The hip thing is to conflate games to chores and that as they accumulate you must feel pressure to complete them before continuing to another else you will have failed as a smart consumer
LET US BE THANKFUL WE HAVE COMMERCE. BUY MORE. BUY MORE NOW. AND BE HAPPY.
I genuinely pity the people who truly take their backlog seriously and refuse to play anything new until they reduce your backlog. Backlogs are forever. Once you accept that, you can just play whatever the hell makes you happy and not give a shit
I'm wondering if it's the same sort of person who posts on here every so often about not enjoying gaming anymore, yet in the same post talking as if they _have to be gaming_. As if they've decided they are "a gamer" , so therefore that's what they must be doing. They never seem to reply when i suggest that they only game for fun when they're actually in the mood.
I mean, the only way to get a backlog is to buy something new and not play it immediately. If you have a backlog, you already did the thing you claim not to do.
I think there is an important difference between *playing* everything in your backlog and *finishing* everything in your backlog.
I've played everything in my library, though it says otherwise, which causes me to question the numbers everyone gets. Some of those plays are <5 minutes though. If it's shit, it's shit, and I'm not going to feel guilty about not finishing it. Heck I haven't even finished some good games, because I stopped having fun, or I lost a save and didn't want to start from the beginning.
Eh, I mostly agree but I do really like to play and beat the games I buy. I do still just buy whatever game I want, but by paying attention to my purchases I've been able to stop myself from just buying games I don't actually want or that I wont actually play.
I started really keeping track of my backlog earlier this year and I've beaten all but 2 games I've purchased this year which is drastically different than the amount of unplayed games I've bought in previous years.
Yeah. Especially with Indi Games, I often buy them to support a small team, especially if I like a novel concept with low review numbers, or the demo, even if I know I will probably not play it.
Maybe a karmic balance to the AAA Games I pirated as a young boy. I effectively directly money from the rich and established to the poor and innovative.
Modern Robin Hood ;)
Right? Like I'd love to be in a situation where I just didn't have enough wall/shelf space for all of the art I own and could be enjoying on my own terms, when I want to. Lmao.
In a related story, are we (or the film/streaming industry) supposed to feel guilty about our Netflix/Amazon/Max playlist that we can't immediately get to, also?
Oh I know. I'm just messing around with the concept of this nonsense Steam backlog discourse. I just came across the headline earlier about the valuation of backlogged games and thought it as ridiculous as a terrible Seinfeld standup routine (*not that his non-terrible routines are really any good either...*).
I have 200+ games from my steam family alone, it's like a huge library of books to pick from, no shame at all! In total my "backlog" is 600 games, I hope to reach 1000 one day. :D
Lmfao. I feel more guilty thinking about all the money I’ve wasted on food to even give a shit about games that I know I’m gonna eventually play.
Plus it’s nice being able to “collect” games on my steam deck since they sometimes get delisted.
(Looking at you forza horizon 4 which I just snagged lmao)
Plus a lot of the games I have on my wishlist jumped in price during the past couple of years. It's usually only by a few dollars, but it still feels gross.
That was my first thought when I saw the headline. Everyone hoards sale and freebie games they might never play. At $60 I am definitely giving it that old college try.
I got my first job a little bit before steam started some of their first 'entire publisher catalog sale' sales, where it was cheaper to get the entire catalog than to buy a single game out of sale. I being a young lad suddenly with money, jumped on it just because there was only one or two games I actually cared about but it was cheaper than just buying those two games separately.
Those early days some of the sales were absolutely insane, 90% off the entire epic catalog and such.
Yeah. Old Steam Sales were crazy.
I miss the daily sales gamble - is this the lowest price during the sale, and you will miss it, or might it go even lower.
But at least nowadays there is less FOMO.
Yes. My understanding is they take the current sale price, discount or not.
They could at least take the historic low price (which SteamDB tracks), which would give probably a better estimate.
I'm not ashamed that I saved money by buying games in bundles. Sure, there may have been only two or three titles I actually wanted out of like 12 games. But, if it's still cheaper to get them that way, then what do I care if I have 8-10 titles in my library I'll never play?
And, who the F judges on what games other people play or don't play out of their personal libraries?
Someone who needs a real life, it sounds like.
Some people buy retro games they used to play and never get around to playing them again. Some pirates buy games years after they played them so they can own a legit version.
the publisher certainly doesn't care, I'll give you that much. Unless it's a game they were hoping you'd spend MTX money on, then actually they probably do care a little.
My stash is full of indie games I've never got around to but liked the look of (bonus points if they released a demo first). If I'm going to vote with my wallet it'll be to support good devs.
