[HN Gopher] Most people who buy games on Steam never play them
___________________________________________________________________
Most people who buy games on Steam never play them
Author : 3Samourai
Score : 170 points
Date : 2025-07-13 17:47 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (howtomarketagame.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (howtomarketagame.com)
| nemomarx wrote:
| I use a tracker to try and fight this, showing how many games
| I've started and also achievement progress in them in aggregate.
|
| But I also buy a lot of books I intend to read later, so I almost
| think it's inherent to digital copies? The less friction in
| storing them the easier it is to buy aspirationally.
| miffe wrote:
| What tracker? I need something like this, I've around 1600
| games on steam and need a way to keep track.
| nemomarx wrote:
| There are others but http://completionist.me/ works the best
| for me. Shows the averages and also has things like "this
| many games are under 5 percent completion" so I can go find
| something I booted up once and forgot about.
|
| I also use steams category system to then tag some of those
| into a backlog category, although that doesn't help as much
| masklinn wrote:
| > But I also buy a lot of books I intend to read later, so I
| almost think it's inherent to digital copies?
|
| Nah, it also occurs plenty with physical copies. Look up
| tsundoku.
| parhamn wrote:
| Umberto Eco's game library.
| marcyb5st wrote:
| Personally, I have a ton of unplayed games because of Humble
| Bundle. Like I would buy the bundle for 1 game, and the other 9
| came with it. For some of them I would redeem the coupon just in
| case.
| atrus wrote:
| Yeah, that's probably my biggest culprit too. I'm guilty of
| getting something and then not playing it, but I'd say over
| half is due to humble bundles.
| masklinn wrote:
| That and sales, especially the old ones with dailies, you'd see
| a game at 90% off and you'd go "uh that looks fine I can swing
| $2 for it" but might never actually get around to playing it.
| jonhohle wrote:
| My Thursday morning habit is to download the free games from
| Epic and Prime Gaming. I have hundreds of games I paid nothing
| for and will probably never play, but every once in a while
| I'll read about an older game, find I have it in my library
| from one of these giveaways and can enjoy it. When I had PS+ or
| GamePass I did the same thing. I've had less success with
| Steam, but used to do the same thing with HB. I'm sure there
| are many others doing the same thing which skews the results.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Even GoG gifts games from time to time. They're not usually
| amazing, so I could understand people grabbing them but never
| actually playing them.
| ryoshu wrote:
| Same. Epic has Civ VI Platinum Edition queued...
| oefrha wrote:
| Same. My library is probably >70% unplayed because of that, but
| in terms of money spent I'd say the number becomes <10%. And in
| general people are more likely to impulse buy on discount,
| especially deep discount. So I won't count on making most of
| the revenue from unplayed sales (plus the provided stat is
| average 32.7% unplayed, median 51.7% unplayed, that's not
| "most" anyway).
| Lerc wrote:
| I am in the same position, except I have had a humble bundle
| subscription from the very beginning.
|
| Of games I have specifically paid money for, I believe I have
| played 100% of them.
|
| It's probably the wrong interpretation to say a lot of people
| are making the decision to buy an individual game and then not
| playing it. Although I know people who do that, even with
| physical boardgames, they usually have the intention to play
| but life gets in the way.
|
| That's a completely different scenario to myself where they
| just accumulate without me noticing. A number of times I have
| read a retrospective of a game and wondered if I owned a copy
| already. I usually get around a 50% hit rate on those.
| ardit33 wrote:
| So true... out of the 5 games I have bought on steam, I have
| played 2 (one fully), and installed and just played briefly 1,
| and two other never even installed.
| philipov wrote:
| Surely they could have worded that better. What they mean to say
| is that most games that get bought don't get played.
| Yeul wrote:
| Games are just like fashion!
| 28304283409234 wrote:
| Dito with books, side projects, courses on udemy, ...
|
| It is not a game thing. It is a human thing.
| conception wrote:
| The urge to collect, it's not our best one.
| yndoendo wrote:
| Some cultures even have a word for it, like the Japanese;
| Tsundoku [0]
|
| Buying the tools are a step to step to fulfillment. It is
| easier to buy the step to fulfillment then walk the path.
|
| Then again, some books are one offs and only used for a small
| portion, not full consumption.
|
| [0] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-44981013
| snarf21 wrote:
| Yeah, the same is true for board games. The average number of
| times a board game is played is < 1.
| bhaney wrote:
| Nearly all of my "unplayed" Steam games have been played plenty
| by me, just not through Steam. Sometimes I think about how my
| Steam account contributes to statistics that are used to drive
| narratives like this where "not time-tracked by Steam" =
| "unplayed game bought by an insane collector." But chances are
| that narrative is overwhelmingly right most of the time, so
| whatever.
| throw101010 wrote:
| Just to clarify, I have the same usage and it's because I
| "pirate" games and only buy the ones that I play more than
| once/couple hours.
|
| I don't trust and nor like the refund policies/processes and
| all kinds of fences they implement, and often even after I have
| bought a game I will keep using the pirated version because it
| is more convenient (offline play, no need to login and it's
| already installed... when games are 100-150GB sometimes it's a
| waste of time to reinstall using Steam). Do you have another
| kind of usage that leads to these false positive?
| bhaney wrote:
| > Do you have another kind of usage that leads to these false
| positive?
|
| No, pretty much same usage. I buy games to support the devs
| after I've already pirated the game and determined it's good,
| then I go back to playing the pirated copy.
| bee_rider wrote:
| Steam's return policy is pretty generous. But I can see not
| wanting to deal with it anyway.
| latexr wrote:
| > I don't trust and nor like the refund policies/processes
| and all kinds of fences they implement
|
| Steam is pretty reasonable. If you bought a game in the past
| 14 days and played fewer than 2 hours, you can get a refund
| for any reason. You need only go to your recent purchases,
| "report a problem", and with a couple of clicks you're done.
|
| If works incredibly well and with no hassle, I have done it a
| number of times for games which ran like crap on my machine
| or plain weren't fun.
|
| I've heard GOG is even better with their returns, though I
| have never tried it. And they sell games which are DRM-free,
| so even better than a pirated version.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| One admittedly rather niche example of buying games through
| Steam only to play them* outside of Steam is where you
| download data to use it in some open-source remake that
| relies on the original assets. OpenMW/Morrowind is the main
| one that comes to mind for me - I have sunk dozens if not
| hundreds of hours into OpenMW but needed to download the
| Morrowind assets from Steam to do so (after I lost my
| original game CD). There are a few other examples of such
| games out there, like CorsixTH/Theme Hospital (actually not
| available on Steam I believe, but available from GOG so same
| principle).
