I play a game till I've exhausted the replay value and then pick a new game at random . . . often a completely different genre.

This. Games are there for your enjoyment, so don't let your backlog get you overwhelmed. Its okay if you don't finish them all.

I buy a few games during sales, or I walk into Gamestop and pick up five or six used games at a time. I just throw them on the pile and don't worry about playing them. There are usually two ways I decide what to play. The first is that a game im playing reminds me of a game I haven't played yet in my pile, so I go and play it. The second is sort of the spaghetti method. I go through my collection and pick out ten or so games. Then I start playing them. usually only five or ten minutes each. It usually doesn't take too many before I find a game that I really want to keep playing.

I don't manage them in any way.

I don't do managing because it makes things too serious. I would rather play Planescape: Torment again for the pleasure of it than start a new game just to get closer to finishing every game I own.

I will begin regulating my drinking if it becomes a problem. Same with games. The end.

I also use Backloggery to manage my backlog.
http://backloggery.com/snickersnack

I play games from a variety of genres. When I go to select a new game from my backlog to work on, I try to pick something fairly different but also interesting at moment. I've been fortunate in never going through any long spells of gaming fatigue in my life and I think that may be a factor.

I have not found graphics to be an issue. I thought pretty much all early 3D games were ugly as sin when they were state of the art. I was a bit of bitmap art snob. Over the years I've come to appreciate the look though. Quake 1 Shamblers for instance, now look awesome to me.

Edit: Also, I will never finish my backlog. :(

I just play a game as i feel like sometimes means i have a few games on the go at same time.

^^ This.

I usually pick one "big" game and one or two smaller ones. Right now I'm working my way through Gothic 1, but when I tire of it, I've got the second Blake Stone game and Blood to fall back on so I don't have to stress over trying to finish just one game.

In the end though, I can't be bothered to feel rushed to finish unfinished games; I'll enjoy every game I play, whether or not I finish it. I've got both Baldur's Gate games, the Icewind Dale games, and The Temple of Elemental Evil to play sometime, but I'll get to them eventually, or just leave 'em for my children and grandchildren to complete. ;)

I have no backlog. I'm just playing an enormous number of games at once.

I don't work on a backlog basis. Not anymore anyway. It feels stupid to mandate myself on what I "must" play and when. I have a game collection. If I feel about playing a certain game, I play it. And if I feel like it, I might even finish it. If I buy a game and don't even install it, big deal, it doesn't bother me in the least.

What I'm trying to say is, while I count myself as a gamer, I don't work with an excel spreadsheet to play. Feels good, man.

I put all my games on a spreadsheet, too. I keep track of the games I finish by posting on the "List of games finished in 201X" thread. Yeah, the list is always smaller than I'd like =(

I don't mind that much having a big backlog, though, because I'm forced to use a tactic a little like this: http://xkcd.com/606/

This is good advice.

I think I have more trouble picking one and getting started and really into it than I do with having a lot of them, which is a very nice "problem" to have. I consider myself very fortunate to have so many games to choose from. I just go a little nuts sometimes considering how many there are and how many hours that represents and yet seeing some new one and thinking, wow I'd like playing that one too! Even for me with lots of time on my hands there is still just so much time for this.

I do like keeping a list to glance at and choose something from. Beneath my play list of titles broken down by genres and ordered by release dates I have another list also grouped by genres and there i move titles as I finish them. So it feels kind of good to look and see that I do really play and enjoy my games. They don't all just sit. I do get to them over time. And I don't rush either. Once I am into one I just enjoy it. I'm not in some hurry like it is a task to be completed so I can move to the next one, etc.

I wouldn't have much of a backlog if I hadn't played MMOs almost exclusively for a decade. So I expect it'll shrink in time even if I do buy some new things on sales here and there.

Same here. I used to obsess about buying more games than I could reasonably complete and then not finishing the games that I bought. I took me a while to figure out obsession feels like work and work is not fun (for me).

But I'll add that you should already go for it if keeping a orderly list of games to play works for you. I've realized too much of a scatterbrain to really try to keep my backlog ordered and not drive me nuts at the same time.

It's usually a tug of war between what i feel like playing and what i own from a very long time ago and still sits uninstalled and unplayed on my shelf. Whim usually wins over seniority though.

I also feel kind of guilty sometimes when i feel like replaying a game. If I have a bunch of unplayed games, why am I settling for something I've already played? It does nothing to the backlog but dammit, I want to play it.

I use Backloggery as well, same name. I also use a collection program I found a while ago called GCstar. It pretty easy to use and keeps everything in a nice format. It also has a random selection feature.

I like to keep that updated as a record of what I play while I play. Keeping notes about the game as I play through it also helps me to eliminate the 'I haven't finished this game yet, but haven't played it for so long that I need to restart' syndrome.

Being a collector as well, preferring boxed copies of games to downloads, I like having everything in a nice organized catalog.