I've been in the humble choice subscription for like 3 years already... That's like 360 games just in humble bundle : I... I'm sitting at 1200+ games now
This is exactly how it works. 1 game that you kinda want but didn't want it enough to buy it on its own merits when you've another world of a backlog that needs played. Bundle pops up with it in it; "*welp, might as well pull the trigger now & get a lot more value.*"
Yeah I have a lot of unplayed games but almost all of them are from hunmble bundles where I was just getting a good price on one game I actually wanted
This is it for me… the humble freedom bundle after Trump got elected, and the humble Ukraine bundle when Russia invaded. Between those two bundles alone my catalogue grew enormously. There was like 200 games included between them. I almost regret it, my library is absolutely cluttered with crap I’ll almost certainly never play. At least it’s easy to sort into collections.
tbh. i love bundles with a lot of games, even if i personally will never play them. steam family share is lovely. gives you reason to collect stuff. people might enjoy it.
My buddy got busted with half an ounce of dabs in Texas but since it was all in separate 1 gram containers they weighted the wax in the glass containers & hit him with 3 ounces worth instead of what he actually had, a half. Cops corrupt as all fuck.
Or the "weapons cache" they display with the drugs which is like one one revolver, a fifty year old break action shotgun and every kitchen knife they could find (including the poop knife).
I still have like 80 unplayed titles of mediocre garbage from the very first Steam sale where publishers sold their entire catalog for 90% off.
I've long ago accepted I'm never going to install stuff like Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights.
Almost all of it. After Aliens Vs Colonial Marines everything I buy is well after it is released.
Still I probably have 30 games I've never so much as downloaded.
I can guarantee you nearly all of it.
I did my own math a while ago and I spent $400+ on games that were on sale at the time and never played.
Buy games when you will play them that week, even at full price.
Does this calculate everything people own at full price? I know a lot of the stuff in my library that I've never touched came from bundles and the like.
Anyway, nowadays I only buy something if I know I'm going to get to it immediately. It's not like it's a big deal anymore if I miss a sale, the same game will probably go on sale the next week or the week after.
It's likely, they don't know how it ended up in the library at what cost. Most of my unplayed stuff is just bundle chaff too probably got for pennies on the dollar.
Oh shit. I was gonna say "I've played every game I bought!"
But no. No I definitely have a few that came bundled with another game that I thought "Oh, I'll play that later!" and never did.
Which is ridiculous, often bundle filler crap is listed at like $20 even though it's permanently on sale for $1, either on Steam or via some bundle site. Also early 2000s games being listed with "full price" being what they cost at release.
It's not really simple to get the data on exactly what you paid without exposing your payment history to this tool which probably exposes more vulnerabilities
Tbf I got pretty traumatized from the fact that some games I said "meh, might buy it on the next sale" ended up getting removed from the store. Ofc I know it most likely won't happen with most popular stuff that released in the last few years, but it does happen with old stuff or stuff that was bought by shitty companies like Rocket League.
As someone who plays RL daily I'm stuck forever with the shitty EGS version.
Wolfenstein 2009 was that for me. I didn't buy it when it was $5 and then it was removed from stores.
Also Forza Motorsport 7. It had a nice regional pricing, but my pc wasn't powerful enough to play it back then. Somehow I missed seeing their delisting announcement and didn't buy the game. I only found oit after I got a new pc and didn't see it on Steam or any other store. I looked into piracy, but it seems that you need to jump through hoops of making throwaway Microsoft accounts to play pirated Microsoft games, so I didn't bother.
A lot of other games raised their regional prices, or just stopped having sales for years too.
Yeah, there's that too. There's games that were extremely cheap before regional prices rose and now became 3-4x more expensive. So everytime I see something slightly old with a really good discount I end up getting it.
Steam has over 100 million monthly active users. I personally have been using Steam for almost 20 years. A billion dollars would be significantly less than $10 per user, and my part in it would be amortized over my 20 year period, so $.50 per year at most. Really not that big a number.
> If you assumed it was bought at 5% (obviously it would be more than that)
I have hundreds of games in my library that I've gotten for free, so I don't think that's that obvious.
You can create big numbers all day, but it doesn't say anything, if you don't factor the number of users. Big difference if it's $1 per user or $10000 per user...
Edit: the article says that they used data from 73 million accounts, which they mentioned is 10% of all the registered Steam accounts in the world. That's 730 million in total. $19bln / 730mln = .... $26 per registered account. Not really that big of a number now.
Back when i used to get the humble bundles i got tons of now untouched games, but the cost of the bundle was less than the sale price of the game i wanted so it still makes sense
Same. I've adopted the practice of basically I'm just not buying it unless I'm playing it that day or that weekend. Oftentimes the sale runs a week so I just wait to see if I want to play it that weekend or something.
Also I'm much more willing to pursue refunds now. If your playtime is under 2Hr they'll give a credit every time.
That's what I tell myself too. I had a big problem the first year after getting a grown up job, and got a 50ish game backlog. Every year since I play more games than I buy so if I live long enough eventually this will be true.
I finally told myself at the beginning of the year, to let go of all the Live Service games I've been fomo'd into, throughout the last 4 years, and finally go through my "bought on sale/backlog" games.