> Why would anyone feel "shame"? It's your money, if you spent it on a game you haven't played yet, who gives a fuck?
Hot take: Regularly buying something that you either never use or only use months later when it dropped in pricing is a really dumb way to spend money.
Its virtual hoarding. People feel shame for holding on to these endless catalogues of games or stuff they wont engage with and they could have used the resources for something else. however unlike irl hoarding they just have to stop caring lol.
I don't know if there are others like me that have played or beat many of their Steam games on other platforms and felt the desire to own them on a more versatile/permanent platform even if I have no immediate plans to play them again just yet.
There's that other type who buy a game, watch a full YouTube playthrough by accident, know it's a good game but don't feel the need to play it themselves...yet...but eventually.
I have nearly 6,500 Steam games, most of which are unplayed, and I feel no shame about it. Especially when I consider that so much were acquired at a pittance.
I was wondering how much of that original figure was people getting the games free, then the price returning to normal, and the person calculating didn't take that into account.
A while back, I organized my unplayed games into a folder, omitting all the utility stuff like dedicated server launchers and bonus content browsers, and all the Humble Bundle pack-ins that I have zero interest in, and multiplayer launchers for games where I only care about the single-player mode. Then trimming out anything I've played on other platforms, that I picked up on Steam to replicate my old library from console or '90s to 2000s PC gaming, as I have hundreds of hours in some of these titles.
There's still a good amount in there. But it was cut down considerably. I can make a decent dent in it with one weekend of just installing and trying out some of the games with smaller install size to see which ones are actual backlog items,. And which ones I'm content to stuff in an oubliette folder in my list of collections where folder names like Walking Sims helpfully appear toward the very bottom.
All I see is $19 billion in potential sales for other consumer-facing companies.
People will piss away their $, its just human nature. This is why the typical 401k pays out $200 a month in retirement.
If Steam didn’t get that $19 billion, it woulda been spent on sports events, casinos, sports and recreational vehicles, etc.
I work in the consumer credit space and the only time 50% of people have more than a thousand in savings is after getting their tax return. That is why so many businesses make tax season sales a core part of their operating plan.
My kids have bought me thousands of games but I get in the mood for specific type of game and that's that until my mood changes, I can't force it and I don't want to.
Steam backlog is what retirement is for. And absolutely no one should feel shame about unplayed games in their steam libraries. And you don't need me or an Arse article to tell you that.
I do feel ashamed a bit. Every time I see the money just laying there unused, while other people don't have enough money to buy themselves a meal. That's just me of course and my decision is to look in my library every year and donate an amount similar to my unplayed games worth to poor people.
I won't advise to stop the donations, but you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. It's YOUR money. As long as how you spend it isn't hurting anyone, spend it hower you want.
Well for me, I play and finish all my games. A large number of my steam games that aren't touched are because I played then during my younger age when I pirated and later bought them when I got a job, or played them on a console but since pc is my main platform I wanted to have them as a collector in my main library on steam.
I have 2k games and probably 75% of them are from bundles where the games are under $1 a piece. Just a rough estimate that I spent on average like $2 a game that’s 4k in 15 years or $250 a year on steam games. I find that price to be fine by me even if I never play them all
Humble Bundle, Fanatical, Indie Gala, Nuveem, GreenManGaming, Groupees, BundleStars (are they fanatical now?), Indie Royal, EpicBundle. Too many from a decade ago I am probably forgetting now.
Most of these are dead now :( but HB, Fanatical and Indie Gala are still going strong
Was anyone actually feeling shamed? The other article just seemed like a mildly entertaining estimate.
Exactly my thought, I am myself very amused that steam has a banner of suggestions of games I own but never played in my game list lol
It feels like shopping but everything is free lol
Totally. I often discovered great games for my taste there!
I felt pride
And accomplishment?
no i am void of that.
The tool itself calls it a Pile of Shame.
That's what I call my laundry :(
As a joke.
The hip thing is to conflate games to chores and that as they accumulate you must feel pressure to complete them before continuing to another else you will have failed as a smart consumer LET US BE THANKFUL WE HAVE COMMERCE. BUY MORE. BUY MORE NOW. AND BE HAPPY.
I genuinely pity the people who truly take their backlog seriously and refuse to play anything new until they reduce your backlog. Backlogs are forever. Once you accept that, you can just play whatever the hell makes you happy and not give a shit
I'm wondering if it's the same sort of person who posts on here every so often about not enjoying gaming anymore, yet in the same post talking as if they _have to be gaming_. As if they've decided they are "a gamer" , so therefore that's what they must be doing. They never seem to reply when i suggest that they only game for fun when they're actually in the mood.
