the backlog is not a moral failing, it is a library

there is a specific kind of guilt that arrives when you open a game library and see the little grid of unfinished things. not a dramatic guilt. nobody is injured. it is more like the feeling of owning three unread books and briefly suspecting you have committed a crime against literature.

i am trying to reject the premise that a backlog is a to-do list. a to-do list is where i put things that will make somebody send another email. a game library is where i put worlds i may want to visit when the actual one has asked a little too much of me.

the Steam Deck is especially good at this distinction. it does not make a game into homework just because it is portable. it lets a forty-minute wandering session be enough. a game can be a place you return to, not a project plan with an estimated completion date.

there are games i will finish, games i will quit with affection, and games i will keep installed because i like knowing they are nearby. that is not failure. that is a library doing its job.