bite sized: 2026 beatdown rules

Hey, welcome back to another bite sized episode of the Backlog Breakdown where you're getting two hosts for the price of one. Because usually with bite sized it's just one of us here, but today it's both of us. Josh here, and also my brother in Christ, Nate, you're here as well.

Thanks for, that's a me.

Thanks for joining us. I don't know joining me, whatever it is. But we're both here because we want to at least give you an idea of something that we do every year and actually we talk about it every podcast episode. It is our beat down meta. Okay. So we are the backlog breakdown because we want to break down the best of our, of our, of the games that we play. We want to break down the backlog and one of the ways that we do that is through this game that we've set up called the Beat Down. Okay. Because the whole idea is that we want to beat down the backlog of games that we have, the games that we own the, that we haven't beaten before, we want to beat those down. And so that is the whole idea of this meta of the Beatdown game that we play throughout the year. So we want to just explain some of the rules so that you can reference this episode to get an idea of this thing that we talk about every single episode. Because we reference it, we reference the points that we have throughout the year on every podcast episode. So welcome to the backlog beatdown 2026. And if you'd like to join in, we, we typically kind of report on our, our Beatdown as it's happening in our Discord. So be sure and join the Discord. That's the best way to kind of stay up to date with everyone else playing the Beatdown throughout the year.

There is, there is a channel specifically in the discord for the 2026 beatdown as well. And like, you know, you had said this before, but when the rules, where the rules aren't quite finalized, we're going to talk a little bit about that tonight. But when they are finalized, that will be pinned in that, those, the, the doc, the Google Doc will be pinned in the 2026 BE down channel. So. Yep.

Yep. And so that rules document is going to be obviously the official rules for the, the Beatdown itself. This is going to give you an overview. So if you'd like to come join us, we'd love to have you. So we want to give you an idea of what it is, but just a bite sized idea. We're not going to Read through the rule book. There are some technical things because people have had questions over the years as we've gone through this, but I think we have, at least Nate and I have come to a consensus that the rules right now are the best that they've been, you know, over the years that we've kind of got it down to a science. And I say we, yes, it's the two of us that kind of, that help put this together. But also big shout out to Jono in or redeemed Ronin in the Discord who helps to create the, the document, this, the rule set document. And he helps us with that. He's the official commissioner of the Beat down and so he helps to, to finalize some of these rules as well. So there is one rule that we are going to have to finalize, but, but we'll get to that later as, as this bite sized episode progresses. So again, the whole idea is that you have games that you bought that you have not played and that you need to get around to beating. And so the Beatdown is here to help you gamify that process of playing through the games that you already own and prioritizing those games over purchasing the newest, the shiniest, the games that are on the hype train throughout the year. Because I don't know about you, but in my 37 years of life, there have been plenty of times where I've gotten really excited about something and then I purchase it and I. And I own it and I have it in my hands and the excitement wears off a little bit and I realize it was not everything that it's cracked up to be. And in fact, I could have, in the case of video games, just played maybe an earlier entry in the series or something similar to it. And it might have even been a better use of my time. It definitely would have been a better use of my finances. So that's the point of this Beatdown. So. So let's go ahead and jump in. So with that idea of playing games that you already own, you take the. The idea for the Beatdown is that you want to have negative points by the end of the year because when you beat a game, you will be given a negative point because that symbolizes a game that is removed from your backlog. It's no longer there because you've played through it. And so you don't have to play through it in the future because now it's no longer on your backlog. So that's the basic idea. When you, you play through a game, you Get a negative point when you purchase a new game, then you get a positive point. When you play a new game as opposed to a game in your backlog, a game. When you play a new game, meaning a game that you've purchased this year, you get a positive point. So you rack up positive points by focusing your game time on games that you newly, that are newly acquired for the year. Whereas if you continue to focus on the games that you already own, the games that are on your backlog, then you will be accruing negative points throughout the years.

