I use a heuristic where I will not, under any circumstance, buy a game unless I want to play through it immediately after the purchase. The only exception is if the game is under $5, then I'm okay with letting it sit on my backlog. I started using Steam in 2008, and started using this heuristic in 2012. I've literally spent less money from 2013-2025 than I did on those first four years because I would just load up my cart with a bunch of shit every time there was a big sale. Most of my games that are unplayed on my library are also from that initial period