| sfn42 wrote:
| Steam's refund policy is awesome. You can play any game for
| up to 2 hours and refund for no reason. When no man's sky
| came out I bought it, played it for like 15 minutes, refunded
| it. The next day I thought I'd give it another shot so I
| bought it again, played for a little while and refunded
| again.
|
| I have refunded a bunch of games, never had any problem with
| it. As long as you haven't played more than 2 hours they
| refund no questions asked.
| shmerl wrote:
| I have a backlog of games, so lately I buy only if I plan to play
| it. I don't use bundles - that's the source of most the unplayed
| games.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Yeah, I used to do bundles like the Humble Indie Bundle back in
| the day, but most of those games just became unplayed entries
| in my steam library. These days I'm a lot choosier about games
| I buy - it has to be either a game I plan to play right away,
| or a game I'm _certain_ I 'm going to play later and is on
| sale. Otherwise, I have too many unplayed games to keep
| dropping money on more.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| https://www.guitarworld.com/features/gear-acquisition-syndro...
|
| First from "guitar acquisition syndrome" can now become "game
| acquisition syndrome"
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Very different.
|
| With a physical item you can always sell it or give it away.
|
| Instruments in particular can hold value extremely well.
|
| Also, just having the guitar as a decoration can look nice.
|
| There's a reason most guitar manufacturers put a lot of effort
| into aesthetics.
| mystifyingpoi wrote:
| It is "gear acquisition syndrome". It refers to all guitar
| related equipment, actually I'd say that it refers to pedals
| much more than guitars.
| tgv wrote:
| Synthesizers (and related stuff, such as effects or virtual
| instruments) qualify too. I don't know if there are other
| instruments which trigger this behavior.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| More than just instrument. GAS exists in Photography,
| cycling, camping, DIY, automotive repair,...
|
| It's linked to the dopamine anticipation loop that buying
| an item feels like you're making progress.
| mort96 wrote:
| The title is a misreading of the data. It's not that "most
| _people_ who buy games on Steam never play them ". It's that most
| _games people buy_ remain unplayed. A tiny, tiny minority of
| _people who buy games of Steam_ never play games they buy on
| Steam.
|
| EDIT: Apparently, this error was introduced by the HN submission!
| The title of the article on the website is: "Most people who buy
| your game won't play it". This matches the data presented by the
| article.
| deelowe wrote:
| I don't know why but I find language like this incredibly
| frustrating. Maybe it's because the media tends to do this sort
| of thing all the time to fit statistics to their narrative.
| AznHisoka wrote:
| I think because the "true" statement is more awkward as a
| headline, and requires more seconds to parse. Thus they need
| to dumb it down.
|
| The real headline would be "Most games people buy are never
| played" or something. Which can mean a lot of things like do
| people often buy games that nobody else has ever played?
| mlyle wrote:
| Welcome to syntactic ambiguity. But I think this was clear
| enough to infer what it meant before the rephrase (aside
| from some edge cases like how does this play with gifts and
| family sharing).
| izacus wrote:
| The other thing is abuse of percentages. "Only 5% of US
| population has ever finished a video game." (which is a
| staggering 16 million people). This type of thing.
|
| Instead of focusing on folks who actually do invest time into
| your product, even if the % is low.
| xandrius wrote:
| I re-read your comment 5 times and I still don't see the
| difference you're trying to highlight.
|
| What I got is: people buy games and they don't play most of
| them. Is it wrong?
| idopmstuff wrote:
| The title of the post indicates that most people who buy
| games on Steam never play a single game that they have
| purchased (vs. your correct understanding of the data, which
| is that people buy games and play some but not all of them).
| acdha wrote:
| That's a pretty strict reading of "them", though. In non-
| academic contexts, I think most English speakers would
| understand it as the intended meaning rather than that
| there are many people who have Steam but never play
| anything.
| LikesPwsh wrote:
| % of people vs % of games.
|
| A single person who "collects" games or buys them because it
| seems like good value can have thousands of titles in their
| steam library. Someone who actually plays all of them will
| have a much smaller number.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| On a sad follow-up, (because it happened 'near me'), once
| the 'collector' dies, his/her kids will never play those
| games. Today's 15yo boys will never try to play Zaxxon,
| Wizball, Saboteur 2. So someone who is 30+ buying (e.g.)
| 100 games, should know that their kids will safely ignore
| 99 of them. As game-tech progresses, I think that it's only
| me (the dinosaur) or few of us that play on a PC and all
| youngsters play on them fancy consoles. 'Any day now' games
| will require a VR set (10-15 years?), so no more.
| foota wrote:
| I think they're saying it's top heavy. There are some people
| (rich whales) that buy lots of games and don't play them,
| while most people on steam are playing the (numerically
| fewer) games that they buy.
| izacus wrote:
| Buying Humble Bundles doesn't really make a you a rich
| whale though.
| jakewins wrote:
| I think they are saying: Imagine 100 games were sold on
| steam, and 50 of them were unplayed.
|
| If each game was bought by a different person, then both most
| games bought and most people never play the games.
|
| However, it's very likely a small minority of people take
| advantage of the insane sales Steam has sometimes - like if
| 50 people bought a game each and played it, and one person
| bought 50 separate $1 arcade games and never touched them.
|
| You get the same statistics in both cases of number of games
| played, but it's two very different scenarios in terms of how
| humans use steam.
|
| For me I imagine it's a third case, that people like me often
| take advantage of the $1 deals and never end up playing most
| of those old or arcade titles?
| Kinrany wrote:
| Which can be perfectly rational even financially when discounts
| are >50%.
| cAtte_ wrote:
| the original title is "Most people who buy your game won't play
| it", which is actually equivalent to what you're saying (even
| though it still says 'most people'!). HN mods edit titles to
| avoid clickbait and the like, which can end up like this
| mort96 wrote:
| Oh you're right! The title of the article on the website
| matches the data presented by the article. I didn't notice
| that it was different.
|
| Pretty bad of HN to edit a good title into a dishonest one
| like this.
| tylervigen wrote:
| One stat in here supports a third, slightly different
| statement. The median player has not played 51% of their games,
| so: "most people who buy games on steam have not played most of
| the games they own."