You know, Josh, as, as we're kind of talking about this, I, over the course of the years, I've basically come up with what I think are some helpful, not acronyms or whatever, but just like they're basically breaking down the different kind of scoring criteria. Right. And so for, you know, you were talking about like negative, we want to generate negative points, you know, removing titles from that backlog, that pile of games that you haven't played. And so you can do that basically A, B, C or F. Right. You can technically get a negative score through abandonment, through beating, through completing, and through utilizing one of three flex points every year. So you can, you know, with, when, when you're playing a game, sometimes, you know, you talked about like, hey, I'm playing this. It's not all this cracked up to be. We actually want to give people a way out, not feel like, oh, in order for this game to be removed from my backlog, I have to just persist, even though I'm having an awful time with it. So we have this rule called the solid 60 rule, and it refers to solid 60 minutes. But the spirit is, I think, a little more important than the letter here and that the spirit of the rule is like, you just need to give the game a chance. So if the game's only three hours, four hours long, an hour might be way more than you need to actually figure out if that's going to be worthwhile or not. If the game's a, you know, 60 hour JRPG, like four hours might give you a better idea of what you can expect. The, the, the thing with abandonment is there's, there's two is like one have a good reason. And sometimes a good reason is like, I just wasn't vibing with the game. Right. But have like, think about it though, a little bit. Don't just sort of be like, I don't want to do this anymore. I mean, I guess you can. That's perfect. That's a perfectly valid abandonment, abandonment state. But it's really about sort of like it gives you a way out to say, like, I'm not enjoying this game, I don't want to beat it, I just want to pull it off the, the, the, the pile. And that abandonment does imply that you never intend to go back to this at all.

Right?

So you can, you can get a negative one on that, beating rolling credits, whatever you want to call it. That's the most common end state and we all know what that is. You play the game, you rescue the princess, you defeat, you know, an evil God, whatever, you know, whatever the end state of the game is. So that's, that one's fairly straightforward completion. There's a little bit of nuance with these, right? So completion that, you know, it's mostly you use outside metrics. So if there's a trophy system of some sort or if a game has sort of like in game tracking, like Nintendo doesn't have trophies or achievements.

Right.

But some games do have like percentages of completion, like in, in the save file. Like I'm thinking mostly of like, you know, Castlevania or. Okay, yeah, or Metroid. Metroid actually like you'll see like, you know, percentage completed of the game. The goal is to, you want to. In order for completion you need to either get the platinum, get all the achievements or you know, sort of get that in game tracker. Now you can sort of invoke like a personal goal state and count that as a completion. But that's more of like it kind of almost. You're kind of almost like moving into like abandonment territory at that point in time. Because like when you invoke the personal goal, a lot of times it's either in games that don't have a valid end state, like forever games or like, or it's like, hey, I looked at this trophy list. This does not, this does not do it for me. I love this game. I've spent a ton of time into it. But like these three trophies are just really ridiculous. They're broken, they're grindy. I'm just going to count this as like a personal goal. Or it could just be, you know, it could be like, like one of the examples in, in the rule document is like, you know, if you're kind of. He doesn't say this verbatim but like, say you're playing like some sort of sim game or whatever. Like getting to a certain kind of like point in population or sitting like, like maybe hitting like a certain infrastructure, sort of whatever. Like a personal goal is a personal goal. The the thing with the personal goal completions, like again, just don't abuse it. Like be reasonable, kind of be cool. Like that's like the su. The sum of this, like the rule sets. It's like just be cool. This isn't, this isn't like, you know, don't be looking for loopholes. Don't be sort of like, you know, all that stuff.

Remember that the main point is that you play more games than you purchase. You know, the main goal, play the games you own.

Well, and we've given, we have given too. Like there are, there are some like opportunities to like score additional points. So we've talked about abandonment, we've talked about beating, we've talked about completion. Completion. There's also a long game bonus for any game. And so the way that this works is that for any game that. And you use actually how long to beat as sort of an external reference here. And you [email protected] yep, yeah, HLTB how long to beat? And you go to the game and it'll say like main story. And it'll have a time, an estimated time. Beside that, anything at 30 hours or above counts as a long game. And when you roll credits on that, when you beat that, you can actually score an additional point on that title as well. The other thing that. And I mentioned these before, but every year and we introduced this a few years ago, but I think they've only been kind of really in its current state. But every year every, every player gets three flex points. And these flex points can be utilized in a number of ways. They can be used to play subscription games because technically we don't score out subscription service type games. Those aren't really part of your backlog. You don't own those. It's just kind of like you're paying for access to the service, etc. So you can do that. You can use it to do replays. I know there's a third use. Oh borrowed games. You can use those to score out bar of games, right?

Yeah.