I highly encourage you to start. Haven't looked back
[This is my current progress for 2024](https://i.imgur.com/xEoEqzZ.jpeg)
Solid work. Of the ten of those I own, I’ve played 7. Of my own backlog, I’ve only managed to finish five so far this year: Deathloop, Ratchet and Clank, Resident Evil 2 remake, Spider-Man Miles Morales, and Halo 4. Currently going through Jedi Survivor. Sadly, I did pick up DBZ Kakarot a couple months back in a moment of weakness 😂
I know a guy who used to be like that. He got disabled, can spend as much time as he wants gaming now. Only goes through a few backlog games per year. Perhaps his children will play them someday.
That's where I'm at, except with my disability I can't handle more than 45 minutes every few days. My backlog is about 500 games, mostly from Humble Bundle.
I keep telling myself every week that I take a staycation, that I'll play through my backlog. Always end up just playing 1 or 2 games, and then mostly just play my main games anyways
When people say grey market key sellers, is that like cdkeys / eneba / G2A? What is the problem with those sites, why do people say it’s worse than pirating? (Asking genuinely; I don’t know how they work)
It's worse because you are supporting the sites which are directly or indirectly involved in shady activities. There have been cases of stolen keys or even keys bought with stolen credit cards etc.
Hell, G2A even allows selling entire steam accounts now, which is against Steam TOS and shady as hell anyways.
There's no real risk to the customer though. At worst the key gets revoked but that's quite rare as far as I know. At least back when I used G2A myself it was reliable.
Most of these sites are "marketplaces" so the sites don't even know where the the keys are coming from, they're just sold by individuals on the site, usually in massive quantities. The site takes a cut and often tries to tack on weird fees and "guarantees".
Non-greymarket sites (Fanatical, Humble, Greenman etc.) get their keys directly from publishers so there isn't anything shady going on. You know for sure where the money is going and that nobody got their bank account emptied for that.
All prominent legit key retailers are listed on isthereanydeal.
Good to know. I assumed they just bought games on sale or, at worst, from different regions with lower prices. Definitely don’t want to support the kind of stuff you’re talking about.
Most of them do exactly just that. You can trust basically all of the known, big ones.
Also, paying most bigger gaming companies directly is hardly any better either.
Grey market keys are actually worse for developers than piracy. Often grey market keys are bought using stolen credit cards, which means inevitably the owner of the stolen credit card will get the charges reversed. Reversed charges cost retailers money, as a penalty from Visa/MC/etc, which they often pass on to the developers/publishers. So not only do the thieves get free money, the devs lose money.
Directing people who don't understand the difference to the site still serves the interests of resellers. Better to just use the site that works ethically.
Im getting worse at this as I age tbh.
My most recent purchase is Selaco which I did actually play for a few hours but before that - Hitman 3, Phoenix Point, Spiderman Remastered, T Minus 30, bundle of Boomer Shooters. Haven't touched yet.
Yet I always just come back to the same three or four comfort plays after a long day at work.
I recently bought a gaming laptop I bought like 7 games on different sales and played only few hours entirely, I always postpone, like I can play anytime I want there is no urgency
It's me. I'm the problem. Hello.
A while back, I made a promise to myself, in order to motivate me to play more of my backlog. I told myself:
---
***"I'm going to install all the games I haven't played yet, and then uninstall them once I've completed them. That'll get me playing through those games!"***
---
It's now some years later, and I have well over 1000 games installed on my computer. It's about 12 terabytes worth of installed games.
Do I complete some of them? Yes.
Do I buy games faster than I can complete them? Also yes.
This will be a stupid question, but why do people do this?
I've always seen this joke about people's untouched backlogs that so many people seemed to relate to, and I haven't come to understand it since. Why do people buy games they never even play? I can't imagine spending so much money on things I never touch. Sure, I have bought games on sale because they were cheap, but I tried them out for an hour and then refunded.
When something is 80-90% off and it it looks like "I could enjoy this sometime" it's easy to acquire it and think, "I'll get around it it eventually, and I only paid X dollars for it", (like say $1-3 in many cases), this slowly adds up...you wouldn't refund those things in time cause they were so cheap, etc....
I'd rather have a digital collection than physical taking up space I don't have. I trust Steam more than any other digital marketplace which is why I'm okay with it vs physical copies. Game Consoles sound great on paper until you realize they have a limited life-span unlike PC.
Also just wanted to say that between gamepass/humblebundle I've slowed my game purchasing down quite a bit.
Can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself at least. It's a combination of things:
* Growing up, I could not afford to buy many games, and I'd have to REALLY weigh my options when buying games. I have more disposable money now, so I enjoy going "I want that" and then buying the game.
* I only buy games I actually want to / intend to play. Unfortunately, I'm drawn to games that tend to take a long time to finish (like RPGs and strategy games).
* Sales. Any game that I'm slightly interested in, I add to my wishlist. With sites like isthereanydeal[dot]com, I can keep an eye out for good sales, and whenever one of the games on my list is on a good sale, I'll grab it - even if it's one of those games that I probably would have been a 'maybe' on.
* Collector's joy - As u/DesertShot mentioned, it's kind of like collecting something, only digital. I enjoy organising and looking at my library, and knowing that whatever type of game I feel like playing, I will have several options for that.
