36% of All Games Owned on Steam Are Never Played

[grigjd3]

Only 36%? Geez, I ought install some of those purchases and try them out...

 

[Do4600]

These statistics really are not trustworthy. Out of the 340 games I own, I think I haven't played maybe ten, most of them were really bad games or games I didn't care to try from bundles. Like a quake 2 mission pack or rockstar's midnight club 2. According to steam I've never played a DLC, also according to steam I haven't played 1/3 of my games. Probably because they didn't even really start tracking usage until 2009, and then it was unreliable until about 2011. So I haven't played less than 3% of my games but my usage statistics say I haven't played about 35% of my games. That's over a 30% margin of error, it's really not useful information for any games before 2011, Skyrim barely makes it in.

 

[grigjd3]

Spiral Knights (pretty sure this is a free-to-play game)

Spiral Knights is free to play and a lot of work in that game was done by the artist behind these webcomics:

http://threepanelsoul.com/
http://machall.com/

 

[Xan Krieger]

So apparently it makes me a minority that never played Dota 2 and I only spent 4 hours in Team Fortress 2 which I didn't enjoy and I've never played Counter Strike. Also I never imagined Football Manager 2014 was that popular, I only have like one friend that plays it. It's not even about football, it's about soccer.

 

[lunavixen]

The unplayed games on my steam library are ones that've come from humble bundles (like the Sam & Max Games, W&G and the Hector series) or are games that my brother got duplicates of and gifted to me despite me having little interest in them, and some of the ones I have with low play time are either short and finished, or I didn't like them after a short time. The figures given are too broad without explanation, you can't go iff play time alone

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

So apparently it makes me a minority that never played Dota 2 and I only spent 4 hours in Team Fortress 2 which I didn't enjoy and I've never played Counter Strike. Also I never imagined Football Manager 2014 was that popular, I only have like one friend that plays it. It's not even about football, it's about soccer.

its called football not soccer you...!

you put foot on ball, it doesnt get any easier

 

[Strazdas]

i am guilty of it as well, but do plan to play majority of them and the limiting factor is time, the rest are from humblebundles that had unified keys when i really only wanted 1 of them but had to activate all 8 at once and stuff like that.

I do know a person who has over 700 steam games. he uses steam roulette (its real) to randomly chose a game he hasnt played every week.

The main offenders probably being the humble-bundle games. When you buy a 1 dollar bundle because you want 1 game, there's going to be 5 games just gathering dust in the library.

yeah, those are annoying. whats worse, is they dont always give you seperate keys. when they di i always take that one key and leave the rest inactive not to cloud my steam list.

I have it, never played it. The biggest issue is that it's a really big game and my free time is rather limited right now. Someday, when I get a big chunk of free time to play with. In the meantime, I've been working through the pile of shorter games on my list.

thats what holidays are for!
No, but seriuosly, dont try that. i once dedicated a holiday to a single huge game. i didnt felt rested after that.

-games i bought because they were objectives in steam sales to get a badge or achievement

people actually do that? is few pixels near your avatar in steam worth the money? i can understand buying to support developer or using humble bundle as charity donation and not caring about the games themselves, but for a badge?
then i guess there are people who buy games just to boost their gamerscore on xbox, so its kidna like that.

 

[Strazdas]

One such surprise (and non-surprise) was the list of top/most played games on Steam. I would have thought Borderlands 2 and Planetside 2 would have been much higher, whereas I would have expected Terraria and Alien Swarm to have been much lower.

I am not sure about BL2 but planetside 2 has a non-steam version. and if i learn anything playing games that have both versions is that non-steam version owners dont want to connect their games to steam ever. this of course lowers their steam statistics as it only shows portion of the population playing.
Terraria is the new minecraft as far as obsession goes.

Lets play a fun game everyone. Look at your steam library and state the % of games you haven't played yet. Mine is siting at 58%.

Damn real life responsibilities I still need to play the original half life.

