What keeps you motivated to continue a game?

Not sure if I should categorize it under Gaming or Off-Topic, but assuming it's got to do with mental health to some extent I'll choose Off-Topic.

I'm a frequent buyer of a lot of different games. I'm still relatively young at 22 years of writing, so my tastes and impressions differ pretty quickly. Even when I was just turning 16 and being able to have an income, I'd spend it pretty quickly on games.
Now that huge library haunts me, and I've got a bunch of games that I already own, backlogged, hoping to one day see the credits roll, maybe even 100% if I truly love the game/mechanics/concept.
Unfortunately, it seems younger-me was pretty wild and presumptuous in the things he/I liked. I have plenty of games that I throw the towel into after about 1-4 hours of playing just because I constantly think "Man, I could spend my time playing something better than this". I retire games A LOT, which makes me feel indecent because I feel like I don't give my games an honest try; at the same time, the thought and act of playing those kind of games exhausts me.

Are there others with the same-ish type of feeling/thought as me? How do you deal with it?

If a game at least feels satisfactory in terms of mechanics, controls, difficulty, game feel and pacing, I might see it through to the end. I can tolerate a fair share of BS, and I can play a lot of 7 out of 10s but fail miserably at least one of these things and I might drop the game. I recently finished Wanted Dead and it wasn't a great game but it gets most of these things down minus difficulty since it follows arcade and NES game philosophy but the easy mode the game offered was manageable contary to popular belief. Normal mode would've been a drop at the Night Club stage.

But overall, I tend to cherish good game feel, pacing and fair difficulty, if a game has unfair difficulty, I might drop it right away, a difficulty spike has a high chance of making me drop a game. This might be contary to popular belief but a game just has to be "okay" and I'll beat it, there's lots of games coming out and I buy a lot of them, not all of them are going to be masterpieces.

Not sure if I should categorize it under Gaming or Off-Topic, but assuming it's got to do with mental health to some extent I'll choose Off-Topic.

I'm a frequent buyer of a lot of different games. I'm still relatively young at 22 years of writing, so my tastes and impressions differ pretty quickly. Even when I was just turning 16 and being able to have an income, I'd spend it pretty quickly on games.
Now that huge library haunts me, and I've got a bunch of games that I already own, backlogged, hoping to one day see the credits roll, maybe even 100% if I truly love the game/mechanics/concept.
Unfortunately, it seems younger-me was pretty wild and presumptuous in the things he/I liked. I have plenty of games that I throw the towel into after about 1-4 hours of playing just because I constantly think "Man, I could spend my time playing something better than this". I retire games A LOT, which makes me feel indecent because I feel like I don't give my games an honest try; at the same time, the thought and act of playing those kind of games exhausts me.

Are there others with the same-ish type of feeling/thought as me? How do you deal with it?

So for context, I have about 350 games backlogged and about 225 on my wishlist and then even a list of games I want to replay (numbers even on this site are a little inaccurate since I played other games but I still need to update it) but ultimately I'd say it depends on a few things.

1. How important are games to you now?

2. How important are those certain games on your backlog to you?

3. How much time do you have available/are the games worth your time?

My goals are similar to yours where at the very least I want to get the credits to roll and then hopefully 100% but your current goals are very different than your past self along with your interests and other things. To me, I give the game as much time as I need it to, if I feel like the game has potential to get better, I will most likely continue it even if it means putting it to the side for something I'd rather be playing.

Like it has done a lot of good things for me such as getting more indie games that I genuinely enjoyed along with finding other games I find extremely underappreciated but for things that I feel like tedium for the sake of tedium or not worth the result is something I won't include as part of that "100%"

Breath Of The Wild is a good overall example, the shrines act like teleport points and gets you more health and stamina, to me that's worth it especially when there is a radar to help you track them. However games that make you search for things without clues whatsoever or any clues to help (like saying x amount is in a certain area) then I either look up a guide which helps me find the locations much quicker and find out the actual reward for it to help me judge if this is worth it. Example for this to me would be Ty The Tasmanian Tiger saying there are 250 picture frames in the game (no mentions on where, just that are 250 within the game) or Breath Of The Wild Korok seeds unlocking additional slots for your gear, none of which I need since I have too many if anything. It's not worth it so I'll consider a game finished if I do everything I want to in it which is kind of like my own personal 100% version.

I have a lot more leniency towards games though since I want to be like a gaming historian and have some form of affiliation with SEGA again which was like a major confidence boost and like my absolute dream since I grew up with series like Sonic, and knowing games and making content around them gives me more reason and enjoyment to give games a chance. My motivational reasons aren't the same as yours though so might take some evaluating.

Personally I think having them on a wishlist isn't a bad thing, but I think it's a problem when you feel like games are getting in the way of other things whether that be consuming too much time or money.

Not sure if I should categorize it under Gaming or Off-Topic, but assuming it's got to do with mental health to some extent I'll choose Off-Topic.

