• lordnikon@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    alternative headline “steam users have a ton of games they got from a humble bundle for super cheap and we didn’t take that into account and used the msrp value of each game for this shocking headline.”

    Also some games don’t count time on older games. i know I have games like half life 2 episode 1 that i have beaten that show I never played them since I played them before they started tracking time.

    • Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I’ve had games not record time because I was in offline mode on vacation and I pre-downloaded it, or I just played in offline mode or directly from a game’s executable without steam’s crap embedded.

      In the past it’s been trivial to set achievement unlocks and time played with 3rd party tools too.

      I don’t see any kind of discounts mentioned either. I almost never buy from steam directly, usually reputable 3rd party sites like Fanatical, GamersGate, WinGameStore etc that I find through isthereanydeal. It’ll show as being on my account but nobody knows what I paid for it and I almost never pay MSRP.

      Then there’s the countless bundle keys I used to get that I definitely never played and will never play because I wanted 2-3 games in a bundle of 10-20 that was cheaper than one of the games alone.

      It wouldn’t shock me at all if there was 10 billion worth of unplayed games though. I have friends that buy all the hot releases and then barely touch them because a couple hundred bucks a month is not significant to their monthly budget.

      • lordnikon@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        agreed but barely touch is not the same as never touch that’s why I think they are looking at play time as some kind of real metic where it’s been broken from the beginning. You make a really good point as well about offline can also impact that as well.

  • kindenough@kbin.earth
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    6 months ago

    I have a large collection of unplayed games, and most of them came from Humble Bundle.

    • chamaeleon@fedia.io
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      6 months ago

      This is true for me as well. I’m going to guess 95% or more of my steam games come from bundles. I have only bought a few games on steam itself. Similar situation with GOG, where a large majority of my games have been bought on 80-95% off sales. Just in case the itch strikes…

    • PsychedSy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      I used to buy games that devs talked about on reddit’s game dev subs. No intent to play them. I’d just pick 'em up to help the dev if I liked them or their style.

  • Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    Haha whaaattt… Nobody actually does that…haha, that would be like, just kinda silly right…

    glances nervously at Steam library

    • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Don’t look at my Epic collection. Between it and Steam have a few thousand dollars in games. (If you’re counting retail prices)

        • Fredselfish@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          That’s what I mean. For years I have collected games off of Epic for free, yet I haven’t played but one of them to completion.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Wow, are you me? I just finished my first EGS game a month or two ago, and that’s after years of collecting games. I played on Steam Deck with Heroic, so I haven’t even used their client (I claim on their website).

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                6 months ago

                Yup. I’ve completed hundreds of Steam games, I’ve played one EGS game. My library size isn’t that different between the two (like 600-700 on Steam, 200-400 on EGS), but I spend a lot on Steam and nothing on EGS…

    • dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      I played a bunch of older games i got cheap on steam deck and i’ll do the same when the deckard will come out. 10/10 games that are 10+ years old are great to play on the go!

  • blady_blah@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Yeah, guilty as charged and I don’t even mind.

    I buy the games on sale if I play them then good for me, if I don’t then I supported developers. I see no problem here.

  • callouscomic@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    This is bullshit analysis. People can buy their steam keys from endless sources and sales. Some games that would have been $20+ some people can get for as little as $0.50 depending on circumstances.

    It’d be impossible to calculate how much has been spent. They also just straight multiplied the amount of public ones instead of better estimating that using data they had.

    All you can do is say how much they are currently or were worth. Considering how steep the price drops can be for many games, it’s a pretty wide range of possibilities and makes estimating this fairly worthless.

    Just a deliberately bullshit headline made by idiots wielding “data science” hype.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Exactly. I almost never pay full price on Steam, and I add a lot of keys from Humble or Fanatical bundles where I only intend to play half or so.

      So yeah, I’m guessing it’s actually 10% or so of that figure if we make a few rules:

      • count bundles as a single game, and if one game is played from it, that counts for the whole bundle
      • assume games added to Steam are part of a bundle (perhaps in groups of 5)
      • don’t count games that were ever given away free
      • assume all games were purchased at a discount

      That would probably get us pretty close to the real number.

    • collapse_already@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      Saving them for my retirement. (I will probably only retire when my health is so poor that it is clear that I won’t outlive my retirement resources.)

  • Neato@ttrpg.network
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    6 months ago

    I have stopped buying games that aren’t on 90% off sales, and even then mostly stopped. I only buy a game that I want to play immediately. I have way too much to do and play and it’s not worth building a backlog since I’ll just forget it anyways.

    Long gone are the days of super sales where 75-95% off were common.

    Edit: clarification: I buy very cheap games for my backlog and buy games full price as long as I want to play them right now.

    • PythagreousTitties@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Steam just had a 90% off sale from an entire publisher. Right now, looking at the stores front page there is
      86% off a call of the wild
      70% off hell pie.
      90% off dragon age.
      85% off a worms game.
      75% off blasphemous.
      90% off another dragon age game.
      80% off kingdom Come.
      75% off riders Republic.
      90% off team17 games.

      You’re yelling at clouds, old man.

    • slaacaa@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      The key thing indeed is to only buy what you need right now. This philosophy is also very helpful in other areas of lives to avoid wasting money on discounts (elg buying clothes you’ll never wear).

      I’d rather pay full price for a game I start laying immediately, than to put something 90% off in my backlg, with no guarante I’ll ever play it.

    • Brokkr@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      There are a few games that you might miss out on with this method. Some devs (it’s not many) list their games at what they think is a fair forever price and will not ever offer the game at a reduced price. Again, this isn’t a lot of devs, but one notable one is Wube, makers of Factorio.

      I generally agree with your method, mostly because I have a large enough backlog to be able to wait for sales, but it is also worth doing research on some devs to see if a sale will ever happen.

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        6 months ago

        Corrected my first post. I don’t just but deep sales. I only buy games at full price of marginal sales if I want to play them immediately.

    • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Just want to add, not only is it a ridiculous number because of sales, there’s also free games that wreck the numbers.

      Glancing at my unplayed library, sure there’s a bunch of leftovers from Humble Bundles I got ages ago for what amounted to a fraction of retail, but there’s also things like BioShock 1&2 Remastered - games that were given out FOR FREE to owners of the original. I’ve PLAYED the originals, but I assume the powers that be would tell you I have $60 worth of unplayed games sitting there since I haven’t opened the remasters.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Also depending on how theyre counted some games have beta servers and shit listed separately also mod kits and the like can be included in this.

  • SupraMario@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Wondering how much the budle deals effect this number. I’ve got a lot of games from bundles and a lot of them I didn’t really want but they came with the bundle, so they’re added to my library.