one of them, but at least something’s getting completed, so I suppose it’s good.
I don’t know that it will continue working forever though, so may need to use your approach in the future if that happens!
Thanks!
Getting achievements is part of why I am playing Batman: Arkham Asylum again. The first time I played it the game was cursed with Games For Windows Live. Since GFWL was thankfully killed and is hopefully buring in hell, Warner Brothers changed the game to use SteamWorks for achievements and cloud saving. That means I had no achievements for it until I started playing it again.
Another reason, and one I think it is what is making it work for me, is that it is a “comfort game”. A game that I am familiar with and easy to get into. While Tomb Raider would be a “new” game for me. This way if I get annoyed playing Tomb Raider for any reason I can just jump into any of the other 3 games for a couple days while I deal with my feelings of annoyance.
And as of this writing I am trying to add a MMO/fourth game to the mix. Well, it might end up being more than that since I am also giving a try to a couple other MMOs this weekend… >_> <_<