Wallet Pwned: You Won't Play 37% of the Games in Your Steam Library

[dud]

Somewhat interesting article about a common "problem" for many of us ... we don't play many of our Steam games ... ever.


http://dealnews.com/features/Wallet...-the-Games-in-Your-Steam-Library/1030458.html


"A recent article published by Ars Technica says that millions of gamers are buying games they don't want from Steam. "About 37% of the roughly 781 million games registered to various Steam accounts haven’t even been loaded a single time," the article reads. And because Valve's Steam store has captured a staggering 75% of the global market for PC games, this means that the vast majority of PC gamers have probably wasted their money on an unwanted game at some point."




What about you?

 

[mmntech]

I've played every game in my Steam library. Now whether I finish them is a different story.

 

[Bateluer]

Sounds about right. Most of scooped up our Steam Libraries in bundles during sales. An entire publisher's catalog for 49 dollars? Sold!

 

[dud]

Sounds about right. Most of scooped up our Steam Libraries in bundles during sales. An entire publisher's catalog for 49 dollars? Sold!

Does Steam allow you to "back up" your collection to your personal/local media (disk, HD, etc)? If so ... do you do it?

 

[sweenish]

I have games I know I'll never touch because of bundles that come with garbage. I still saved money on the games I wanted. I bought a publisher pack to get a ton of great games at a savings, it came with a lot of junk. I buy humble bundles for as few as one game, but I'm still saving money on that one game (otherwise I wait for that specific game to go on its own sale).

These numbers are interesting, but as always, Ars decides that logic and common sense don't apply. Their gaming and mobile articles are always trolls.

 

[Lil Frier]

I have played 17 of the 51 games in my library, to some extent. I have played maybe 7 or 8 for more than 10 hours.

 

[Riverhound777]

True for me. a lot of my games came from Humble Bundle and suck, but I only paid like $6 for each bunch and played at least one of the games enough to make it worth it.

 

[BergeLSU]

Ars' article was a little flawed and it was updated in another post. Steam didn't start recording play time until 2009, so many people played games before then, but never played them again (HL2 for example).

Their updated article says 26.1% of games released after March 2009 are unplayed.

 

[rivethead]

True for me. a lot of my games came from Humble Bundle and suck, but I only paid like $6 for each bunch and played at least one of the games enough to make it worth it.

This is true for me too.

 

[Genx87]

I am probably closer to 80% of games not played.

 

[Nebor]

I am probably closer to 80% of games not played.

Me too.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Pretty accurate for me. I grab real cheap ones then I let them sit. The figure is even higher if we factor in games that are played for fewer than 30 minutes.

 

[DaveSimmons]

As mentioned above, bundles.

Also, it's nice to have them for a rainy day. I finally started playing Defense Grid after owning it for several years.

I'd be curious to know how many of the unplayed games are $1-5 impulse buys. Thanks to Steam sales I have many games I've paid almost nothing for so even if I don't play them all I come out way ahead over buying them at $20 - 60.

I just picked up Saints Row IV for $13.59 vs. $40-60 at launch. $25-45 saved will cover a lot of unplayed games.

 

[gorb]

I haven't really bought much on steam for awhile.

http://wastedonsteam.com/usd/id/gorb

222 games owned, 18 games with playtime.
1830.8 hours of total playtime
1818.98 hours of counterstrike

this one is a little different
http://steamdb.info/calculator/?player=gorb&currency=us
224 games owned, 209 unplayed
1,835.1 hours of total playtime
1,823.2 hours of counterstrike


I do the same thing with my consoles. Most of those games have never been played

 

[Bateluer]

Does Steam allow you to "back up" your collection to your personal/local media (disk, HD, etc)? If so ... do you do it?

Steam has had that functionality for years. I don't really take advantage of it though, not much need right now.

 

[nurturedhate]

I agree that a large part of it is the bundle sales. I am usually only purchasing a bundle, especially humble bundle deals, for one game in particular. That leaves the other 3-6 games in the deal as simple fodder. There is also the impulse buys that I am all too guilty of during the steam sales. I am honestly amazed that it is only 37%. That number is probably helped by all of the people who only own dota2/counter strike/half life2 and the like. I would like to see the % when we limit it to people who have 50+ games.

 

[CPA]

I am probably closer to 80% of games not played.

Same here. I seem to come across a game in my library every week that I didn't even realized I owned.

 

[Topweasel]

Same here. I seem to come across a game in my library every week that I didn't even realized I owned.

I have taken it a step farther than that. I recently went to pick up a game on sale a while back that was on sale and Steam told me it was already in my inventory. I couldn't even remember when I might have picked it up.

 

[BergeLSU]

71 out of 190 unplayed, but I checked and only one of those did I actually buy and not play (I bought a Prototype bundle, played the first one, never played the second). The rest were bundles. Hell, I bought the Telltale Humble Bundle just for Walking Dead, so that included 20 games that I didn't ever plan on playing (Each episode of Sam and Max, Hector, etc. counted as a different game).

 

[Sohaltang]

yeah I think the bundles skew those stats. Suprised its not higher. I bet I have not played 75% of my 150 some odd games

 

[CuriousMike]

I was surprised to find I've played 129 of my 234 games.

Of the 129 played, 61 have been played for an hour or less.
I've played 30 of them for >= 4 hours.
I've played 13 of them for >= 10 hours.
I've played 10 of them for >= 20 hours

 

[shortylickens]

All the ROM's I have make up for it.

 

[KeithTalent]

Sounds about right for me. I don't even have that many games, but I do have quite a few that I have never even installed, let alone actually played.

KT

 

[gorcorps]

I haven't counted, but there's definitely a lot of cheap games that seemed decent enough at the time to buy but I haven't gotten though the big name games yet. So I end up with a bunch of stuff I'll probably never touch. I'm trying to get better at what I buy and not make any snap decisions.

 

[sandorski]

I have taken it a step farther than that. I recently went to pick up a game on sale a while back that was on sale and Steam told me it was already in my inventory. I couldn't even remember when I might have picked it up.

Yup, happened to me too recently. Yesterday I thought about buying Saints Row 2, but decided to check to see if I already had it. Sure enough, I do.