[mort96]

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 data presented by the article.

[brandall10]

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.

[loloquwowndueo]

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.

[mattmanser]

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.

[smt88]

It absolutely makes sense to buy things you may (emphasis on may) never use, especially if it never "expires". Insurance is a great example.

People are buying these games knowing they're adding to their backlog and likely won't get through the whole thing, but the price is so low that the chance they'll want to play the game someday is enough.

I'm one of these (apparently rather typical) consumers and will buy almost any modern-class AAA game if it's $5.

[loloquwowndueo]

Tell me you don’t really know how insurance works without telling me :)

You’re not “buying it and then not using it”.

[smt88]

> Tell me you don’t really know how insurance works without telling me :)

This will be interesting news to the insurance company I co-founded :) :) :)

> You’re not “buying it and then not using it”.

This boils down to semantics, but most consumers feel like they're "using" their insurance plan only when they file a claim.

Unused games in my Steam library are basically insurance against being bored.

[loloquwowndueo]

Oh so then you’re just walking around pretending you don’t know how insurance works ;)

[brandall10]

My argument is the value quotient is so insane that the primary friction to purchase is likely more down to the UX of the storefront to complete the purchase, rather than the purchase price itself.

So in that vein, it doesn't matter if there will be another identical sale. The psychological things "in the way" to complete a purchase are virtually non-existent if you had even a minor passing interest in the title the first time you see it at that fire sale price.

[soulofmischief]

I like supporting the arts. Sometimes I like the idea of a game and want the studio to keep the lights on, even if it takes me years to get around to playing it. It's about signalling what kind of games I want to see in the world.

[toast0]

Sometimes games get pulled from the marketplace. In which case you can't buy it later.

That's not super common on steam though.

[ww520]

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

[stogot]

5-15% is not aggressive. 50% is aggressive and that’s when i bought games on steam that i never played

[madaxe_again]

Of, not off. So 85-95% discount.

[tylervigen]

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."

[ASalazarMX]

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.

[egypturnash]

Bundles contribute a lot too. Hey you can get these three games for dirt cheap because you own another game in this bundle! One of them’s interesting to you, maybe even already on your wishlist, the others are not, and the bundle is less than the full price of the one you think might be neat. The others just sink to the bottom of your collection, uninstalled, unplayed, unloved.

[red-iron-pine]

bingo. big sales and GoG deals, etc. mean I can get 5+ games for the same price as one moderately priced AAA game.

but usually I'm buying the bundle for one or two things, and the rest is just window dressing. maybe I'll get to em, maybe not...

[sfn42]

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.

[spydum]

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

[sfn42]

You should try KCD2, can not recommend it enough

[ASalazarMX]

I know, but I can't deal with two massive RPGs right now. It doesn't help that a multiplayer RPG like Fallout 76 multiplies the role playing opportunities.

[mey]

Ditto. I have several games in my backlog that I got on deep discount, but need serious time commitment to play. It's going to take me a little bit to play Witcher 3, Disco Elysium, or the entire Mass Effect trilogy. Also there is a certain time horizon on steam that play time wasn't tracked. I am pretty sure I played Half Life 2, since that's why I have a steam account in the first place.

Edit: You may not want to know if your steam account is old enough to drink...

[b3lvedere]

I uses to collect almost everything, now having over 2000 games. Now i select them for Steam Deck playability. I still hoard a lot, but i also try to at least start them once and play a little before moving on to the next one :)

[magicalhippo]

I've bought entire publisher catalogs on summer/winter sales years ago. Tons of games, while I might primarily be interested in a handful. It was just cheaper to buy the whole catalog.

[threetonesun]

I have considerably less time than money, at least when it comes to $5 games that take 50+ hours to beat.

(I'll get to you someday, Mass Effect)

[nightski]

That's just because we aren't retired yet. :)

[eddd-ddde]

My steam library is just an extension of my retirement portfolio. Diversification if you will.

[mlyle]

There are also weird effects with family sharing. I have things in my account that my kids have played but that I haven’t.

[deelowe]

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.

[izacus]

The other thing is abuse of percentages. "Only 5% of US population has ever finished a video game." (which is a staggering 16 million people). This type of thing.

Instead of focusing on folks who actually do invest time into your product, even if the % is low.

[AznHisoka]

I think because the “true” statement is more awkward as a headline, and requires more seconds to parse. Thus they need to dumb it down.

The real headline would be “Most games people buy are never played” or something. Which can mean a lot of things like do people often buy games that nobody else has ever played?

[mlyle]

Welcome to syntactic ambiguity. But I think this was clear enough to infer what it meant before the rephrase (aside from some edge cases like how does this play with gifts and family sharing).

[HPsquared]

Time is the biggest cost of gaming.

[HenryBemis]

Yes. I get it that people also want to try and play various games. I think that 'eventually' everyone has their go-to game, just like everyone has their 'go-to' takeout/takeaway. I want pizza or burger. I will try a different joint, but it will be one or the other. The same for gaming. Defender of the Crown, AoE II, Fortnite. I stopped buying games a long time ago. I am sure that there are many great games.. but... I like pizza, I like burger. You can tempt me with sushi once per quarter, but DotC, AoE, FN.. and that's that. I got 'no time' to learn/master a new game. Or rather I got time, but I will not 'invest' it to start another open-world game that will require 5 years!

[y1n0]

This it’s true, and must weighed carefully.

I prefer casual games because of this.

[y1n0]

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.

[xandrius]

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?

[jakewins]

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?

[LikesPwsh]

% 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.

[HenryBemis]

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.

[xandrius]

I think it depends on the upbringing on such kids: if you collect alone in the dark and share none of it with your kids before you're gone then it's not surprising that they wouldn't know what to do with any of those.

[foota]

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.

[izacus]

Buying Humble Bundles doesn't really make a you a rich whale though.

[idopmstuff]

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).

[acdha]

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.

[scsh]

The point is, whether intentional or not, the submitted title is ambiguous and possesses the capability to mislead. When talking about data we should strive to use as accurate language as possible.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone's interpretation of the title tended toward their own experience, or lack thereof, with Steam.

[acdha]

Sure, I would edit it as well but it seems overblown as a nitpick thread.

[cAtte_]

the original title is "Most people who buy your game won’t play it", which is actually equivalent to what you're saying (even though it still says 'most people'!). HN mods edit titles to avoid clickbait and the like, which can end up like this

[mort96]

Oh you're right! The title of the article on the website matches the data presented by the article. I didn't notice that it was different.

Pretty bad of HN to edit a good title into a dishonest one like this.

[Kinrany]

Which can be perfectly rational even financially when discounts are >50%.

[xingped]

It amazes me that the community still tolerates the sloppy butcher that is the automated HN headline editor. An absolute embarrassment is what it is.

[bmacho]

+1 complain for the editoralized title. It's so much worse than the original.

[oc1]

Am i the only one who couldn't care less about these semantics and doesn't get what the heck you're even talking about?