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Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

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Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#31

Post by tylervigen »

mort96 wrote: post #14

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…

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."

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#32

Post by whoisyc »

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.

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#33

Post by [deleted] »

xandrius wrote: post #21
mort96 wrote: post #14

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…

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?

[deleted]

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#34

Post by [deleted] »

deelowe wrote: post #18
mort96 wrote: post #14

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…

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.

[deleted]

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#35

Post by jonhohle »

marcyb5st wrote: post #4

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.

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.

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#36

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

> 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 ...

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#37

Post by foota »

xandrius wrote: post #21
mort96 wrote: post #14

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…

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?

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.

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#38

Post by jakewins »

xandrius wrote: post #21
mort96 wrote: post #14

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…

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?

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?

Re: Most people who buy games on Steam never play them

#40

Post by acdha »

idopmstuff wrote: post #29
xandrius wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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).

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.
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