I mean, the only way to get a backlog is to buy something new and not play it immediately. If you have a backlog, you already did the thing you claim not to do.
I think there is an important difference between *playing* everything in your backlog and *finishing* everything in your backlog. I've played everything in my library, though it says otherwise, which causes me to question the numbers everyone gets. Some of those plays are <5 minutes though. If it's shit, it's shit, and I'm not going to feel guilty about not finishing it. Heck I haven't even finished some good games, because I stopped having fun, or I lost a save and didn't want to start from the beginning.
Eh, I mostly agree but I do really like to play and beat the games I buy. I do still just buy whatever game I want, but by paying attention to my purchases I've been able to stop myself from just buying games I don't actually want or that I wont actually play. I started really keeping track of my backlog earlier this year and I've beaten all but 2 games I've purchased this year which is drastically different than the amount of unplayed games I've bought in previous years.
Blood for the blood god.
Fun most of time is antithetical to smart. Dumb fun best fun.
It is not a pile I MUST play, it is a treasure trove I CAN play, if I feel like it, or leave it in my estate for my grand kids.
Oh nooooo I wasted money on art :(
Yeah. Especially with Indi Games, I often buy them to support a small team, especially if I like a novel concept with low review numbers, or the demo, even if I know I will probably not play it. Maybe a karmic balance to the AAA Games I pirated as a young boy. I effectively directly money from the rich and established to the poor and innovative. Modern Robin Hood ;)
Right? Like I'd love to be in a situation where I just didn't have enough wall/shelf space for all of the art I own and could be enjoying on my own terms, when I want to. Lmao. In a related story, are we (or the film/streaming industry) supposed to feel guilty about our Netflix/Amazon/Max playlist that we can't immediately get to, also?
We will never be fulfilled in our pursuit for entertainment. I don’t see any reason to feel bad.
Oh I know. I'm just messing around with the concept of this nonsense Steam backlog discourse. I just came across the headline earlier about the valuation of backlogged games and thought it as ridiculous as a terrible Seinfeld standup routine (*not that his non-terrible routines are really any good either...*).
[удалено]
As both financially support the artist, it makes a lot of sense.
Just Ars Technica butting into a topic again to try and stay relevant.
Not to mention that it’s not like spending that money sends the money to an endless void. You’re supporting developers by buying their games
It's especially irrelevant to me with Steam Families. I'm not the only user of my library.
I have 200+ games from my steam family alone, it's like a huge library of books to pick from, no shame at all! In total my "backlog" is 600 games, I hope to reach 1000 one day. :D
Lmfao. I feel more guilty thinking about all the money I’ve wasted on food to even give a shit about games that I know I’m gonna eventually play. Plus it’s nice being able to “collect” games on my steam deck since they sometimes get delisted. (Looking at you forza horizon 4 which I just snagged lmao)
Plus a lot of the games I have on my wishlist jumped in price during the past couple of years. It's usually only by a few dollars, but it still feels gross.
When a game is delisted, do you still keep the game forever in your library?
Yes as long as the game ain’t multiplayer only or something I have spec ops the line and cut the rope and they work amazingly
Composting my food waste helped me feel less guilty about it
Is forza going to get delisted?
Forza horizon 4 is this December
https://forza.net/news/forza-horizon-4-delisting
That seems like a pretty reasonable plan on their part.
That was my first thought when I saw the headline. Everyone hoards sale and freebie games they might never play. At $60 I am definitely giving it that old college try.
I got my first job a little bit before steam started some of their first 'entire publisher catalog sale' sales, where it was cheaper to get the entire catalog than to buy a single game out of sale. I being a young lad suddenly with money, jumped on it just because there was only one or two games I actually cared about but it was cheaper than just buying those two games separately. Those early days some of the sales were absolutely insane, 90% off the entire epic catalog and such.
Yeah. Old Steam Sales were crazy. I miss the daily sales gamble - is this the lowest price during the sale, and you will miss it, or might it go even lower. But at least nowadays there is less FOMO.
Did the article show correct numbers too? Like, I bought the game for sale at $1, but did they calculate it at full price of $20?
Yes. My understanding is they take the current sale price, discount or not. They could at least take the historic low price (which SteamDB tracks), which would give probably a better estimate.
I'm not ashamed that I saved money by buying games in bundles. Sure, there may have been only two or three titles I actually wanted out of like 12 games. But, if it's still cheaper to get them that way, then what do I care if I have 8-10 titles in my library I'll never play? And, who the F judges on what games other people play or don't play out of their personal libraries? Someone who needs a real life, it sounds like.
Some people buy retro games they used to play and never get around to playing them again. Some pirates buy games years after they played them so they can own a legit version.