I'm a frequent buyer of a lot of different games. I'm still relatively young at 22 years of writing, so my tastes and impressions differ pretty quickly. Even when I was just turning 16 and being able to have an income, I'd spend it pretty quickly on games.
Now that huge library haunts me, and I've got a bunch of games that I already own, backlogged, hoping to one day see the credits roll, maybe even 100% if I truly love the game/mechanics/concept.
Unfortunately, it seems younger-me was pretty wild and presumptuous in the things he/I liked. I have plenty of games that I throw the towel into after about 1-4 hours of playing just because I constantly think "Man, I could spend my time playing something better than this". I retire games A LOT, which makes me feel indecent because I feel like I don't give my games an honest try; at the same time, the thought and act of playing those kind of games exhausts me.

Are there others with the same-ish type of feeling/thought as me? How do you deal with it?

I am quite the same as you. I do buy a lot of different games and often regret every purchase I make since I really don't have a lot of time to complete them all (with my studies and other stuff at hand). I myself have amassed almost a thousand games in my library, and of course I do get the feeling of the need to complete every game in my backlog, but I don't think it is possible. There are games that I bought that I don't even like to play, but I have the urge to at least play through them, even the main story. I often put the games on hold since I tend to get distracted by what I play and lose interest in it.

That's why I just play what I decide to play at the moment and forget about all the backlog stuff. I myself am an achievement hunter, but sometimes I don't force myself to reach 100% completion if I am not enjoying the game. If I don't like a game or a genre, then I just give it a try next time and temporarily put it on retirement. I also do retire games a lot; if I don't like something, I really can't do anything about it, so retiring it doesn't bother me. The important thing for me is to always remember that gaming is supposed to be fun, not tedious.

Same motivation as continuing an anime: my stubbornness for refusing to "admit defeat". Said stubbornness got me through Ape Escape 2 when I was a kid, and Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy this year.

I'm far from being as harsh with video games as I am with anime though, because I don't have a no-drop policy on video games. If I feel like "This isn't worth my time" or if the save data got corrupted, I'll just retire it.

I think part of it is that your tastes can just change over time. It's just something that happens; you may realize that you may not be into a certain genre or game like you were before. Now I try to be a bit more selective, because just because I can play something, does that mean that I should? One of my favorite genres is RPGs, so if it's an RPG I'll generally like it. But there are definitely games that I'll love more, so when I'm playing I'll ask myself if I'm playing it because I really like it, or if I'm playing it just to play it. If it's the latter, then it's time to put it down and move on to something else that would be more worthwhile for me. There are some exceptions. If I'm close to the end I'll try to finish it since I've already gone so far. But sometimes deciding if it's a game I would play again helps me think about it.

If you're trying to stay motivated into finishing it, that might mean that it's not the right game for you right now. There's nothing wrong with that, as trying harder to enjoy the game can sometimes achieve the opposite.

What keeps me motivated to continue a game is a good challenge and wanting to see the ending. Since the games I'm playing are some of my favorite, I'm invested to completing them.

Well when it comes to prioritizing my game library, first comes the gameplay then the overall time it takes in order to complete. Nostalgia plays a big part since most of my favorite games are from the past, which I've only casually played or missed out on. RPGs in general are not common on my lists since their not realistic for me to finish, doesn't mean I dislike majority of the genre.

I'm the opposite since I'm a decade older than yourself I sold most of my physical collection, leaving far less of games the ones I've kept being my favorite (not necessarily most valuable). I try to keep my lists as honest as possible given the spare time allocated each day. Personally I try to avoid buying digital games unless I know for sure I'm going to play them. Only real incentive is a massive sale even then my collection of digital games are below 20 on Steam.

A benefit of buying physical games is the ability to sell them online if you're opinion has changed on owning them in the first place. The games I retire either take far too long to beat, or have a lousily mechanic(s) that bother me.

Good luck in sorting out your journey ahead of you.

Ideally, a great story will propel me through a game very easily. Barring that, great gameplay with a mediocre story will still get me through. Pure stubbornness in not wanting to admit defeat and wanting to see the ending will get me through most other games. A game would have to be really bad or too hard for me to not finish it.

What keeps me motivated the most is my desire to finish things.
I don't like to keep my most loved things "open", if I have the chance to enjoy this 100%, i will.

I'm VERY happy to retire games (48.6 retire rate) because I often weigh the question of "hm, is this a good use of my time?" With rare exceptions (largely it being part of a series that I'm really into otherwise (like Sonic or Final Fantasy)), I'm very happy to give up if I even get a hint of dissatisfaction. "Am I having fun or am I just going through it to say I did?"

Usually a good story, good sound design. I don't get hung up on graphics, but I like my games to feel they were crafted with intention. So Starfield might be a pretty game when compared to KOTOR II, but KOTOR II world feels intentional whereas Starfield was mostly generated by an AI.

To get those juicy achivments or to see the ending after having the game on my backlog for a long time.