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Correlates with my experience. Sometimes sales are so
| attractive you buy several games for cheap, or even an entire
| franchise, but playing them all can take enough time that
| another sale comes again. Red Dead Redemption 2 has been
| collecting digital dust in my library because I'm still
| playing Fallout 76. I stopped buying more because it feels
| wrong.
| sfn42 wrote:
| You should play RDR2, it's absolutely phenomenal. That and
| Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 are the best role playing games
| I've played in the past decade.
| spydum wrote:
| Full agreement. Rdr2, Witcher 3, and mass effect trilogy
| for me.
| mey wrote:
| Ditto. I have several games in my backlog that I got on
| deep discount, but need serious time commitment to play.
| It's going to take me a little bit to play Witcher 3, Disco
| Elysium, or the entire Mass Effect trilogy. Also there is a
| certain time horizon on steam that play time wasn't
| tracked. I am pretty sure I played Half Life 2, since
| that's why I have a steam account in the first place.
|
| Edit: You may not want to know if your steam account is old
| enough to drink...
| egypturnash wrote:
| Bundles contribute a lot too. Hey you can get these three
| games for dirt cheap because you own another game in this
| bundle! One of them's interesting to you, maybe even
| already on your wishlist, the others are not, and the
| bundle is less than the full price of the one you think
| might be neat. The others just sink to the bottom of your
| collection, uninstalled, unplayed, unloved.
| b3lvedere wrote:
| I uses to collect almost everything, now having over 2000
| games. Now i select them for Steam Deck playability. I
| still hoard a lot, but i also try to at least start them
| once and play a little before moving on to the next one :)
| threetonesun wrote:
| I have considerably less time than money, at least when it
| comes to $5 games that take 50+ hours to beat.
|
| (I'll get to you someday, Mass Effect)
| magicalhippo wrote:
| I've bought entire publisher catalogs on summer/winter
| sales years ago. Tons of games, while I might primarily be
| interested in a handful. It was just cheaper to buy the
| whole catalog.
| nightski wrote:
| That's just because we aren't retired yet. :)
| eddd-ddde wrote:
| My steam library is just an extension of my retirement
| portfolio. Diversification if you will.
| mlyle wrote:
| There are also weird effects with family sharing. I have
| things in my account that my kids have played but that I
| haven't.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Time is the biggest cost of gaming.
| y1n0 wrote:
| This it's true, and must weighed carefully.
|
| I prefer casual games because of this.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Yes. I get it that people also want to try and play various
| games. I think that 'eventually' everyone has their go-to
| game, just like everyone has their 'go-to' takeout/takeaway.
| I want pizza or burger. I will try a different joint, but it
| will be one or the other. The same for gaming. Defender of
| the Crown, AoE II, Fortnite. I stopped buying games a long
| time ago. I am sure that there are many great games.. but...
| I like pizza, I like burger. You can tempt me with sushi once
| per quarter, but DotC, AoE, FN.. and that's that. I got 'no
| time' to learn/master a new game. Or rather I got time, but I
| will not 'invest' it to start another open-world game that
| will require 5 years!
| bmacho wrote:
| +1 complain for the editoralized title. It's so much worse than
| the original.
| oc1 wrote:
| Am i the only one who couldn't care less about these semantics
| and doesn't get what the heck you're even talking about?
| y1n0 wrote:
| I'm in this category. I have two tiers of games on my wishlist.
| Those that if they are less than $20 I would buy and those that
| if they are less than $3 I would buy.
|
| It's not automatic, sometimes I just don't feel like buying a
| game anymore even when it's on sale, and I'll drop them when if
| they go on sale and I don't want them enough to pay.
|
| But I do end up with a few games in my library I haven't played
| yet.
| brandall10 wrote:
| The article glosses over what I'd have to believe is the
| biggest reason - some games, in particular older AAA games, are
| discounted so aggressively that it seems silly to not purchase.
| Like 5-15% of the original retail price.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| It's never silly to not buy something you're not going to
| use. Particularly once you realize there will be an identical
| sale or discount in 6 months.
| smt88 wrote:
| It absolutely makes sense to buy things you may (emphasis
| on _may_ ) never use, especially if it never "expires".
| Insurance is a great example.
|
| People are buying these games knowing they're adding to
| their backlog and likely won't get through the whole thing,
| but the price is so low that the _chance_ they 'll want to
| play the game someday is enough.
|
| I'm one of these (apparently rather typical) consumers and
| will buy almost any modern-class AAA game if it's $5.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Tell me you don't really know how insurance works without
| telling me :)
|
| You're not "buying it and then not using it".
| brandall10 wrote:
| My argument is the value quotient is so insane that the
| primary friction to purchase is likely more down to the UX
| of the storefront to complete the purchase, rather than the
| purchase price itself.
|
| So in that vein, it doesn't matter if there will be another
| identical sale. The psychological things "in the way" to
| complete a purchase are virtually non-existent if you had
| even a minor passing interest in the title the first time
| you see it at that fire sale price.
| mattmanser wrote:
| Think of it a different way, you like city builder games,
| but you don't want to play one right now. You can buy 3
| different city builder games for $10 during a sale. And
| when you do fancy a city builder, pick the one that most
| appeals in the moment.
|
| By purchasing a bunch of different game cheaply, yoh have
| the choice of what kind of story/mechanic to play when you
| do want to play a new game.
|
| You're speculating on your future desires, and you might as
| well get a selection when it's cheap.
|
| A game pass subscription sort of scratches the same itch,
| but you don't own the games. So can't replay a few years
| later if you aren't presently subscribed.
|
| It's not about being stupid with your money, it's actually
| a cheap way to give yourself choice in the future.
| ww520 wrote:
| Yes. I've loaded game buying whenever Epic has a free
| promotion.
| stogot wrote:
| 5-15% is not aggressive. 50% is aggressive and that's when i
| bought games on steam that i never played
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Of, not off. So 85-95% discount.
| herval wrote:
| The point is to collect games when they're at a discount, no? At
| least that's the game I play! Got 100+ at this point
| whstl wrote:
| I just checked and I have 300+, yet from checking purchase
| history I haven't really spent that much on Steam at all. Apart
| from Cyberpunk I never paid much for anything.
|
| As others have mentioned, for me it's also mostly Humble Bundle
| promos, paying small amounts that were just donations. Maybe
| once or twice there was a game I wanted.
|
| I haven't opened it in 5 years though. I always toy with giving
| it away or deleting it.
| Sarkie wrote:
| I'm buying games I will play when my kids leave home.
|
| I'm buying games that I pirated as a kid.