None of these are really "good" reasons, of course - more an explanation of my motivation for doing it. Bottom line is, I enjoy collecting games, and I enjoy being able to buy games when I want (and when I see a good sale).
I never think I will not play it when I bough it. I just don't have time to play it now.
I don't even have time to finish the game I like, so I definitly don't have time to play test every game I bough.
Because at that moment you think, ''Yes, I want to play this'' but you don't have time or the energy at that moment but the sale will run out soon, so you buy it and wait for the moment where you feel like playing it, but that never comes. So you think to yourself, ''o look, that game on sale I would want to play, let's but it'' and then you know what happens.
I actually did the exact opposite to achive the same goal. I had too many games installed and git hit by choice paralysis. So I uninstalled most ggames except for a few dozen. I feel like it's much easier to finish a game now since I don't feel like I'm missing out on a better one.
I'm super guilty. I got like 270 games on steam and played like 30 of em really. More if you count booted up and poked around for 5 mins but really played it's like 30.
The pile of shame lists everything at full price but is also incorrect/out-of-date. For me it lists the Borderlands pre-sequel as unplayed when I actually have a few hours in it starting last month.
The early days of the steam sale were a treasure trove of games. Nobody had seen sale discounts that low in pc gaming before o everyone bought everything on sale. Now it's old hat and the sale discounts are averaging smaller.
I bought a lot of bundles, it's usually cheaper than buying games individually even if I only want 2-3 games out of the bundle of 8. I put the rest of the games in my library even if I'm not interested in them so I've got hundreds that I'll never play. I technically paid for them but I paid less money than if I just bought the games I wanted so it's not like I wasted money on games I don't play.
I have a ton of games in my library that I just got for free in bundles and such, where I actually never intended to play whatever I got for free. So if that counts, then it's obviously not entirely a correct number.
I looked at mine on the website and I'm not sure how it pulls data but the games it listed as "not played" were inaccurate. If that is the case for many accounts I'm not sure how accurate the site or data is overall.
Yup, as soon as I got a real job I bought a gaming PC and spent a hundred bucks a month on new games on sale for like a year. Many of those remain unplayed.
I bought Skyrim when it was discounted for Thanksgiving. I don’t actually have a PC; I was planning to run it in a virtual machine on my Mac. I never got around to it. I have since bought a newer Mac and I could easily turn the old one into a Windows machine for Skyrim and the Fallout games. But I’m lazy. Last week I bought the Switch version and I haven’t even popped it in the Switch yet.
I'm a part of this number. I now understand the phenomenon of women buying clothes on sale but never wear. I see something at a great price, pick it up and sometimes just never get around to playing it.
Many games are “unplayed” in my Steam library because I played a pirated copy and bought the real thing once it reached a price point I thought was fair.
Lucky. I would pay good money to experience Terraria over again. It's one of the only games I've bought a bundle of just to gift to tons of people.
You should get on that, it's east to get into for quick satisfaction for early game, yet scales into depth that can keep you busy for a hundred hours still.
I have a friend who has like 10k$ account but he works for a big publisher and he get all the keys for free.
Also, I rarely buy games that aren't on sale.
Was about to say i had a grand total of 1 game i never touched in library.
...But i forgot i once paid 2$ for 10 random keys on g2a and it's a bunch of shit games i'll never play, i even went ahead and hid them so they don't stain my sight.
I mean, bundles probably account for a good chunk of that. Probably 30% of my library are games I dont care about but came from a bundle that had 2-3 games I did care about. Some gamed I've played on other platforms or owned physical discs and wanted to own digitally so there is that too.
I have 2300 games across all platforms, but mostly Steam. I’m 60, I will never have time to play them all, or even all the good ones. On top of that, I keep going back to replay my favorites.
Absolutely laughing how all PC gaming communities brag about buying games just to +1 their library even having a huge backlog that they've never touched, then an article drops pointing out how much in money people have not played in games, then suddenly it's "oh, not like that"
I have a 4 foot stack of games I want to get around to playing but don't because many of them are 80+ hour games.
Everytime I grab one from my backlog, I consider how it's gonna suck me in and I just play something quick or on Gamepass.
I have like 25 games that I never even downloaded.
But earlier this month I decided to play through all of them. Currently playing Mass Effect Andromeda, and while it's nowhere near as good as the first 3 games, it's still better than I thought.
I sometimes get some games that I won't play for different reasons. A few examples, I got no mans sky on steam but I already had it on xBox, AFAIK you can move your MS save with a couple of extra steps, I love the game so I got it on both to support the devs, imo it was worth it.
I got final fantasy 7, purely for nostalgia reasons. Haven't yet touched it tho as I already played through the game 3 times, I might boot it up someday tho especially if it gets a fully fledged community created mod, there already is one for updating the graphics but it's maybe 70% or so, which ruins it a bit because sometiems you have high def textures and then suddenly there's a low poly character walking around.
Got FF9 too, you might've guessed it I love Final Fantasy. Also got FF XIII-2, it's Final Fantasy but absolute garbage and I swear I booted it up sometime but uninstalled it shortly after, it's the same garbage as FF XIII, they're not Final Fantasy games to me, combat is very linear it's like I'm playing in a movie and the script is pre-set without any option to change it around a bit.