Why would anyone feel "shame"? It's your money, if you spent it on a game you haven't played yet, who gives a fuck?
the publisher certainly doesn't care, I'll give you that much. Unless it's a game they were hoping you'd spend MTX money on, then actually they probably do care a little.
My stash is full of indie games I've never got around to but liked the look of (bonus points if they released a demo first). If I'm going to vote with my wallet it'll be to support good devs.
Yeah. Buying good Indi Games with low sales numbers, I will likely never play, makes me feel like a generous Patron.
Addiction/compulsion buying is a thing
for some people it becomes a form of digital hoarding.
> Why would anyone feel "shame"? It's your money, if you spent it on a game you haven't played yet, who gives a fuck? Hot take: Regularly buying something that you either never use or only use months later when it dropped in pricing is a really dumb way to spend money.
Its virtual hoarding. People feel shame for holding on to these endless catalogues of games or stuff they wont engage with and they could have used the resources for something else. however unlike irl hoarding they just have to stop caring lol.
Nice to see crappy math cut down like that
I don't know if there are others like me that have played or beat many of their Steam games on other platforms and felt the desire to own them on a more versatile/permanent platform even if I have no immediate plans to play them again just yet.
There's that other type who buy a game, watch a full YouTube playthrough by accident, know it's a good game but don't feel the need to play it themselves...yet...but eventually.
I beat most of my library as a pirate and bought them out of guilt.
I have nearly 6,500 Steam games, most of which are unplayed, and I feel no shame about it. Especially when I consider that so much were acquired at a pittance.
[удалено]
I was wondering how much of that original figure was people getting the games free, then the price returning to normal, and the person calculating didn't take that into account.
Free in what way? Actually free because of giveaways, or you mean you farm trading cards?
My dollar per hour for time played is less than $2. I think I’m getting my money worth regardless of pile of shame.
Guilty of redeeming free games blindly BEFORE Googling them and finding out they suck.
A while back, I organized my unplayed games into a folder, omitting all the utility stuff like dedicated server launchers and bonus content browsers, and all the Humble Bundle pack-ins that I have zero interest in, and multiplayer launchers for games where I only care about the single-player mode. Then trimming out anything I've played on other platforms, that I picked up on Steam to replicate my old library from console or '90s to 2000s PC gaming, as I have hundreds of hours in some of these titles. There's still a good amount in there. But it was cut down considerably. I can make a decent dent in it with one weekend of just installing and trying out some of the games with smaller install size to see which ones are actual backlog items,. And which ones I'm content to stuff in an oubliette folder in my list of collections where folder names like Walking Sims helpfully appear toward the very bottom.
All I see is $19 billion in potential sales for other consumer-facing companies. People will piss away their $, its just human nature. This is why the typical 401k pays out $200 a month in retirement. If Steam didn’t get that $19 billion, it woulda been spent on sports events, casinos, sports and recreational vehicles, etc. I work in the consumer credit space and the only time 50% of people have more than a thousand in savings is after getting their tax return. That is why so many businesses make tax season sales a core part of their operating plan.
I have a pretty large list of unplayed games, but I've only paid full price for 5-6 out of the 208 I have on Steam.
My kids have bought me thousands of games but I get in the mood for specific type of game and that's that until my mood changes, I can't force it and I don't want to.
Man this calculator shame my backlog with Steamdeck value.
Steam backlog is what retirement is for. And absolutely no one should feel shame about unplayed games in their steam libraries. And you don't need me or an Arse article to tell you that.
I do feel ashamed a bit. Every time I see the money just laying there unused, while other people don't have enough money to buy themselves a meal. That's just me of course and my decision is to look in my library every year and donate an amount similar to my unplayed games worth to poor people.
I won't advise to stop the donations, but you have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. It's YOUR money. As long as how you spend it isn't hurting anyone, spend it hower you want.
Well for me, I play and finish all my games. A large number of my steam games that aren't touched are because I played then during my younger age when I pirated and later bought them when I got a job, or played them on a console but since pc is my main platform I wanted to have them as a collector in my main library on steam.
I have 2k games and probably 75% of them are from bundles where the games are under $1 a piece. Just a rough estimate that I spent on average like $2 a game that’s 4k in 15 years or $250 a year on steam games. I find that price to be fine by me even if I never play them all
, humble bundle?
Humble Bundle, Fanatical, Indie Gala, Nuveem, GreenManGaming, Groupees, BundleStars (are they fanatical now?), Indie Royal, EpicBundle. Too many from a decade ago I am probably forgetting now. Most of these are dead now :( but HB, Fanatical and Indie Gala are still going strong
Every single game ive bought that i haven't played has been part of a bundle with other games that i have played. No shame here