| Sunspark wrote:
| The longer you wait the cheaper they will be because of the
| age.
| mariusor wrote:
| I have a ton of games that I haven't played. Mostly it's due to
| wanting to support the devs that pushed linux builds for their
| games.
| tomw1808 wrote:
| Like courses on udemy. Most people buy a ton of courses probably
| for the feeling of having bought a course. Which translates
| apparently to already halfway there becoming that expert the
| courses promises you to become. Or they build a catalog and sell
| the account (on udemy).
| whoisyc wrote:
| I wish more game developers adopt the "no sales, period" policy
| of Factorio.
|
| Here's a relevant quote from the developer.
|
| > Not having a sale ever is part of our philosophy. In short
| term, they are good and bring extra money, but we are targeting
| long term. I believe that searching for sales is wasted time, and
| people should decide on the price and value, but putting option
| of wasting time to search for deals or waiting seems like bad
| part of the equation.
|
| https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?p=159659#p159659
|
| I get why people put games on sale. It gets you on a list on
| steam and gets people to talk about you on Reddit and gets emails
| sent to everyone who's wishlisted your game. It boosts your
| profits and I get it.
|
| But let's be honest, these techniques benefit the developer not
| the player. The developer profits from the players FOMO when a
| sale happens. The player thinks he has accumulated a glorious
| Steam library when in reality he just wasted tons of money on
| games he wouldn't even ever launch.
|
| If any thing the domain of this website already tells you
| everything you need to know. It's all about marketing, aka moving
| money from your pocket into theirs with psychological maneuvers.
| bombcar wrote:
| The real reason cracktorio can do no sale is the same reason
| Minecrack can be basically no sale (same price forever) - it's
| an evergreen game people will always buy at a low roar.
|
| Most games are like DVDs or books, they frontload 90% of their
| total revenue in the first few months, and so sales are a way
| to squeeze a bit more juice out later.
| fileeditview wrote:
| I don't know.. maybe if you cannot control your impulses..
|
| For me Steam sales are great. I have things in the wish list
| and when the sale is good I might buy it. I always check if
| it's a good sale on SteamDB.
|
| I usually play these games but most of the time not for long.
| That's why I don't want to put in the full price.
| garaetjjte wrote:
| Stupid thing with sales is that "regular" price ends up being
| overpriced.
| tokai wrote:
| Putting a product on sale is amoral because somebody might buy
| something they don't need, is weirdest take I have seen in a
| while. We're not all just whales, some people don't have that
| much money. Plenty of teenagers, unemployed, etc. are able to
| get some good experiences because of good sales.
| qnleigh wrote:
| I think the point is that, on the whole, sales manipulate
| consumers into spending -more- money than they otherwise
| would have. Of course this isn't true for every person all
| the time, but on average I suspect it is; sales are common
| partly because they actually lead to more revenue, despite
| the discount.
| crazygringo wrote:
| That's not why sales lead to more revenue.
|
| They do because people who can't afford full price will
| wait to buy on sale. Whereas people who can afford full
| price will often just buy it when they want it for instant
| satisfaction.
|
| So they get mostly full price from people who can pay full
| price, and make it accessible to people who can't afford it
| at full price.
| levocardia wrote:
| Seems like basic price discrimination. Occasional sales let you
| capture some of the people for whom your game (or the _option_
| to play your game, maybe never exercised...) is worth $10
| instead of $20 (or whatever). I don 't really see who is harmed
| here, other than players who say "well maybe the game will go
| on sale..." -- but did they really value the game at its
| sticker price to begin with?
| dvdkon wrote:
| Yes, and the devs' refusal to ever put the game on sale has
| led to me still not buying Factorio, despite hearing how good
| it is. I'm just not sure of the value when I buy most my
| games at 10 EUR or (much) lower.
| fasterik wrote:
| Factorio has _deep_ gameplay. You can spend thousands of
| hours on it and still have more to learn and experience.
|
| If it's your kind of thing, spending $70 for the base game
| plus the Space Age expansion is really good value; orders
| of magnitude more than most games. But if you want
| something that will give you a few hours of entertainment
| and then move on from it, it's probably not for you.
|
| There's a free demo which has more than enough gameplay for
| players to decide whether they want to invest in the game.
| SirHumphrey wrote:
| For games like Factorio and Minecraft sales work a bit
| differently. These games are evergreen and very easily and
| commonly pirated, so people who are buying already have tens
| or hundreds of hours in the game. The marketing and capturing
| price sensitive markets through sales makes less sense - you
| are only losing margin to people who would buy regardless.
| izacus wrote:
| > but did they really value the game at its sticker price to
| begin with? reply
|
| Factorio is a game that's sold at 35$ price point - half of
| the usual new game price. Does that mean that the developer
| doesn't value his game when it's so cheap?
|
| What a silly notion.
| raincole wrote:
| I guess you're being rhetorical or sarcastic, but for
| people who're not familiar with today's gaming market: $35
| is a _very_ high price for 2D games like Factorio. Most 2D
| games are $10~$20. If you take sales into account, it would
| be much closer to $10 than to $20.
| fasterik wrote:
| Thinking about games along a single axis (2D vs. 3D) is a
| weird way to measure value.
|
| You need to compare Factorio with other
| sandbox/simulation games with procedural generation, deep
| systems, complex logistics, and large modding
| communities. Examples that come to mind are Rimworld and
| Dwarf Fortress, which have similar price tags.
| ReaperCub wrote:
| The reason factorio devs can take such a stance is that they
| crowd financed the game over a decade ago when doing that was
| viable, and since then the game has achieved cult status. Sure
| the game was officially released in 2020, but it had been in
| Early Access since 2016.
|
| Ironically I bought it and never played it. I only bought it
| because I played a clone of the game called "Dyson's Sphere"
| made by a Chinese developer and wondered what the original game
| was like.
|
| > The developer profits from the players FOMO when a sale
| happens.
|
| No, That isn't it at all.
|
| This is like super backwards. FOMO happens typically when a big
| game is released. No months/years afterwards.
|
| _A lot of players are waiting for a game to be the right
| price_. Triple-A titles are now PS60+. Doom the Dark Ages was
| over PS70 at launch that is without the extra micro-transaction
| nonsense. Some games (even indie games) come out at PS25-30. I
| am a big Doom fan and play megawads such as Eviternity and I
| said to myself "No I am not paying that much" for the new Doom
| game. I have plenty of disposable income.
|
| If the game comes down to less than PS15 that is 3-4 overpriced
| coffee / 3-4 pints of beer down the bar.