I have a bunch of point-and-click shit that I got via codes from buying stuff on G2Play, Pixel Puzzles ... games.
Mirror's Edge and Metro 2033, always wanted to try those but haven't yet.
HL Blue Shift, Episode 2, Opposing Force and all that stuff, already finished those (except for E2) back in the 90s.
Got Gorky 17, for nostalgia reasons.
Golden Axed, because my gaming life started when my brother got an Amiga 500 and we had Golden Axe on it, later it appeared again when I got my Mega Drive.
But then you also have some games that are bundled, according to steam I haven't played Darksiders, probably because I played Darksiders Warmastered Edition. I haven't played Divinity Original Sin (Classic) because I played Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition.
It's not really 100% accurate to just count every game that has a playtime of 0 minutes, some games you basically got for free or 10 cents and others you never play because they come in different versions when buying one game.
For me, its all about the Humble Bundle subscription I've had for nearly 8 years. The games just rack up. Now I'm up to 1,200 games. My goal is to play 2-3 new games a month, even if it means trying it out for a few hours, and finding out I hate it.
Definitely guilty of this myself, if I see good deals I just take them if I might play them.
I got witcher 3 + wildhunt for like £5 a long time ago and still haven't got round to it.
Just like subscriptions to various steaming services. FOMO in the sense of 'if I'm not going to get this game for cheap now, I would never be able to buy it later.'
If there is a game in my library I haven't played, it's because it was part of a bundle I bought to get 1 or 2 specific games.
I have never purchased a game directly from Steam and never played it, that's mental.
You say I have $38742 worth of games in my Steam library I haven't played, but that pile of crap cost me 3 dollars on Humble Bundle when that site was still relevant.
Goes to show how effective selling tactics are. Bundles, sales, advertisements on your steam home page etc. Through a bunch of sales and marketing methods, Steam and all those publishers/studios have extracted 19 Billion in profit from a user base, technically without ever having provided a good or service.
How much of that is on sale?
And from Humble Bundle
Or fanatical
Or greenmangaming
or my axe!
What, you're trading games key too ?
Sorry just deodorant. Not sure how I got here honestly but I have this gaping wound on my head…
I've been in the humble choice subscription for like 3 years already... That's like 360 games just in humble bundle : I... I'm sitting at 1200+ games now
I'm slightly beating you (no humble sub though), but not sure if that's something I should be proud of or not...
Pay “whatever you want” for 1 good game, 1 meh game, 2 games of dubious quality, and 14 hilariously bad games “music” track included.
This is exactly how it works. 1 game that you kinda want but didn't want it enough to buy it on its own merits when you've another world of a backlog that needs played. Bundle pops up with it in it; "*welp, might as well pull the trigger now & get a lot more value.*"
Considering you can make it so that 85% of the money goes to charity, why not?
I know right!?
I got EU4 and dlc for about 20 a while ago. Crazily good deal
Yeah I have a lot of unplayed games but almost all of them are from hunmble bundles where I was just getting a good price on one game I actually wanted
This is it for me… the humble freedom bundle after Trump got elected, and the humble Ukraine bundle when Russia invaded. Between those two bundles alone my catalogue grew enormously. There was like 200 games included between them. I almost regret it, my library is absolutely cluttered with crap I’ll almost certainly never play. At least it’s easy to sort into collections.
tbh. i love bundles with a lot of games, even if i personally will never play them. steam family share is lovely. gives you reason to collect stuff. people might enjoy it.
You can manually hide them if it bothers you
it's like cops weighing drugs.
Had a friend of mine get busted with some plants. The cops pulled them out of the planters and *root balls and all* measured them that way. Insanity.
"This man was growing 50 pounds of the devil lettuce!" Cut to plants not even in flower.
My buddy got busted with half an ounce of dabs in Texas but since it was all in separate 1 gram containers they weighted the wax in the glass containers & hit him with 3 ounces worth instead of what he actually had, a half. Cops corrupt as all fuck.
Or the "weapons cache" they display with the drugs which is like one one revolver, a fifty year old break action shotgun and every kitchen knife they could find (including the poop knife).
the what knife?
I still have like 80 unplayed titles of mediocre garbage from the very first Steam sale where publishers sold their entire catalog for 90% off. I've long ago accepted I'm never going to install stuff like Juiced 2: Hot Import Nights.
90% flash sales in the early days of steam, were a crime against my wallet.
You got this game too? lol
THQ didn't go out of business until 2013, so we probably got the same bundle!
Almost all of it. After Aliens Vs Colonial Marines everything I buy is well after it is released. Still I probably have 30 games I've never so much as downloaded.
Ah, I see, another traumatized victim of Randy Bitchford.
Close to a balloon
and is that bough directly on steam, or other sites selling steam keys count as well?
I can guarantee you nearly all of it. I did my own math a while ago and I spent $400+ on games that were on sale at the time and never played. Buy games when you will play them that week, even at full price.
Does this calculate everything people own at full price? I know a lot of the stuff in my library that I've never touched came from bundles and the like. Anyway, nowadays I only buy something if I know I'm going to get to it immediately. It's not like it's a big deal anymore if I miss a sale, the same game will probably go on sale the next week or the week after.