Ill do two numbers.
One for steam, and one for my overall games including nonsteam and those that i plan to buy but i didnt yet.
the first one, steam is 3/49 games played.
The second one, including games i played outside steam and ones that are on my list to play when i have time but not bought yet 124 of 266 games played (the list grows and shrinks sometimes, so its only a snapshot value)

If this is because of the Humble Bundles then it's okay, but I don't know if the Humble Bundle sells enough copies to make this level of impact (their weekly sale and current bundle combined have only sold 100,000 units which is nothing averaged over 172 million users). If it's because of steam sales, then slowly people are going to get better at making purchasing decisions they want and some of that money is going to dry off.

well, this weeks humble bundle is quite poor offering. ive seen and bought from some that sold half a million copies. besides, they happen every week, so there is like what 50+ of them so far, and thats only one of many bundle providers. now i have bought couple hunble bundles where only 1 game from them i was going to play. that usually means 7 games left unplayed, and while i tend not to cash-in these codes when they are seperate, most people probably do. so if we got roughtly rounded 25 million users with 7 games they dont want to play (and thats assuming anyone ever only bought from hunblebundle and not others) thats sewerely skewing statistics.

Of course, I bought it on sale after I'd put an easy 200 hours into my friends 360 version, and while I know the PC version is much, much better, I just haven't been in the mood. I also blame Tanks, EVE, League, Tale of Two Wastelands, Planetside 2, and life.

as a person that plays both eve and tanks i can understand how there is no time left for anything else

24% are played for between one and ten hours.

A fair amount of indie games can be completed in less than 10 hours.

a fair amount of AAA titles can be completed in less than 10 hours. and im not even talking shooters solely. Mafia 2 can be completed in 8 hours. Prototyle games can be completed under 10 hours. If you dont do sidequests - all fallout games can easily be compelted within 10 hours. Assasin creed games can be completed in under 10 hours if you dont explore.

I'm pretty sure that steam still tracks playtime when offline. That said, the fact that just over 5% of Skyrim owners haven't played it isn't surprising. I know a lot of people who owned it on the 360 or PS3 that bought it on steam, but had already played through 90% of the game. Why install that huge game when you've already beat it?

beating vanilla skyrim is like less than 5% of that game.

 

[JaceArveduin]

Of course, I bought it on sale after I'd put an easy 200 hours into my friends 360 version, and while I know the PC version is much, much better, I just haven't been in the mood. I also blame Tanks, EVE, League, Tale of Two Wastelands, Planetside 2, and life.

as a person that plays both eve and tanks i can understand how there is no time left for anything else

And to make it worse, I've learned a card shop just opened up here, so I've been spending a few hours a day there playing Magic and faffing about in general. Like today the guy had some harem anime running, and we were playing "Spot That Fanservice!" We decided if it was a drinking game, we'd all be dead before the intro was over. Seriously, in one episode I'm pretty sure we could replace all of the blood a Blue Whale has with alcohol.

 

[Hemingslay]

So... The next time a production company complains about people playing their games without paying for them, we can pat them consolingly and remind them that there's probably also a big chunk of people paying for their games without playing them?

Really, though, doesn't everyone do the same thing with books? Things that look new and exciting on a store shelf, but lose their lustre when they're next to our old familiar favourites?

I swear, every time I get a new game on Steam I'm super jazzed all through installing it, but just as I'm about to boot it up for the first time I change my mind and kill another week of my life with Civilization V instead...

 

[Flammablezeus]

I love that I have a backlog of games to choose from. It's easier on PC than on console (although I do have numerous console games that I've not yet played) and it's great. If I'm bored, I have a decent selection of games to choose from. Considering I'm often in the mood for a specific kind of gameplay, this suits me fine.

 

[GabeZhul]

The only real news here was that people are buying skyrim and never even playing it. ITS A GOOD GAME PEOPLE!

I'm guilty of this, I have a ton of games(feel free to look me up to see how guilty) but in my defense, a massive amount of those came from bundles where i wanted one of the games and it was cheaper than buying it individually. Then again I'm also obsessive compulsive so thats could be a factor too

I actually have a friend who has been a great fan of the Elder Scrolls games ever since Daggerfall, and he bought Skyrim on steam pretty much when it came out but yet to play it because he is horrible with money and can never get a large enough sum together to finally upgrade his antique PC to the point where he can actually play it...
Just one anecdotal example, but there to point out that there can be other reasons beside humble bundles why some games remain unplayed (though said bundles are probably still the biggest offenders by far)...