|
| If you are patient you know that the game is going to go on
| sale some time in the future so you wait until their is a sale.
| Steam even have mid-week deals. I hear/see these conversations
| all the time on Discord, in person, reddit etc.
|
| > The player thinks he has accumulated a glorious Steam library
| when in reality he just wasted tons of money on games he
| wouldn't even ever launch.
|
| I've never heard anyone flex their Steam Library. I don't think
| anyone thinks of it this way. Achievements in a particular
| game, sure.
| Jare wrote:
| > FOMO happens typically when a big game is released
|
| FOMO around sales: I've bought a bunch of games when they
| were on sale even though I was not going to play them right
| away, simply because I didn't want to end up wanting to play
| them later and have to buy them full(-ish) price. And then I
| never played them anyway.
| ReaperCub wrote:
| I understood what they were saying, I don't think that is
| _generally_ true due to how Steam tends to operate.
|
| There isn't going to be much FOMO when people know that a
| game is going to be on sale every other month. Maybe if you
| are unfamiliar with Steam you might do that.
|
| I've heard people say plenty of times "I might pick it up
| when it is on sale _again_ ". That seems like the opposite
| of FOMO.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is like Michael Phelps giving swimming advice. Interesting
| to listen to for sure, but not really applicable to the vast
| majority of people.
| Jare wrote:
| It's not so simple. While it may not be causation ("they're
| successful because they don't make sales" is likely not
| true), the correlation can be almost as strong: the
| philosophy / mindset that leads you to make that choice of
| strategy is the same philosophy that also informed various
| other decisions that led to you developing a successful game.
|
| I think a good example of this was the Blizzard of old. They
| "could afford" to only launch things that were near perfect
| because they were successful, but they also were successful
| because they never relented on their perfectionism.
|
| So you shouldn't blindly imitate the choices of successful
| people, but taking a few pages out of their core values and
| driving pillars will likely help a lot.
| raincole wrote:
| > these techniques benefit the developer not the player
|
| And when every dev is doing that it hardly benefits the devs
| either.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| > these techniques benefit the developer not the player
|
| Hard disagree. Buying games on sales is a magnificent way I can
| expand my horizons and play random games I'd have never heard
| of otherwise or would've never tried.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| > I too participate in video game tsundoku. SteamDB has a tool
| that will show you how few games in your collection you have
| actually played. Here is mine. 2/3rds of my games were never
| played.
|
| > To see your own stats go here: https://steamdb.info/calculator/
|
| Ahah, piker ...
| max_ wrote:
| Most books I get, I don't read
| deadbabe wrote:
| It's still worth buying physical books that sound interesting
| to you even if you don't read them, because then you can have
| an impressive shelf of books in your home that you might read
| someday, or someone else might want to read from.
|
| With these steam games? No physical copy means you're just
| throwing money away.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| My library has quite a few games I haven't played, but most are
| from bundles that cost as much as or slightly less than the other
| bundle parts I actually did want. A couple are from friends
| posting keys from bundles, and then I got sidetracked by
| something before seeing if whatever game was actually as
| interesting as it sounded.
|
| The only one I actually properly paid for and haven't played is
| Elden Ring. Because I got sidetracked for too long between buying
| it and finding out it wanted admin access (for some anti-cheat
| rootkit) to play _at all_ rather than just to enable competitive
| online things I wasn 't interested in. Which I didn't feel like
| doing on a machine that also had non-game stuff on it.
| Adverblessly wrote:
| I don't know if it still requires elevated privileges because
| I've played it on Linux, but if you used the Seamless Coop mod
| it disables EAC and uses the Steam API for multiplayer, so
| presumably won't require admin privileges. There's also er-
| patcher which I use to "fix" the framerate and comes with an
| option to disable EAC (and a few other nice features IMO).
| oceansky wrote:
| I buy a lot of games I pirated, so it looks like I never played
| them.
| pembrook wrote:
| This is true for all products.
|
| How much of your closet is filled with stuff you haven't worn in
| at least a year.
|
| How much of your freezer is full of stuff you'll never eat.
|
| How many of the books on your bookshelf will you actually read
| before you die?
| bluescrn wrote:
| Physical books (and games) sit there on a shelf and you're
| occasionally remind you that you bought them and maybe should
| read/play them.
|
| Items in a digital library seem much easier to completely and
| utterly forget about.
| nlawalker wrote:
| True, but on the flip side, items in a digital library
| generally don't have to be paid for and put there until
| you're about to use them for the first time, making it a
| little stranger that they never even get booted up.
|
| Everyone's different, but at least for me, I don't buy a game
| with the hope I'll find time to play it sometime in the next
| month, I buy it when I'm ready to start playing it, like
| right now.
| HPsquared wrote:
| eBooks and audiobooks are even worse than paper books in that
| regard. Environmentally much better though!
| jmb99 wrote:
| I find for physical objects, I'm much more likely to actually
| use them. I have read 95+% of the physical books in my house,
| wear 90+% of my clothes in any given year, 95+% of the food I
| buy. Mainly because I'm physically limited to buying/owning a
| certain number of things before I run out of space. With a
| 150TB NAS and at least 4TB of local storage in each of my PCs
| (and the fact you don't even need to download a game to buy
| it), it's a lot easier to hoard digital items without using
| them.
| homarp wrote:
| it's an antilibrary
| https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/03/24/umberto-eco-antili...
|
| I buy games I might play, my kids might play. And sometimes to
| repay my younger self debt.
| viccis wrote:
| Man, those unopened hobby product photos just look like spending
| addiction. I still remember someone on r/headphones who had like
| 30 different AKG headphones.
| ryangrange wrote:
| I buy lots of potentially interesting games when they go on sale.
| Especially single player (or at least with a single player
| option) so I don't have to worry about servers sitting down for a
| lack of players.
| dathinab wrote:
| I won't say it's not hording, but there are also some other
| reasons you can't well untangle from hording:
|
| - buying games you played pirated before (now that you can afford
| them), but you already played them so no need to play again
|
| - buying games you played at someone else place, lend to you etc.
| Again you already played them but want to give back to the
| authors.
|
| - buying games you will play later, and once you play them you
| have new games which you will played later -- leading to some
| constant amount of unplayed games (and some you end up never
| playing 'cause time)
|
| - early access titles you already bought but will most likely
| only play on release
|
| - buying very story driven games (mainly short indi games) where
| through watching someone else play you already now (and enjoyed)
| all the story but want to give bac to the authors anyway
| ("someone else" could be twitch, or you room mate, doesn't
| matter)
|
| I have a few of this cases in my Steam library.