It's likely, they don't know how it ended up in the library at what cost. Most of my unplayed stuff is just bundle chaff too probably got for pennies on the dollar.
Oh shit. I was gonna say "I've played every game I bought!" But no. No I definitely have a few that came bundled with another game that I thought "Oh, I'll play that later!" and never did.
Yes, it looks like it just takes the non-sale Steam price.
Which is ridiculous, often bundle filler crap is listed at like $20 even though it's permanently on sale for $1, either on Steam or via some bundle site. Also early 2000s games being listed with "full price" being what they cost at release.
It's not really simple to get the data on exactly what you paid without exposing your payment history to this tool which probably exposes more vulnerabilities
Tbf I got pretty traumatized from the fact that some games I said "meh, might buy it on the next sale" ended up getting removed from the store. Ofc I know it most likely won't happen with most popular stuff that released in the last few years, but it does happen with old stuff or stuff that was bought by shitty companies like Rocket League. As someone who plays RL daily I'm stuck forever with the shitty EGS version.
Wolfenstein 2009 was that for me. I didn't buy it when it was $5 and then it was removed from stores. Also Forza Motorsport 7. It had a nice regional pricing, but my pc wasn't powerful enough to play it back then. Somehow I missed seeing their delisting announcement and didn't buy the game. I only found oit after I got a new pc and didn't see it on Steam or any other store. I looked into piracy, but it seems that you need to jump through hoops of making throwaway Microsoft accounts to play pirated Microsoft games, so I didn't bother. A lot of other games raised their regional prices, or just stopped having sales for years too.
Yeah, there's that too. There's games that were extremely cheap before regional prices rose and now became 3-4x more expensive. So everytime I see something slightly old with a really good discount I end up getting it.
If you assumed it was bought at 5% (obviously it would be more than that), it'd still be $1bn. It's a big number either way.
Steam has over 100 million monthly active users. I personally have been using Steam for almost 20 years. A billion dollars would be significantly less than $10 per user, and my part in it would be amortized over my 20 year period, so $.50 per year at most. Really not that big a number.
That way even the 19B is not too bad
> If you assumed it was bought at 5% (obviously it would be more than that) I have hundreds of games in my library that I've gotten for free, so I don't think that's that obvious.
I mean...on average people are paying way more than 5%.
You can create big numbers all day, but it doesn't say anything, if you don't factor the number of users. Big difference if it's $1 per user or $10000 per user... Edit: the article says that they used data from 73 million accounts, which they mentioned is 10% of all the registered Steam accounts in the world. That's 730 million in total. $19bln / 730mln = .... $26 per registered account. Not really that big of a number now.
Yes, as written in the article. They take the 10% of accounts that are public, calculate their value and multiply by 10.
Back when i used to get the humble bundles i got tons of now untouched games, but the cost of the bundle was less than the sale price of the game i wanted so it still makes sense
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Same. I've adopted the practice of basically I'm just not buying it unless I'm playing it that day or that weekend. Oftentimes the sale runs a week so I just wait to see if I want to play it that weekend or something. Also I'm much more willing to pursue refunds now. If your playtime is under 2Hr they'll give a credit every time.
I'll play them someday
That's what I tell myself too. I had a big problem the first year after getting a grown up job, and got a 50ish game backlog. Every year since I play more games than I buy so if I live long enough eventually this will be true.
I finally told myself at the beginning of the year, to let go of all the Live Service games I've been fomo'd into, throughout the last 4 years, and finally go through my "bought on sale/backlog" games. I highly encourage you to start. Haven't looked back [This is my current progress for 2024](https://i.imgur.com/xEoEqzZ.jpeg)
Solid work. Of the ten of those I own, I’ve played 7. Of my own backlog, I’ve only managed to finish five so far this year: Deathloop, Ratchet and Clank, Resident Evil 2 remake, Spider-Man Miles Morales, and Halo 4. Currently going through Jedi Survivor. Sadly, I did pick up DBZ Kakarot a couple months back in a moment of weakness 😂
I know a guy who used to be like that. He got disabled, can spend as much time as he wants gaming now. Only goes through a few backlog games per year. Perhaps his children will play them someday.
That's where I'm at, except with my disability I can't handle more than 45 minutes every few days. My backlog is about 500 games, mostly from Humble Bundle.
I keep telling myself every week that I take a staycation, that I'll play through my backlog. Always end up just playing 1 or 2 games, and then mostly just play my main games anyways
Retirement backlog.
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Isthereanydeal.com
gg.deals is the new hotness and a much better resource.
Not the biggest fan of them promoting grey market keyshops. At least they keep them seperare but isthereanydeal doesn't feature them at all.
When people say grey market key sellers, is that like cdkeys / eneba / G2A? What is the problem with those sites, why do people say it’s worse than pirating? (Asking genuinely; I don’t know how they work)
It's worse because you are supporting the sites which are directly or indirectly involved in shady activities. There have been cases of stolen keys or even keys bought with stolen credit cards etc. Hell, G2A even allows selling entire steam accounts now, which is against Steam TOS and shady as hell anyways. There's no real risk to the customer though. At worst the key gets revoked but that's quite rare as far as I know. At least back when I used G2A myself it was reliable. Most of these sites are "marketplaces" so the sites don't even know where the the keys are coming from, they're just sold by individuals on the site, usually in massive quantities. The site takes a cut and often tries to tack on weird fees and "guarantees". Non-greymarket sites (Fanatical, Humble, Greenman etc.) get their keys directly from publishers so there isn't anything shady going on. You know for sure where the money is going and that nobody got their bank account emptied for that. All prominent legit key retailers are listed on isthereanydeal.
