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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

#111

Post by latexr »

throw101010 wrote: post #57
bhaney wrote: post #10

Nearly all of my "unplayed" Steam games have been played plenty by me, just not through Steam. Sometimes I think about how my Steam account contributes to statistics that are used to drive narratives like this where "not time-tracked by Steam" = "unplayed game bought by an insane collector." But chances are that narrative is overwhelmingly right most of the time, so whatever.

Just to clarify, I have the same usage and it's because I "pirate" games and only buy the ones that I play more than once/couple hours. I don't trust and nor like the refund policies/processes and all kinds of fences they implement, and often even after I have bought a game I will keep using the pirated version because it is more convenient (offline play, no need to login and it's already installed... when games are…

> I don't trust and nor like the refund policies/processes and all kinds of fences they implement

Steam is pretty reasonable. If you bought a game in the past 14 days and played fewer than 2 hours, you can get a refund for any reason. You need only go to your recent purchases, “report a problem”, and with a couple of clicks you’re done.

If works incredibly well and with no hassle, I have done it a number of times for games which ran like crap on my machine or plain weren’t fun.

I’ve heard GOG is even better with their returns, though I have never tried it. And they sell games which are DRM-free, so even better than a pirated version.

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

#112

Post by metabagel »

bhattisatish wrote: post #93

Taking a segue, I am a 50+ man who hasn't played any games in my working life. I did play Prince of Persia 2 but never crossed level 1. Played Doom in the network mode with classmates. Now I want to start exploring games. I am on Ubuntu with Intel graphics. I am ready to invest in a joystick or gamepad. What games do you guys recommend to me? Also any hardware accessories, other than GPU's, that is? I just tried Stea…

Can't go wrong with Portal, although I had to look up a walkthrough from time to time in order to get past a puzzle, especially the end puzzle. I think it should play pretty well for you on Ubuntu and be a lot of fun.

Portal 2 is even better than the first one, but play them both.

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

#113

Post by spydum »

sfn42 wrote: post #63
ASalazarMX wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correlates with my experience. Sometimes sales are so attractive you buy several games for cheap, or even an entire franchise, but playing them all can take enough time that another sale comes again. Red Dead Redemption 2 has been collecting digital dust in my library because I'm still playing Fallout 76. I stopped buying more because it feels wrong.

You should play RDR2, it's absolutely phenomenal. That and Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 are the best role playing games I've played in the past decade.

Full agreement. Rdr2, Witcher 3, and mass effect trilogy for me.

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

#114

Post by y1n0 »

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’m in this category. I have two tiers of games on my wishlist. Those that if they are less than $20 I would buy and those that if they are less than $3 I would buy.

It’s not automatic, sometimes I just don’t feel like buying a game anymore even when it’s on sale, and I’ll drop them when if they go on sale and I don’t want them enough to pay.

But I do end up with a few games in my library I haven’t played yet.

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

#115

Post by NoboruWataya »

throw101010 wrote: post #57
bhaney wrote: post #10

Nearly all of my "unplayed" Steam games have been played plenty by me, just not through Steam. Sometimes I think about how my Steam account contributes to statistics that are used to drive narratives like this where "not time-tracked by Steam" = "unplayed game bought by an insane collector." But chances are that narrative is overwhelmingly right most of the time, so whatever.

Just to clarify, I have the same usage and it's because I "pirate" games and only buy the ones that I play more than once/couple hours. I don't trust and nor like the refund policies/processes and all kinds of fences they implement, and often even after I have bought a game I will keep using the pirated version because it is more convenient (offline play, no need to login and it's already installed... when games are…

One admittedly rather niche example of buying games through Steam only to play them* outside of Steam is where you download data to use it in some open-source remake that relies on the original assets. OpenMW/Morrowind is the main one that comes to mind for me - I have sunk dozens if not hundreds of hours into OpenMW but needed to download the Morrowind assets from Steam to do so (after I lost my original game CD). There are a few other examples of such games out there, like CorsixTH/Theme Hospital (actually not available on Steam I believe, but available from GOG so same principle).

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

#116

Post by raincole »

whoisyc wrote: post #32

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 waiti…

> these techniques benefit the developer not the player

And when every dev is doing that it hardly benefits the devs either.

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

#117

Post by y1n0 »

HPsquared wrote: post #62
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…

Time is the biggest cost of gaming.

This it’s true, and must weighed carefully.

I prefer casual games because of this.

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

#119

Post by luxuryballs »

D13Fd wrote: post #80

I have a huge backlog of games I’ve bought on sale knowing I would enjoy them, but never got around to playing them. It’s well over 50% of my game library. The problem for me is that a good game that you really like can easily eat multiple thousands of hours. It’s just a time consuming hobby. And it takes a lot of effort to get started on a new game. I can’t help but think “wouldn’t I rather spend that time improving…

I think this is the real reason for the metric, browsing steams sales and scooping deals for later, I wonder what the numbers would be if they compared playtime with full price purchase or purchase made not during major store-wide sales.

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

#120

Post by raincole »

izacus wrote: post #92
levocardia wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like basic price discrimination. Occasional sales let you capture some of the people for whom your game (or the option to play your game, maybe never exercised...) is worth $10 instead of $20 (or whatever). I don't really see who is harmed here, other than players who say "well maybe the game will go on sale..." -- but did they really value the game at its sticker price to begin with?

> but did they really value the game at its sticker price to begin with? reply Factorio is a game that's sold at 35$ price point - half of the usual new game price. Does that mean that the developer doesn't value his game when it's so cheap? What a silly notion.

I guess you're being rhetorical or sarcastic, but for people who're not familiar with today's gaming market: $35 is a very high price for 2D games like Factorio. Most 2D games are $10~$20. If you take sales into account, it would be much closer to $10 than to $20.
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