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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

#161

Post by bhattisatish »

petderek wrote: post #109
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…

Regarding gamepads: you can use the xbox/playstation ones with your computer. Bluetooth is hit or miss for me (windows), but they both work really well with a USB cable. Its subjective of course, but the console manufacturers do a pretty good job with comfort and quality. If you liked Doom, it might be fun to play through some of the newer doom games like Doom 2016 and Doom Eternal and see how they've evolved over th…

Oh I wasn't aware that I could use the xbox/playstation controllers on Ubuntu. I guess that makes it easier to buy one.

I did not play much of Doom in a single player mode. It was typically in a LAN party my friends used to organize. I don't have much nostalgia for the game as such, more for the time and friends during those period :-) I am not sure I wanna explore the newer versions. But I might try...

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

#162

Post by crazygringo »

qnleigh wrote: post #106
tokai wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting a product on sale is amoral because somebody might buy something they don't need, is weirdest take I have seen in a while. We're not all just whales, some people don't have that much money. Plenty of teenagers, unemployed, etc. are able to get some good experiences because of good sales.

I think the point is that, on the whole, sales manipulate consumers into spending -more- money than they otherwise would have. Of course this isn't true for every person all the time, but on average I suspect it is; sales are common partly because they actually lead to more revenue, despite the discount.

That's not why sales lead to more revenue.

They do because people who can't afford full price will wait to buy on sale. Whereas people who can afford full price will often just buy it when they want it for instant satisfaction.

So they get mostly full price from people who can pay full price, and make it accessible to people who can't afford it at full price.

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

#163

Post by bhattisatish »

pie_flavor wrote: post #160
pie_flavor wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hat in time sounds quirky and interesting. Will give it a go

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

#164

Post by sfn42 »

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…

Steam's refund policy is awesome. You can play any game for up to 2 hours and refund for no reason. When no man's sky came out I bought it, played it for like 15 minutes, refunded it. The next day I thought I'd give it another shot so I bought it again, played for a little while and refunded again.

I have refunded a bunch of games, never had any problem with it. As long as you haven't played more than 2 hours they refund no questions asked.

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

#165

Post by jader201 »

Maybe I’m not the crowd this article is referring to, but for the most part, I wishlist games I’m interested in, then buy them on sale. As a result, I’ve played most of the games in my library.

Having said that, there are still games I haven’t played, but these are older titles when I used to follow Steam on Twitter, and would grab random games on sale.

Since moving to only buying wishlisted games (I no longer follow any other feeds of sales), I’ll only buy games I’m already interested in.

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

#166

Post by renjimen »

metabagel wrote: post #112
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.

Seconded. And play Half Life 1 and 2. They’re arguably the best single player FPS games of all time.

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

#167

Post by renjimen »

bhattisatish wrote: post #153
Levitating wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Outer Wilds is amazing if you like puzzles and/or sci fi.

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

#168

Post by ReaperCub »

Jare wrote: post #140
ReaperCub wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason factorio devs can take such a stance is that they crowd financed the game over a decade ago when doing that was viable, and since then the game has achieved cult status. Sure the game was officially released in 2020, but it had been in Early Access since 2016. Ironically I bought it and never played it. I only bought it because I played a clone of the game called "Dyson's Sphere" made by a Chinese develope…

> FOMO happens typically when a big game is released FOMO around sales: I've bought a bunch of games when they were on sale even though I was not going to play them right away, simply because I didn't want to end up wanting to play them later and have to buy them full(-ish) price. And then I never played them anyway.

I understood what they were saying, I don't think that is generally true due to how Steam tends to operate.

There isn't going to be much FOMO when people know that a game is going to be on sale every other month. Maybe if you are unfamiliar with Steam you might do that.

I've heard people say plenty of times "I might pick it up when it is on sale again". That seems like the opposite of FOMO.

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

#169

Post by omnimus »

yreg wrote: post #96
dathinab wrote: post #71

I won't say it's not hording, but there are also some other reasons you can't well untangle from hording: - buying games you played pirated before (now that you can afford them), but you already played them so no need to play again - buying games you played at someone else place, lend to you etc. Again you already played them but want to give back to the authors. - buying games you will play later, and once you play…

- buying a bundle of 12 games to get the two games you actually want to play - donating to a charity event that gives you games

bundles have to be the biggest reason. i have actually spammed my steam account this way with big number of games that i have no idea what they even are and often times are just meh. you buy 10game bundle because its cheaper than 2 of the games you want bought separately and now i have 8 new unknown things on my account

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

#170

Post by whynotmaybe »

tgv wrote: post #127
mystifyingpoi wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is "gear acquisition syndrome". It refers to all guitar related equipment, actually I'd say that it refers to pedals much more than guitars.

Synthesizers (and related stuff, such as effects or virtual instruments) qualify too. I don't know if there are other instruments which trigger this behavior.

More than just instrument. GAS exists in Photography, cycling, camping, DIY, automotive repair,...

It's linked to the dopamine anticipation loop that buying an item feels like you're making progress.

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