|
| E.g. Little Misfortune for the last case or Hades 2 for the early
| access part or Dave the Diver for the I will definitely still
| play it part (very soon TM, jokes aside probably starting
| Wednesday).
|
| Also one point I didn't include as it's kinda hording: Game
| bundles where you want all games but one, think the last game is
| still nice but anyway will never play it as there are too many
| other even better games.
| heelix wrote:
| I've got games that I intend to play later, and they were cheap
| enough that I don't think I'll save any more by waiting. I do
| intend to play Mad Max at some point - $5 was too much for me
| to add it to my library. $2.50? Fine... pulled the trigger with
| 9 other items I plan to do. The thing with steam is once you
| have them in your library, they remain. Some items are not sold
| anymore, however.
|
| Looking at my queue over 20 years... likely hording. Nuts. One
| of the gotchas I bumped into was I really need a larger disk
| for games. Some of the newer stuff takes an enormous amount of
| space, which means it waits and waits.
| yreg wrote:
| - buying a bundle of 12 games to get the two games you actually
| want to play
|
| - donating to a charity event that gives you games
| omnimus wrote:
| bundles have to be the biggest reason. i have actually
| spammed my steam account this way with big number of games
| that i have no idea what they even are and often times are
| just meh. you buy 10game bundle because its cheaper than 2 of
| the games you want bought separately and now i have 8 new
| unknown things on my account
| szatkus wrote:
| Also collections. I almost finished Tomb Raider II.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| I am somewhat guilty, but I bought a number of Humble Bundle's
| (when it was the original one) and got a huge number of games I
| am not interested in.
|
| So I guess I fit in but still not?
| D13Fd wrote:
| I have a huge backlog of games I've bought on sale knowing I
| would enjoy them, but never got around to playing them. It's well
| over 50% of my game library.
|
| The problem for me is that a good game that you really like can
| easily eat multiple thousands of hours. It's just a time
| consuming hobby. And it takes a lot of effort to get started on a
| new game. I can't help but think "wouldn't I rather spend that
| time improving my ranking in x or y game..."
| luxuryballs wrote:
| I think this is the real reason for the metric, browsing steams
| sales and scooping deals for later, I wonder what the numbers
| would be if they compared playtime with full price purchase or
| purchase made not during major store-wide sales.
| qnleigh wrote:
| Literally thousands?? A 40-hour work week for a year is ~2000
| hours. Out of curiosity, what's your rough 'playing schedule'?
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Do many more Americans than I realized pay for unlimited data
| caps? I try to restrict myself to 1 download per month with a
| family of 3 because we get pretty close to our TB cap each month
| and I work from home.
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| People who buy a game and don't play it, usually don't download
| it either. And many cheap games don't have huge downloads
| either.
| mhlakhani wrote:
| This was me for a long time and it got even worse especially with
| Humble Bundles -- I often ended up buying games on say PS5 though
| I had them on steam.
|
| Ended up building a side project for myself which would yell at
| me for trying to buy something I already had.
|
| But that's ok, sometimes the collection is half the fun
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| True for board games, ttrpg books and games, and a whole lot
| more. We have an abundance of cool things, but not an abundance
| of time and opportunities.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Taking a segue, I am a 50+ man who hasn't played any games in my
| working life. I did play Prince of Persia 2 but never crossed
| level 1. Played Doom in the network mode with classmates. Now I
| want to start exploring games. I am on Ubuntu with Intel
| graphics. I am ready to invest in a joystick or gamepad.
|
| What games do you guys recommend to me? Also any hardware
| accessories, other than GPU's, that is?
|
| I just tried Steam, and was completely overwhelmed by choice.
| qudat wrote:
| Hands down one of the best games I have ever played was
| Subnautica and I highly recommend it without knowing your
| preferences.
|
| It's a deep sea exploration / builder with a story that gets
| crazier and crazier.
|
| It's also very approachable and mostly easy to play.
| unsui wrote:
| Subnautica in VR (with the Submersed VR mod) is easily the
| most immersive environment I have ever encountered.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Thanks. Looks interesting... Will definitely try this one
| brianjlogan wrote:
| I wouldn't buy a joystick if you're into Flight sims. I'd look
| into a Hotas setup or a virtual reality setup where the whole
| cockpit is simulated (VTOL VR).
|
| I started out on Microsoft Flight Simulator back in 99-2000. I
| feel like that was the peak joystick purchase era.
|
| Get a monitor with a good refresh rate, get a good gaming
| keyboard and mouse, potentially look into mechanical keyboards
| if you watch some videos and find it interesting.
|
| Watch some YouTube PC gaming channels.
|
| Also there's SO many games you're right it is overwhelming.
|
| You could easily go ten years back. And buy the top ten games
| on some gaming site rank list.
|
| Obligatory mentions: - Red Dead Redemption 2 - The Last of Us -
| BioShock Infinite - The Witcher 3 - City Skylines (Sims City
| like)
|
| Really depends on what category of game you like. Highly highly
| subjective thing these days.
|
| You can almost make friends by aligning on the types of games
| you like because it's a bit of a personality litmus test.
|
| I'd imagine a lot of people in HackerNews play Factorio quite
| seriously.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Oh I have a good monitor, but I don't have an high end GPU. I
| do have couple of mechanical keyboards, and split keyboard
| which I use for my programming.
|
| Any youtube channels you can recommend? Especially for older
| people with RSI :-)
|
| As for what genere I like, I am not sure. I am looking for
| something that is immersive, where I can spend some long
| hours during my downtime. But that does not require any
| mouse. This is a deal breaker
|
| I will try out some of your recos.
| Levitating wrote:
| It depends on what games you like.
|
| One game that I recommend to anyone is Firewatch. It's a
| beautiful, linear story game with easy to understand mechanics.
| And it only lasts a few hours, so it's a small time investment.
|
| I can also recommend Outer Wilds. It's a puzzle story game. It
| gives you a lot of freedom, with the downside that it's
| somewhat easier to get stuck. For this game you should buy a
| gamepad.
|
| If you like single player shooters, I recommend Half-Life 2.
|
| Hope this helps!
|
| PS. As for peripherals, a keyboard+mouse should be plenty. Some
| vehicle driven games require a gamepad to play comfortably.
|
| As for a GPU, the games I mentioned here will run on anything
| semi-modern. No need to buy something brand new.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Thanks for the reco.