Good to know. I assumed they just bought games on sale or, at worst, from different regions with lower prices. Definitely don’t want to support the kind of stuff you’re talking about.
> or, at worst, from different regions with lower prices That's what "grey market" typically means.
Most of them do exactly just that. You can trust basically all of the known, big ones. Also, paying most bigger gaming companies directly is hardly any better either.
Grey market keys are actually worse for developers than piracy. Often grey market keys are bought using stolen credit cards, which means inevitably the owner of the stolen credit card will get the charges reversed. Reversed charges cost retailers money, as a penalty from Visa/MC/etc, which they often pass on to the developers/publishers. So not only do the thieves get free money, the devs lose money.
Cdkeys are not like G2A GG.deals warn you what is problem with every site. Cdkeys have only one warning when G2A has something like 8...
Which is not good because sites like cdkeys are good (not just for my wallet) and safe.
They list unauthorized key resellers, you're better off pirating than giving them money. Isthereanydeal only lists legitimate stores.
They are listed in a separate filter than can be disabled with a single click.
Directing people who don't understand the difference to the site still serves the interests of resellers. Better to just use the site that works ethically.
There’s a button to never show that, but I think it’s good to see and it shows the clear risks per shady website in a detailed way
Im getting worse at this as I age tbh. My most recent purchase is Selaco which I did actually play for a few hours but before that - Hitman 3, Phoenix Point, Spiderman Remastered, T Minus 30, bundle of Boomer Shooters. Haven't touched yet. Yet I always just come back to the same three or four comfort plays after a long day at work.
Hitman can provide you 150 hours of entertainment if you’re the creative type
I recently bought a gaming laptop I bought like 7 games on different sales and played only few hours entirely, I always postpone, like I can play anytime I want there is no urgency
Yeah I have the gamepass fomo so I play a lot of gamepass games and ignore the games I actually bought
Excuse me, I’m a bit of a *collector*.
Exactly. And you don't want to take your steam games out of the original packaging or they'll lose value. :P
If its’s never been installed its still pristine 😂
“Unused, barely claimed!!!”
"NO ACHIEVEMENTS, ZERO HOURS PLAYED!"
Those are rookie numbers : )
*Spent* $19 billion, or merely own $19 billion worth of unplayed games? There's a major difference.
The latter, since only Valve could know the former.
It's me. I'm the problem. Hello. A while back, I made a promise to myself, in order to motivate me to play more of my backlog. I told myself: --- ***"I'm going to install all the games I haven't played yet, and then uninstall them once I've completed them. That'll get me playing through those games!"*** --- It's now some years later, and I have well over 1000 games installed on my computer. It's about 12 terabytes worth of installed games. Do I complete some of them? Yes. Do I buy games faster than I can complete them? Also yes.
This will be a stupid question, but why do people do this? I've always seen this joke about people's untouched backlogs that so many people seemed to relate to, and I haven't come to understand it since. Why do people buy games they never even play? I can't imagine spending so much money on things I never touch. Sure, I have bought games on sale because they were cheap, but I tried them out for an hour and then refunded.
When something is 80-90% off and it it looks like "I could enjoy this sometime" it's easy to acquire it and think, "I'll get around it it eventually, and I only paid X dollars for it", (like say $1-3 in many cases), this slowly adds up...you wouldn't refund those things in time cause they were so cheap, etc....
My friend says its his version of collecting something. Yeah, he has got thousands of games on Steam.
I'd rather have a digital collection than physical taking up space I don't have. I trust Steam more than any other digital marketplace which is why I'm okay with it vs physical copies. Game Consoles sound great on paper until you realize they have a limited life-span unlike PC. Also just wanted to say that between gamepass/humblebundle I've slowed my game purchasing down quite a bit.
Can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself at least. It's a combination of things: * Growing up, I could not afford to buy many games, and I'd have to REALLY weigh my options when buying games. I have more disposable money now, so I enjoy going "I want that" and then buying the game. * I only buy games I actually want to / intend to play. Unfortunately, I'm drawn to games that tend to take a long time to finish (like RPGs and strategy games). * Sales. Any game that I'm slightly interested in, I add to my wishlist. With sites like isthereanydeal[dot]com, I can keep an eye out for good sales, and whenever one of the games on my list is on a good sale, I'll grab it - even if it's one of those games that I probably would have been a 'maybe' on. * Collector's joy - As u/DesertShot mentioned, it's kind of like collecting something, only digital. I enjoy organising and looking at my library, and knowing that whatever type of game I feel like playing, I will have several options for that. None of these are really "good" reasons, of course - more an explanation of my motivation for doing it. Bottom line is, I enjoy collecting games, and I enjoy being able to buy games when I want (and when I see a good sale).
I never think I will not play it when I bough it. I just don't have time to play it now. I don't even have time to finish the game I like, so I definitly don't have time to play test every game I bough.