So those are the three use cases for those and you get three points and you can use those in any combination. Like you can use them all on sub games, you can use them all on borrowed games, you can use them all on replays or you can mix and match. So those are like the scoring criteria that as far as like the beat, like the negative scoring side. But there is an another side to this game where it's like when you acquire things, you actually take a positive point. So like all those previous previously mentioned states you actually take a negative point every time you. So you beat long game, bonus, abandon whatever you take negative points. But the other side is that is again, we want to encourage you to play more games than you're buying new games and we want to encourage you to play the stuff that you're already, that you already own. Right. So there's basically there's. And you could sort of. There's another. There's an A for acquisition. Okay. So all acquisitions are one of two things. They're either a gift or they're a purchase. Okay. So you either were given that and now we do get a little like loosey goosey with the term gift because technically you can trade in games or if you can utilize store credit or you know, credit for like, you know, PlayStation credit or like Nintendo store credit or whatever. Like, and as long as you can cover the entirety of a purchase with that, like if that credit was given to you or if you traded in games like at a store like Best Buy or GameStop or whoever buys used games now, like, or your local game shop, I don't know, like there's a local chain here that has like three or four locations that you can trade games in on and they'll give you in store credit. So you can, if that credit covers the entirety of the purchase, you can score, you can acquire that as a gifted game. Okay. But the other part of it, if somebody gives you a game, you know.

Right.

And the, the rationale here is that you are adding to your pile. Okay. So you take a plus one. Like the, the big difference between the two types of acquisitions here. Right. Is with purchases, when you buy something, okay. You take a plus one for the purchase. You also take a plus one if you play it within that sort of beat down season.

Yep. So because you're choosing not to focus on your backlog, you're choosing to focus on your new game.

Yeah.

Right.

And the difference between a purchase and a gift is there's no play penalty for a gifted game. So yeah, those are the two sort of things there now. So when you're scoring acquisitions you do need to keep like whether or not you play it that year in sort of in reference. There is also you can reacquire games at no penalty. So and, and this is kind of like the most often, the most often use case that is probably going to be something along the lines like I've bought Chrono Trigger like numerous times. I own it for the DS, I've bought it on iOS, I bought it On Steam, you know, so, yeah, so there's that.

Purchasing a game on another platform, we're not gonna penalize you for that because.

The reality is, like, sometimes you might own a game on a platform or in a. On a device and you're just not going to use that device.

Yeah.

You know, or you're. It's not just going to. It's not easily or readily accessible. And so sometimes like, you're like, I'm going to buy it over here because this is actually where I'm going to play. Does get a little flaky, a little weird when it comes to remasters and remakes.

Sure.

We've kind of like, that's kind of been pretty much case by case, like discretion. A lot of times that's actually, we sort of like, the general rule is if there's additional story content, that kind of. That's the deciding factor. Like, is it different enough? And so. But yeah, that's the general scoring structure and there's a whole bunch of like, stuff there. Like we talked about sub games there. There are exemptions and exceptions and instead I don't think it's really helpful or useful to go through all of that.

Right.

Because it's like, it's. I don't know, we've. We've done this a few years in a row now. And so it's like this is like, yeah, the biggest sort of thing and there's a rule that we're kind of like working on here is like free games from store sites, like our launchers, like Epic and Steam. Like, like Epic Games. Storm Steam. Right. So the big, the big one here is like Epic is the easiest example. And we're. There's a little bit of a debate here and I'll just, I'll lay out my side. Josh can lay out his. And like I said, we're, we're kind of having a conversation about this. We, we need to go back and sort of like, you know, sort of see where John weighs in on this as well. And then we'll, we'll let you guys know, like the, the rules, when they're finalized, will be posted and you can sort of see it. But, um, we, we've had some questions about how the scoring for free games from things like Epic work. The way I think it should sort of work out here is that they're essentially a gift from a manufacturer or a publisher. And so they're, they're gift from that platform. So you would count them as a gifted game, so you would pick them up when you sort of add those to your library, you're adding them to the pile and you would take a point for acquisition. However, you can play them at no penalty to yourself, you know, because of X, Y and Z. So that's, that's my personal take on it. Josh has a slightly more nuanced approach to that, which I'm saying nuanced, but I think it's like a little overwrought. But whatever. I'm just, maybe I'm just being petty and kind of a stinker.

