Comprehensive Steam Research: 36.9% Of All Steam Games Sold Are Unplayed

Taiso

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Ars Technica did a massive study of the buying and playing habits of Steam users. There are a lot of fascinating figures in here, but the nearly 37 percent of sold games remaining unplayed is a very telling statistic.

The article.
 

NeoGeoNinja

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Similarly, I still have a lot of sealed and unplayed PS3 titles upon my shelf, ultimately, for what I presume are the same reasons: must have titles that hit must have prices vs the time and inclination to undertake playing them.
 

Opethian

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what is the point to buying a digital download and not play it?
 

Kid Panda

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This is what is happening in our hobby, companies put shit games on sale and people still buy it. Legendary is like .99 right now, think if 2,000,000 users bought it. Valve prolly gets half and then the property owners get half. 1,000,000 for a game that prolly didn't sell more than 200,000 units? Not a bad bailout.
 

SonGohan

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what is the point to buying a digital download and not play it?

Steam games go on sale a lot. I have a few games I haven't played, but purchased them when they went on sale for a few bucks just to get them at that price. I just now got around to playing Resident Evil Revelations and I bought that game for $5 back in September.
 

Taiso

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Steam offers a ton of convenience at bargain prices, which encourages massive impulse buying. There are only a handful of titles I've been hyped to play on Steam, and most of my purchases fall under the 'I'll buy them now because they're dirt cheap and play them when I have a chance' mindset.

And then that buying habit continues and the old games just get buried under the new ones.

People like the shiny. And they have no problem clicking on a button and giving 3 bucks to get the shiny. Over and over and over.
 
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Evilpoptart

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My backlog isn't too bad at the moment and I am guilty of not playing some of them yet since initial purchase. Ill get around to playing them eventually, right now the whole shovel-ware shit since steam opened the floodgates has been pissing me off because its burying all the newer games and games worth money over crap on the main page. As much as I love the steam service I don't look for sales like I used to and with all this crap ware I find it difficult weeding out the good from the bad
 
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Taiso

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I haven't even played Lords of Shadow 2 once :keke:

You aren't missing much, in my opinion. The main game was a big letdown plagued by pacing issues. Weird for an open world experience. A shame, considering how much I liked he first two games in the series.

Ironically enough, the Alucard DLC is vastly better. Alucard's powers are more fun to use and his combat is more interesting despite having only one weapon that shifts between elements, rather than three separate weapons for the three elements. It just proves that sometimes, greater combat variety isn't always a good thing.

Alucard should have been the main character for the game and Dracula should have been the DLC.

I'd still welcome another game in the series from Mercurysteam. Maybe they could learn from the mistakes they made here and in the past and make an awesome game. I'd love to see a full Castlevania LoS game where you play as their iteration of Simon Belmont, set in the 'classic Castlevania era.
 

NeoSneth

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I am part of that statistic.
But I could also say the same about my Neo Collection, or Retro Game collection.

But I don't care. When is the next Steam SALE???!?!?!

also.... I just built a new Gaming PC.
 

cannonball

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I contributed to that statistic. More than half of the games I buy for < $5 on a steam sale sit unplayed. I'd be more interested in seeing the % of unplayed games where people spent more than $15 on them. That would actually mean something.
 

Comrade Porn King Mikhail

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I haven't played around 50% of the iOS games I've purchased. Some like Dead Space were $0.99 sales. Others like Cut the Rope 2 were free on promotions or codes. When you see that kind of value, the ability to get hours and hours of gaming variety for pennies on the dollar, it's hard to resist. You get the value when you can and save it for the future, like stocking up on cheap $4 Blu-Rays on Black Friday. Thinking about it that way, it's no wonder that many games sit around unplayed.
 

complexz

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yep, guilty here. I don't think I have even installed the majority of the games I have on steam. sales and humble bundles have left me with more games than I know what to do with. With me in general, you give me one game and I will play the shit out of it, you give me 10 and I won't play any of them.
 

T.A.P.

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Does that sales figure include games 'purchased' with redemption codes?

I've ended up with a lot Steam versions of games included in Humble Bundles that I've redeemed the code for (why not?) but have never bothered to play via the Steam interface.
 

El Maricon Loco

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I skimmed and read the title as 36.9% of all Steam gamers are unemployed - Seemed pretty low, even if you factor in kids.
 

Opethian

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so are there 'rare' steam games? or is the dickwagging about how much you saved on a particular title?
 

El Maricon Loco

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There's some dickwagging associated with the sheer amount of games you have, I've seen that in action. It's hard NOT to buy shit you won't play though, especially at the friggin holidays, we're talking about deals like the entire Valve catalog for like $20-$30
 

SonGohan

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There are times that Steam gives games away. I remember the Left 4 Dead series being free after I paid $5 for them (and I'm not talking about the free for the weekend stuff they usually do). Checking out free games is still a sale of $0.00, so I wonder if they're factoring those in as well, and how many people downloaded and never played them.
 

whisper2053

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Worthless. I looked at mine, and found out that they valued all my games at full price. My total was $988.43 but the amount of money I've put into Steam games realistically hovers around $100 - $150.

Exactly. This then begs the question of how accurate the originally stated figures are.
 

SonGohan

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It showed me that I own 62 games with 5 unplayed ones, which is probably right. That's kind of a cool statistic to have if it's correct, at least.
 

ggallegos1

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I have 68 games, all of which besides portal remain unplayed. I buy them in the humble bundles with the sincerest intent on playing them, but end up being caught up in consoles and such. It is my biggest eyesore that, honestly, I can't see myself playing through.
 
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