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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

#151

Post by bhattisatish »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #105
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…

You might want to try out the Steam Deck - https://store.steampowered.com/steamdeck You might like story driven games, like Read Dead Redemption 2, Witcher 3, Mass Effect... all on sale on Steam currently. You can also install emulators on the Steam Deck, so you can play those games before you started your working life. Otherwise look into how to install Valve's Proton on Ubuntu to play the games available on Steam.…

I installed Steam for Ubuntu after reading the parent article :-) But I was completely overwhelmed by the choices, that's why I asked for some reco.

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

#152

Post by HenryBemis »

LikesPwsh wrote: post #30
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?

% of people vs % of games. A single person who "collects" games or buys them because it seems like good value can have thousands of titles in their steam library. Someone who actually plays all of them will have a much smaller number.

On a sad follow-up, (because it happened 'near me'), once the 'collector' dies, his/her kids will never play those games. Today's 15yo boys will never try to play Zaxxon, Wizball, Saboteur 2. So someone who is 30+ buying (e.g.) 100 games, should know that their kids will safely ignore 99 of them. As game-tech progresses, I think that it's only me (the dinosaur) or few of us that play on a PC and all youngsters play on them fancy consoles. 'Any day now' games will require a VR set (10-15 years?), so no more.

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

#153

Post by bhattisatish »

Levitating wrote: post #102
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…

It depends on what games you like. One game that I recommend to anyone is Firewatch. It's a beautiful, linear story game with easy to understand mechanics. And it only lasts a few hours, so it's a small time investment. I can also recommend Outer Wilds. It's a puzzle story game. It gives you a lot of freedom, with the downside that it's somewhat easier to get stuck. For this game you should buy a gamepad. If you like…

Thanks for the reco.

Anything that requires mouse is out. I have a RSI on my wrist, and anytime i use the scroll wheel it flares up.

I am ready to buy a gamepad. I guess I will need to explore which one I should buy.

Outer wilds looks interesting. Something I will explore one of these weekends.

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

#154

Post by bhattisatish »

namr2000 wrote: post #108
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…

There are still a HUGE number of games you can play with Intel integrated graphics all of which are extremely good. Many of the greatest games of all time are quite old or 2D which means you don't need anything special to run them. At most I'd invest in a controller (both Xbox & PS5 controllers are compatible) but you don't even need that to play almost all games on Steam. Some cheap but great games: Hollow Knight, C…

Thanks for the reco. Will explore couple of these titles.

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

#155

Post by pie_flavor »

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…

There isn't really a good way to recommend a game to someone who's never played a game before - preferences regarding immersion, complex mechanics, turn-based vs live-action, etc. vary wildly. Someone who likes Europa Universalis 4 frequently does not like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and vice versa. With these constraints I would probably recommend Cyberpunk 2077 (no gamepad), and if you decide you like live-action, Hades, and if you don't, Slay the Spire.

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

#156

Post by Qem »

When I graduated and got a job, one of my first aquisitions was a new game console and several titles. It sat mostly idle, because despite earning the money to afford it, now I lacked the free time. After a couple of years gathering dust I gifted it to my younger cousin.

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

#157

Post by mattmanser »

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #133
brandall10 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article glosses over what I'd have to believe is the biggest reason - some games, in particular older AAA games, are discounted so aggressively that it seems silly to not purchase. Like 5-15% of the original retail price.

It’s never silly to not buy something you’re not going to use. Particularly once you realize there will be an identical sale or discount in 6 months.

Think of it a different way, you like city builder games, but you don't want to play one right now. You can buy 3 different city builder games for $10 during a sale. And when you do fancy a city builder, pick the one that most appeals in the moment.

By purchasing a bunch of different game cheaply, yoh have the choice of what kind of story/mechanic to play when you do want to play a new game.

You're speculating on your future desires, and you might as well get a selection when it's cheap.

A game pass subscription sort of scratches the same itch, but you don't own the games. So can't replay a few years later if you aren't presently subscribed.

It's not about being stupid with your money, it's actually a cheap way to give yourself choice in the future.

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

#158

Post by fasterik »

dvdkon wrote: post #79
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?

Yes, and the devs' refusal to ever put the game on sale has led to me still not buying Factorio, despite hearing how good it is. I'm just not sure of the value when I buy most my games at 10 EUR or (much) lower.

Factorio has deep gameplay. You can spend thousands of hours on it and still have more to learn and experience.

If it's your kind of thing, spending $70 for the base game plus the Space Age expansion is really good value; orders of magnitude more than most games. But if you want something that will give you a few hours of entertainment and then move on from it, it's probably not for you.

There's a free demo which has more than enough gameplay for players to decide whether they want to invest in the game.

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

#159

Post by ww520 »

brandall10 wrote: post #128
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…

The article glosses over what I'd have to believe is the biggest reason - some games, in particular older AAA games, are discounted so aggressively that it seems silly to not purchase. Like 5-15% of the original retail price.

Yes. I’ve loaded game buying whenever Epic has a free promotion.

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

#160

Post by pie_flavor »

pie_flavor wrote: post #155
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…

There isn't really a good way to recommend a game to someone who's never played a game before - preferences regarding immersion, complex mechanics, turn-based vs live-action, etc. vary wildly. Someone who likes Europa Universalis 4 frequently does not like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and vice versa. With these constraints I would probably recommend Cyberpunk 2077 (no gamepad), and if you decide you like live-action, H…

Ah, I just saw your adjacent comment about RSI. First-person games like CP77 can be played with gamepad, they're just better with mouse. But without a mouse, I'd switch my initial recommendation to A Hat In Time.
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