Well, and, and that's why we're still having conversations about it is that while I think that makes a lot of sense of viewing them as a free game, it's also just because, hey, I do have certain services like Amazon prime that gives games away and I'll just claim the games not really having much intention of playing them. And so to me, it would make more sense of when you accept a game, it doesn't count towards your backlog until you actually play it. That makes more sense to me. However, I recognize that I am biased because I own a bunch of free games. You know, I've gotten a bunch of free games in the past and so I recognize that. And so I want us all to come to a consensus before this is actually official because I do think it makes logical sense to just say that they're free games. It just means, however, that like every, you know, two months or whatever, instead of claiming all the Amazon free game, you know, they give you like seven or eight games every couple of months. Like instead of adding all that to the backlog, officially it means that I have to be more. And maybe that's, maybe that's helpful for me that I actually have to be more picky in the things that I actually accept and add to the backlog. So we're still having those conversations. But if you're listening to this, you know, anytime after probably January or mid January of 2026, it's going to be in the document what the official rule is for those free games. Just know you're not getting off scot free with free games because of the idea that, hey, it's adding to your backlog. Whether that means the point is added at acquisition or is added at playing. Just know that, that we're, we're taking a look at that just from previous year's rules and that clarification will come.

And this year too, just to sort of like the locked and loaded rule as being where we are doing that again.

Yep.

And that's just A way to sort of, you know, it's, it's basically you generate a list and it's sort of a one time sort of thing and if you sort of meet all the criteria, so if you beat all the games on that list, you can essentially double the value of, of that that you would generate on that.

Yep.

So I mean, and there's a little bit more nuance, a little bit more like wiggle room there kind of thing. But yeah, so that, that is coming back. But again the point is this is supposed to be sort of a tool to help you, you know, to help sort of throttle the, the, the, just the, the sort of the, the, the ah, not thoughtless acquisition but just like, kind of like there is like a desire to just sort of add to the pile. Add to the pile. It's supposed to be a little bit of friction, a little bit of like, hey, like let's pump the brakes. Let's think about this. It's also there to encourage you to play the things you, you already own. And there's even some stuff in there to sort of maybe reward engaging with things in a deeper, more substantial way. But ultimately the, the, the meta is just there to help you prioritize playing the games that you already own.

Right.

You know, it's, I mean it's kind of there like this is the backlog breakdown. It's a backlog beat down. Yeah, but yeah, and, and Josh, you, you've said, you said it sort of like when we, it's like honestly I think the rules have kind of like hit a really good spot, like a really good cadence like this. I think like when you think about what, what we want to help people do through this, I think this is honestly like pretty much exactly where it needs to be. It only took us like you know, five years to get here, six years, however long.

Well, and, and it's also because we've added some of these other things, we've clarified a lot of things but, but we've also added some things for not necessarily other use cases but just for fun. Like things like Flex plays don't necessarily mean that you're beating down your backlog. However, it could mean like in my case last year, borrowing a game from the library and deciding whether or not I'm actually going to purchase that game, I don't think it's good enough to purchase, but it was fun to play through, you know, something like that. And so it's still, it still counts. So, so we've got some wiggle room in a Number of different ways. And the locked and loaded thing that we did last year that we're bringing over this year also is just to add that extra layer of intention that yeah, if you do actually complete the games, maybe it's a little overabundance of reward that you get from it because it doubles your, your points, but it's a way to be intentional throughout the year of the games that you want to play. And so I think it does add a little bit more friction if you're bring new games and you know, shadow drops of brand new games and things like that.

So I think too like it rewards planning and perseverance and I think that those are, that's, that's, those are useful things. So yeah, that's just.

Yeah. Awesome. Well, like we, like we said earlier, you should join us if you're interested in playing games from your backlog. If you don't have a backlog, then don't worry, this isn't for you, which is fine, but we'd still love to hear from you. We'd still love to hear, you know, what you are playing, what you think about the games that you're playing, whether that's, you know, here in the comments or whether that's in a more consistent basis on the discord that we have or through a number of different ways reach out to us. We have our link tree. That's linktree.com the backlog breakdown. But I, I think that's, that's pretty good. Again, the, there'll be a link for the, the rule set document wherever whether this is, you know, you're listening to this on a podcast or, or whether on YouTube. There'll be links for that in the description or notes or whatever it is. But I think that's, that's good enough for this bite size. Any questions? Take a look at that rule set and again, join us in the discord. Yeah. All right, so till next time, guys, you know, keep beating down your backlogs. We'll keep breaking down the benefits.