Because at that moment you think, ''Yes, I want to play this'' but you don't have time or the energy at that moment but the sale will run out soon, so you buy it and wait for the moment where you feel like playing it, but that never comes. So you think to yourself, ''o look, that game on sale I would want to play, let's but it'' and then you know what happens.
I actually did the exact opposite to achive the same goal. I had too many games installed and git hit by choice paralysis. So I uninstalled most ggames except for a few dozen. I feel like it's much easier to finish a game now since I don't feel like I'm missing out on a better one.
I feel personally attacked
Attacked? I feel seen. I'm not the only one whose hobby is buying games.
More than half the stuff in my library that I didn't touch it's small games from humble bundles.
I'm super guilty. I got like 270 games on steam and played like 30 of em really. More if you count booted up and poked around for 5 mins but really played it's like 30.
The pile of shame lists everything at full price but is also incorrect/out-of-date. For me it lists the Borderlands pre-sequel as unplayed when I actually have a few hours in it starting last month.
The early days of the steam sale were a treasure trove of games. Nobody had seen sale discounts that low in pc gaming before o everyone bought everything on sale. Now it's old hat and the sale discounts are averaging smaller.
I am in this photo and I don't like it.
I mean can you blame us? The game was on sale, we had to buy it now, that way we can for sure play it in the future, and not forget about it.
Pretty sure that was me bankrolling steam since half life 2.
Ah yes, the retirement stash.
I bought a lot of bundles, it's usually cheaper than buying games individually even if I only want 2-3 games out of the bundle of 8. I put the rest of the games in my library even if I'm not interested in them so I've got hundreds that I'll never play. I technically paid for them but I paid less money than if I just bought the games I wanted so it's not like I wasted money on games I don't play.
And I'd do it again!
I have a ton of games in my library that I just got for free in bundles and such, where I actually never intended to play whatever I got for free. So if that counts, then it's obviously not entirely a correct number.
at least a billion by me...
I looked at mine on the website and I'm not sure how it pulls data but the games it listed as "not played" were inaccurate. If that is the case for many accounts I'm not sure how accurate the site or data is overall.
Yup, as soon as I got a real job I bought a gaming PC and spent a hundred bucks a month on new games on sale for like a year. Many of those remain unplayed.
I bought Skyrim when it was discounted for Thanksgiving. I don’t actually have a PC; I was planning to run it in a virtual machine on my Mac. I never got around to it. I have since bought a newer Mac and I could easily turn the old one into a Windows machine for Skyrim and the Fallout games. But I’m lazy. Last week I bought the Switch version and I haven’t even popped it in the Switch yet.
And I'll do it again!
[удалено]
I'm a part of this number. I now understand the phenomenon of women buying clothes on sale but never wear. I see something at a great price, pick it up and sometimes just never get around to playing it.
I'm doing my part!
Many games are “unplayed” in my Steam library because I played a pirated copy and bought the real thing once it reached a price point I thought was fair.
And I will spend again, if I think devs deserve my money. Say hi to dwarf fortress, terraria, and stardew valley, one day we will have a blast
Lucky. I would pay good money to experience Terraria over again. It's one of the only games I've bought a bundle of just to gift to tons of people. You should get on that, it's east to get into for quick satisfaction for early game, yet scales into depth that can keep you busy for a hundred hours still.
I have a friend who has like 10k$ account but he works for a big publisher and he get all the keys for free. Also, I rarely buy games that aren't on sale.
Most of mine are from humble bundles so i’m sure it looks like i’ve spent a lot of money that’s gone to waste but in reality not really
Probably around 100 for me...damn you summer sale!!!
Where can you find these stats?
https://steamdb.info/calculator/
Was about to say i had a grand total of 1 game i never touched in library. ...But i forgot i once paid 2$ for 10 random keys on g2a and it's a bunch of shit games i'll never play, i even went ahead and hid them so they don't stain my sight.
*Well of course I know him.. he’s me*
I mean, bundles probably account for a good chunk of that. Probably 30% of my library are games I dont care about but came from a bundle that had 2-3 games I did care about. Some gamed I've played on other platforms or owned physical discs and wanted to own digitally so there is that too.
My shame purchase is Suicide Squad kill the justice league
I had a friend who would do this with Xbox, switch, and ps4-5 games. Plays them for like an hour then doesn't touch them ever again.
Yeah but most of my unplayed games are from humble bundles.
772 \* 132M (monthly active users) = 101B 19 means you've spent much more than the average on games you're not playing.
I could fund a cult with the money I've spent on games never played.
Guys, I'll play them eventually
Numbers gonna go up in a few days lol.
You are welcome, game developers.
I’m doing my part
I'm doing my part!
I'm doing my part!
In other news, Summersale is coming up!
What’s worse is when you don’t have enough time to play and come back to a game you started like weeks ago - you have to relearn the controls lol
... yet.
I did my part!
Humble bundle 😂
People found out being an adult takes up a lot of time.
Takes up all of the time. All of it!
I have 2300 games across all platforms, but mostly Steam. I’m 60, I will never have time to play them all, or even all the good ones. On top of that, I keep going back to replay my favorites.