|
| Anything that requires mouse is out. I have a RSI on my
| wrist, and anytime i use the scroll wheel it flares up.
|
| I am ready to buy a gamepad. I guess I will need to explore
| which one I should buy.
|
| Outer wilds looks interesting. Something I will explore one
| of these weekends.
| renjimen wrote:
| Outer Wilds is amazing if you like puzzles and/or sci fi.
| seventhtiger wrote:
| It's hard to recommend games when you don't have a baseline
| taste. The past couple of years having a demo became very
| common on Steam, so I suggest trying some demos.
|
| You've played a 2D platformer and a multiplayer shooter, two
| very popular genres with massive offerings. If you're
| interested in more along the same lines, just off the top of my
| head I'll say try Hollow Knight as a 2D platformer, and
| Overwatch 2 as a multiplayer shooter (this one is free).
| Overwatch 2 may be overwhelming for someone new to gaming.
|
| There is a genre called cozy games for more relaxed
| experiences, like Journey. There are also turn-based
| roguelikes, and for those I would recommend Balatro.
|
| I don't know about Ubuntu or Linux compatbility so look into
| that, but I know Steam's OS and Proton have made massive
| strides.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Journey seems something I will like to try :-)
|
| I wasn't aware of cozy games, but I guess that's what I am
| looking for. Thanks for the keyword
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| You might want to try out the Steam Deck -
| https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck
|
| You might like story driven games, like Read Dead Redemption 2,
| Witcher 3, Mass Effect... all on sale on Steam currently.
|
| You can also install emulators on the Steam Deck, so you can
| play those games before you started your working life.
|
| Otherwise look into how to install Valve's Proton on Ubuntu to
| play the games available on Steam.
|
| Alternatively get yourself a cheap PS4 pro on eBay, which
| usually come with plenty of games bundled. Don't need the
| latest and greatest console. PS4 still has a huge library of
| games and you can get those cheap on eBay too.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| I installed Steam for Ubuntu after reading the parent article
| :-) But I was completely overwhelmed by the choices, that's
| why I asked for some reco.
| namr2000 wrote:
| There are still a HUGE number of games you can play with Intel
| integrated graphics all of which are extremely good. Many of
| the greatest games of all time are quite old or 2D which means
| you don't need anything special to run them. At most I'd invest
| in a controller (both Xbox & PS5 controllers are compatible)
| but you don't even need that to play almost all games on Steam.
| Some cheap but great games: Hollow Knight, Celeste, Hades,
| Outer Wilds, Undertale, Rimworld.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Thanks for the reco. Will explore couple of these titles.
| petderek wrote:
| Regarding gamepads: you can use the xbox/playstation ones with
| your computer. Bluetooth is hit or miss for me (windows), but
| they both work really well with a USB cable. Its subjective of
| course, but the console manufacturers do a pretty good job with
| comfort and quality.
|
| If you liked Doom, it might be fun to play through some of the
| newer doom games like Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal and see how
| they've evolved over the years.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Oh I wasn't aware that I could use the xbox/playstation
| controllers on Ubuntu. I guess that makes it easier to buy
| one.
|
| I did not play much of Doom in a single player mode. It was
| typically in a LAN party my friends used to organize. I don't
| have much nostalgia for the game as such, more for the time
| and friends during those period :-) I am not sure I wanna
| explore the newer versions. But I might try...
| kibwen wrote:
| The problem is that I could recommend a hundred wildly
| different games that you _might_ like, but playing a hundred
| games just to figure out which one is right for you doesn 't
| sound like a good use of your time. Can you give more
| information? You like single-player games? Classic card games
| like solitaire (rec: Zachtronics Solitaire Collection)?
| Postmodern card games (rec: Balatro)? Deckbuilding roguelikes
| (rec: Slay The Spire)? Actual roguelikes (rec: Dungeon Crawl
| Stone Soup)? Postmodern roguelikes (rec: Caves of Qud)? There's
| so much out there, even the cream of the crop is overwhelming
| to a newcomer. If you're a programmer, maybe look at the best
| games from Zachtronics (Spacechem, Opus Magnum, Shenzhen I/O,
| TIS-100, Last Call BBS... they're all pretty good).
| bhattisatish wrote:
| As I haven't tried many games, I am not sure what I really
| like.
|
| Card games are out unless I am playing in real life ;-)
|
| I haven't played board games much. I tend to zone out pretty
| fast.
|
| First shooters, feels immersive enough, but when they become
| fast paced and need quick reaction, I get overwhelmed and
| zone out.
|
| I guess I am looking for something that is immersive, but
| forgiving in it's gameplay. As I have RSI injury on my wrist,
| any mouse based games are out.
|
| Your reco on Zachtronics, looks interesting, will definitely
| try out the publisher.
| friedtofu wrote:
| Kibwen gets it, not to knock the other user who suggested
| Subnautica, but that would likely be one of the last games I
| would think to recommend, its too much for a first game. Too
| many gameplay mechanics, too many objectives(and side
| objectives you set for yourself) I would think it would just
| be overwhelming for a "first" game.
|
| To go on top of kibwen's questions; what kind of game do you
| think you'd like? Do you like a long movie/book that gets you
| heavily invested in the character?
|
| Do you tend to prefer genres like action, romance, comedy,
| drama, or even sub-genres like spy films, whodunnit,
| slapstick over dry humor etc etc. I'm not asking for you to
| respond with all of these answers but it if you're looking
| for something that will click with you - you have a better
| chance using whatever genre/styles you like in other
| entertainment mediums.
|
| Lastly, do you want to see what you've "missed out on" in the
| last couple of decades us nerds(collectively) consider the
| creme de le creme? Or are you looking for a game you*
| specifically will enjoy? Again, just something to think
| about.