 

[weirdee]

I'm willing to bet that most of those are mediocre indie games that came with bundles, unless they're specifically excluding them from the data set, which it doesn't sound like they are because they're only going by public data.

 

[gorfias]

Looking at my steam library, around 100 of the 280 games have never been installed.

The main offenders probably being the humble-bundle games. When you buy a 1 dollar bundle because you want 1 game, there's going to be 5 games just gathering dust in the library.

Still, a very interesting (possibly disturbing) trend.

Also, on my profile all of the Borderlands DLC are listed as games, which becomes another 6 "games" where only one is played.

I'm in the same shoes (mostly humble-bundle). But I don't think it disturbing. I like that the community is supporting developers, even if they don't use all they buy. Surpluses are a good thing.

Steam itself does this to me sometimes. I bought the Lara Croft games for about $15. It included the newest one, and about 8 other games, 6 of which are so old with such antiquated gameplay that they aren't worth downloading. It was still a great deal and I hope the developers all get a taste to encourage them to make more.

 

[Gailim]

Remember when PC gamers were all pirates that never payed for the games the played?

and as others have said this stat isn't quite what it seems. According to steam I have never played Half Life 2: Episode 1 or 2. When of course I have beat both multiple times, I just did it before Steam started tracking playtime in 2009-ish.

between stuff like that, humble bundles and those amazing 5 for 5 indie bundles from the 2010 winter sale there is a lot of stuff where I only wanted one of the games.

The only game on Steam I have purchased with no intent to ever play is Morrowind and I did that for other reasons

 

[Dale Ware]

I do know a person who has over 700 steam games. he uses steam roulette (its real) to randomly chose a game he hasnt played every week.

This is a thing? where does one get this?

I read the article, and i'm taking it as a challenge. To at least play an hour of every game in my steam catalogue.

So i'm apparently at 83 played of 205 or 40% if i've done that right...

Challenge accepted.

 

[Whispering Cynic]

A thought: if you play a game while Steam is in offline mode (which I do a lot), does the damn thing log the time you played? Because I could swear it doesn't...

[checking...]

Nope, it seems it really doesn't. I have 90 hours in Skyrim logged, while my saves tell the story of more than 300 hours played. Throws a wrench into this statistic, doesn't it?

 

[softclocks]

Whispering Cynic: I know right??

The offline mode's great, and I understand that it's purely a luxury problem, but I still enjoy having steam keep track of my gametime, progress and so on. And hell, for surveys like these it's almost a must!

I'm in the same shoes (mostly humble-bundle). But I don't think it disturbing. I like that the community is supporting developers, even if they don't use all they buy. Surpluses are a good thing.

Steam itself does this to me sometimes. I bought the Lara Croft games for about $15. It included the newest one, and about 8 other games, 6 of which are so old with such antiquated gameplay that they aren't worth downloading. It was still a great deal and I hope the developers all get a taste to encourage them to make more.

I'd like to add on to the point about supporting developers.

As was the case with both Alan Wake, Bioshock and Kotor (to name a few) they were actually games that I had played before on consoles, but didn't mind picking up on steam because they were incredibly cheap and because it helped support the developers.

Also, there's the gifting culture that Steam has spawned. For me it's actually something of a blessing. Me and my friends have the last few years simply foregone the whole gifting process around christmas-time, as we're all students we simply can't afford to buy any worthwhile gifts. Steam sales, however, has now made it possible to give someone a great gift at the cost of 1-10 euro

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

I have amassed so many games the rest of lifetime (~50 to 60 Years) is probably not enough to play them through.

It's all about viable referencing you have to make as serious gamer.
At least I have that 850GBs of Steam-Games installed on my external HDD + some more.

 

[joshuaayt]

292 games, only 187 are installed- probably only played about 50 of them seriously, and I've finished, like. 20ish. 25, if you count games like Fallout where "Finished" really means "Played it so long I was just *DONE*", but where I didn't finish the main plot.

I accumulate things! Especially digital things!