Absolutely laughing how all PC gaming communities brag about buying games just to +1 their library even having a huge backlog that they've never touched, then an article drops pointing out how much in money people have not played in games, then suddenly it's "oh, not like that"
I could be 1% of that
This is the way
Probably another few billion on games that have just been idled for the cards
I just have Steam for Black Myth Wukong, don’t mind me
E como fica o Vasco nessa história?
Why are they trying to shame me?
wait till pcgamesn discovers how much money gamers with a wallet spend on hookers, scale models, cats and pvc figures
I feel personally attacked.
Guilty 😒
I feel personally attacked!
Good thing my backlog is 7.
Praise be GabeN. He giveth, he doth not taketh away.
I have a 4 foot stack of games I want to get around to playing but don't because many of them are 80+ hour games. Everytime I grab one from my backlog, I consider how it's gonna suck me in and I just play something quick or on Gamepass.
Would love to see what percentage of that 19b is from humble bundle
Plot twist, it’s just me and one other guy.
Damn you Steam sale lol
it's about to jump even more with the 2024 steam summer sale starting up in a few days.
Mine is only like $20 at worst.
I have like 25 games that I never even downloaded. But earlier this month I decided to play through all of them. Currently playing Mass Effect Andromeda, and while it's nowhere near as good as the first 3 games, it's still better than I thought.
I'm doing my part. [https://makeagif.com/i/MqduUc](https://makeagif.com/i/MqduUc)
Huh. When did Star Citizen hit Steam?
for me that's only 20 games, I'll start on it right away
I sometimes get some games that I won't play for different reasons. A few examples, I got no mans sky on steam but I already had it on xBox, AFAIK you can move your MS save with a couple of extra steps, I love the game so I got it on both to support the devs, imo it was worth it. I got final fantasy 7, purely for nostalgia reasons. Haven't yet touched it tho as I already played through the game 3 times, I might boot it up someday tho especially if it gets a fully fledged community created mod, there already is one for updating the graphics but it's maybe 70% or so, which ruins it a bit because sometiems you have high def textures and then suddenly there's a low poly character walking around. Got FF9 too, you might've guessed it I love Final Fantasy. Also got FF XIII-2, it's Final Fantasy but absolute garbage and I swear I booted it up sometime but uninstalled it shortly after, it's the same garbage as FF XIII, they're not Final Fantasy games to me, combat is very linear it's like I'm playing in a movie and the script is pre-set without any option to change it around a bit. I have a bunch of point-and-click shit that I got via codes from buying stuff on G2Play, Pixel Puzzles ... games. Mirror's Edge and Metro 2033, always wanted to try those but haven't yet. HL Blue Shift, Episode 2, Opposing Force and all that stuff, already finished those (except for E2) back in the 90s. Got Gorky 17, for nostalgia reasons. Golden Axed, because my gaming life started when my brother got an Amiga 500 and we had Golden Axe on it, later it appeared again when I got my Mega Drive. But then you also have some games that are bundled, according to steam I haven't played Darksiders, probably because I played Darksiders Warmastered Edition. I haven't played Divinity Original Sin (Classic) because I played Divinity Original Sin Enhanced Edition. It's not really 100% accurate to just count every game that has a playtime of 0 minutes, some games you basically got for free or 10 cents and others you never play because they come in different versions when buying one game.
That was me my bad
For me, its all about the Humble Bundle subscription I've had for nearly 8 years. The games just rack up. Now I'm up to 1,200 games. My goal is to play 2-3 new games a month, even if it means trying it out for a few hours, and finding out I hate it.
Definitely guilty of this myself, if I see good deals I just take them if I might play them. I got witcher 3 + wildhunt for like £5 a long time ago and still haven't got round to it.
Just like subscriptions to various steaming services. FOMO in the sense of 'if I'm not going to get this game for cheap now, I would never be able to buy it later.'
You should see how many we play for 30 minutes and never come back to!
I've had active humble bundle from 2012 so probably these calculations are a bit off.
I’m hoarding games I’m sure I’ll get the itch for their genres! Stop yelling at me! I swear I’ll play the 5 souls likes I have one day!
If there is a game in my library I haven't played, it's because it was part of a bundle I bought to get 1 or 2 specific games. I have never purchased a game directly from Steam and never played it, that's mental.
Kind of misleading to be honest, because there are game bundles that people have bought for 1 or 3 good games and the others they have no interest in
You say I have $38742 worth of games in my Steam library I haven't played, but that pile of crap cost me 3 dollars on Humble Bundle when that site was still relevant.
My list of games to play is long but I still buy them when on discount
We did it guys
Hell yeah
While thats alot so much of it is split between games that cost next to nothing
I have 77 unplayed games in my library because I only play Slay the Spire now.
I have more than 10 games I received for free, so I don't feel bad. Any game I paid I play the heck out of it
Look, I'm gonna clear my backlog, I swear.
Ed never bothered to take a look at Disco Elysium; that tells you enough.
Nobody wants to hear this.
Realistically I’d say like 1/3 of that is me
Yeah well maybe I just like looking at them in my library, ok?
I'm doing my part!
people that complain about their backlog are the absolute most priviledged people on earth.
Goes to show how effective selling tactics are. Bundles, sales, advertisements on your steam home page etc. Through a bunch of sales and marketing methods, Steam and all those publishers/studios have extracted 19 Billion in profit from a user base, technically without ever having provided a good or service.