|
| As someone in their mid-30s whose dad got me into gaming when
| I was in diapers while I watched him play Hexen and Tribes 2,
| here are some random games off the top of my head - these
| will only include 'modern' games aside from
| roguelike/card/'programming' games, going from what I think
| would be "easy" to "hard" in terms of accessibility:
|
| Portal 1/2 Terraria/Minecraft Half life 1/2(maybe at a lower
| difficulty) Team fortress 2(something my father still plays
| today) Disco Elysium Uncharted Series """ this is the point
| I'd consider to be somewhat difficult at this point) many of
| these games I recommend just becuss the developers are known
| for their intuitive introductions to controls, UI, gameplay
| mechanics, etc. I'm really not sure about Disco Elysium
| though you may want to research it a bit more and see if its
| something youd be interested in)
|
| """ And for some personal picks if you're able to pick these
| games up or want something further down the road some of my
| personal favorites of the last decade(definitely not titles
| I'm recommending for a first): """
|
| Nier Automata/Nier Replicate Baldur's gate (series) Mass
| Effect(1-3, the only ones that exist :) ) The Witcher 3(the
| first two are great as well IMO but haven't aged well
| visually or in terms of gameplay mechanics) Metaphor:
| Refantazio The 'Yakuza' series or as its now named 'Like a
| Dragon' Claire Obscura: Expedition 33 Red Dead Redemption(old
| and new)
|
| And if you destroy any or all of these games or find yourself
| to be a masochist when it comes to games you can try my
| personal favorite series(toss up between nier):
|
| Dark Souls(and all of the spinoffs available to PC)
|
| I purposely stayed away from games from genres that kibwen
| mentioned, although I think those are much better choices
| than my own.
|
| Oh and as far as controller; either a Nintendo switch pro
| controller or ps4/5 controller would be my go to if you don't
| like the feel of keyboard/mouse. A decent headset like a Bose
| QC37(whatever the most recent over ear headset is) or just a
| decent sound system(doesn't have to be a headset) as well as
| a decent monitor with a refresh rate higher than 120Hz...
|
| I went on forrr wayyy longer than I expected to, but
| hopefully some of what I said makes sense. If nothing else
| just research the 'easy' titles and kibwens recommendations.
|
| I'd just hate for you to pickup a game that just didn't vibe
| with and have it ruin your reintroduction with gaming. As I
| alluded to at the top, movies and games share enough
| similarities where it feels almost like someone asking "I
| haven't watched movies/TV/read any entertaining books in the
| last few decades, which movie/TV show/book would you
| recommend for me?"
| metabagel wrote:
| Can't go wrong with Portal, although I had to look up a
| walkthrough from time to time in order to get past a puzzle,
| especially the end puzzle. I think it should play pretty well
| for you on Ubuntu and be a lot of fun.
|
| Portal 2 is even better than the first one, but play them both.
| renjimen wrote:
| Seconded. And play Half Life 1 and 2. They're arguably the
| best single player FPS games of all time.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| There isn't really a good way to recommend a game to someone
| who's never played a game before - preferences regarding
| immersion, complex mechanics, turn-based vs live-action, etc.
| vary wildly. Someone who likes Europa Universalis 4 frequently
| does not like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and vice versa. With
| these constraints I would probably recommend Cyberpunk 2077 (no
| gamepad), and if you decide you like live-action, Hades, and if
| you don't, Slay the Spire.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| Ah, I just saw your adjacent comment about RSI. First-person
| games like CP77 _can_ be played with gamepad, they 're just
| better with mouse. But without a mouse, I'd switch my initial
| recommendation to A Hat In Time.
| bhattisatish wrote:
| Hat in time sounds quirky and interesting. Will give it a
| go
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Steam games are the original NFTs. You buy them to look at the
| cover art in your Steam library.
| vardump wrote:
| I have probably 1000 games in my Steam library. Played maybe 50
| of those if that.
|
| Why? Earlier Humble Bundle subscription... And in addition I've
| bought so many bundles separately I've never played.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| About 15 or so years ago a roomate and I recognized this issue
| and created a simple solution that worked _for us_. A Google
| sheet where we would list games we completed and give them 5, 10,
| or 15 points subjectively based on the size of the game. At the
| end of a school term whoever got the most points would pick a
| dinner (take-out, dine-in, etc.) and the other would pay. For us
| that 's all it took to break out of the habit of playing the same
| 2 games all the time.
|
| I'm sure many of you are being fastidious engineers and
| immediately thinking about all the failure modes. But that's the
| delight in something so simple: we didn't have to worry about
| everyone else's failure modes.
| tgv wrote:
| I know some people with a huge library, practically everything
| free. They are into game design, so in their case it's more meta
| than playing. Given that there are hundreds of thousands of
| (wannabe/student/amateur/pro) game designers and programmers, I
| wouldn't be surprised if there are many people with similar
| libraries.
| macjohnmcc wrote:
| I buy some just to support the developer if they are small.
| pradn wrote:
| I've bought a bunch of games just to support the creators, to
| vote with my dollar and say: I want more of this. Dwarf Fortress
| comes to mind as an example. I've got to sit down and learn to
| play it. Will probably take a week!
| qnleigh wrote:
| This makes me wonder how much consumer spending as a whole is on
| products that people never use. It's not like this psychology is
| unique to gaming. Could it be as high as 50%?
| ta8645 wrote:
| Many people buy a lot of games just to give them away on
| steamgifts.com. I used to be heavily involved over there, giving
| away many thousands of game copies, and ended up with over 4,800
| games in my own Steam library, and I still haven't played more
| than 200. I don't think I have enough days left in my life to
| ever play them all.
| gessha wrote:
| One tactic I've developed for myself is I select 1, maximum 2
| games I want to play from my wishlist and I get those during
| seasonal sale. I don't purchase other games until the next sale
| unless it's to play with my friends.
| esafak wrote:
| Maybe it's a good thing; they might be doing more productive
| things!
| Qem wrote:
| When I graduated and got a job, one of my first aquisitions was a
| new game console and several titles. It sat mostly idle, because
| despite earning the money to afford it, now I lacked the free
| time. After a couple of years gathering dust I gifted it to my
| younger cousin.
| jader201 wrote:
| Maybe I'm not the crowd this article is referring to, but for the
| most part, I wishlist games I'm interested in, then buy them on
| sale. As a result, I've played most of the games in my library.
|
| Having said that, there are still games I haven't played, but
| these are older titles when I used to follow Steam on Twitter,
| and would grab random games on sale.
|
| Since moving to only buying wishlisted games (I no longer follow
| any other feeds of sales), I'll only buy games I'm already
| interested in.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I will buy games purely because I want them continue to be made.
| There's developers that released a game I liked 10 years ago that
| I still buy all the games of just on the off chance the next one
| will be equally loved by me.
|
| Conversely, there's publishers that I avoid like the plague.
| Nothing Ubisoft or Electronic Art will ever see my disk any more.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Some games I play for an hour but never return to.
|
| Some games I have 1000s of hours on.
|
| Whether a given game will be the former or the latter is hard to
| tell.
|
| Given these facts it makes sense to buy a lot of games knowing I
| will only play a few regularly.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-13 23:01 UTC)