Of games I have specifically paid money for, I believe I have played 100% of them.
It's probably the wrong interpretation to say a lot of people are making the decision to buy an individual game and then not playing it. Although I know people who do that, even with physical boardgames, they usually have the intention to play but life gets in the way.
That's a completely different scenario to myself where they just accumulate without me noticing. A number of times I have read a retrospective of a game and wondered if I owned a copy already. I usually get around a 50% hit rate on those.
It is not a game thing. It is a human thing.
Buying the tools are a step to step to fulfillment. It is easier to buy the step to fulfillment then walk the path.
Then again, some books are one offs and only used for a small portion, not full consumption.
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 100-150GB sometimes it's a waste of time to reinstall using Steam). Do you have another kind of usage that leads to these false positive?
No, pretty much same usage. I buy games to support the devs after I've already pirated the game and determined it's good, then I go back to playing the pirated copy.
Steam is pretty reasonable. If you bought a game in the past 14 days and played fewer than 2 hours, you can get a refund for any reason. You need only go to your recent purchases, “report a problem”, and with a couple of clicks you’re done.
If works incredibly well and with no hassle, I have done it a number of times for games which ran like crap on my machine or plain weren’t fun.
I’ve heard GOG is even better with their returns, though I have never tried it. And they sell games which are DRM-free, so even better than a pirated version.
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.
First from "guitar acquisition syndrome" can now become "game acquisition syndrome"
With a physical item you can always sell it or give it away.
Instruments in particular can hold value extremely well.
Also, just having the guitar as a decoration can look nice.
There's a reason most guitar manufacturers put a lot of effort into aesthetics.
It's linked to the dopamine anticipation loop that buying an item feels like you're making progress.
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.
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?
Instead of focusing on folks who actually do invest time into your product, even if the % is low.
What I got is: people buy games and they don't play most of them. Is it wrong?
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.
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?
Pretty bad of HN to edit a good title into a dishonest one like this.
Edit: You may not want to know if your steam account is old enough to drink...
(I'll get to you someday, Mass Effect)
I prefer casual games because of this.
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.
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.
You’re not “buying it and then not using it”.
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.
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.
As others have mentioned, for me it's also mostly Humble Bundle promos, paying small amounts that were just donations. Maybe once or twice there was a game I wanted.
I haven't opened it in 5 years though. I always toy with giving it away or deleting it.
I'm buying games that I pirated as a kid.
Here’s a relevant quote from the developer.
> Not having a sale ever is part of our philosophy. In short term, they are good and bring extra money, but we are targeting long term. I believe that searching for sales is wasted time, and people should decide on the price and value, but putting option of wasting time to search for deals or waiting seems like bad part of the equation.
https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?p=159659#p159659
I get why people put games on sale. It gets you on a list on steam and gets people to talk about you on Reddit and gets emails sent to everyone who’s wishlisted your game. It boosts your profits and I get it.
But let’s be honest, these techniques benefit the developer not the player. The developer profits from the players FOMO when a sale happens. The player thinks he has accumulated a glorious Steam library when in reality he just wasted tons of money on games he wouldn’t even ever launch.
If any thing the domain of this website already tells you everything you need to know. It’s all about marketing, aka moving money from your pocket into theirs with psychological maneuvers.
Most games are like DVDs or books, they frontload 90% of their total revenue in the first few months, and so sales are a way to squeeze a bit more juice out later.
For me Steam sales are great. I have things in the wish list and when the sale is good I might buy it. I always check if it's a good sale on SteamDB.
I usually play these games but most of the time not for long. That's why I don't want to put in the full price.
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.
If it's your kind of thing, spending $70 for the base game plus the Space Age expansion is really good value; orders of magnitude more than most games. But if you want something that will give you a few hours of entertainment and then move on from it, it's probably not for you.
There's a free demo which has more than enough gameplay for players to decide whether they want to invest in the game.
Factorio is a game that's sold at 35$ price point - half of the usual new game price. Does that mean that the developer doesn't value his game when it's so cheap?
What a silly notion.
You should compare Factorio with other sandbox/simulation games with procedural generation, deep systems, complex logistics, and large modding communities. Examples that come to mind are Rimworld and Dwarf Fortress, which have similar price tags.
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 developer and wondered what the original game was like.
> The developer profits from the players FOMO when a sale happens.
No, That isn't it at all.
This is like super backwards. FOMO happens typically when a big game is released. No months/years afterwards.
A lot of players are waiting for a game to be the right price. Triple-A titles are now £60+. Doom the Dark Ages was over £70 at launch that is without the extra micro-transaction nonsense. Some games (even indie games) come out at £25-30. I am a big Doom fan and play megawads such as Eviternity and I said to myself "No I am not paying that much" for the new Doom game. I have plenty of disposable income.
If the game comes down to less than £15 that is 3-4 overpriced coffee / 3-4 pints of beer down the bar.
If you are patient you know that the game is going to go on sale some time in the future so you wait until their is a sale. Steam even have mid-week deals. I hear/see these conversations all the time on Discord, in person, reddit etc.
> The player thinks he has accumulated a glorious Steam library when in reality he just wasted tons of money on games he wouldn’t even ever launch.
I've never heard anyone flex their Steam Library. I don't think anyone thinks of it this way. Achievements in a particular game, sure.
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.
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.
I think a good example of this was the Blizzard of old. They "could afford" to only launch things that were near perfect because they were successful, but they also were successful because they never relented on their perfectionism.
So you shouldn't blindly imitate the choices of successful people, but taking a few pages out of their core values and driving pillars will likely help a lot.
And when every dev is doing that it hardly benefits the devs either.
Hard disagree. Buying games on sales is a magnificent way I can expand my horizons and play random games I'd have never heard of otherwise or would've never tried.
> To see your own stats go here: https://steamdb.info/calculator/
Ahah, piker ...
With these steam games? No physical copy means you’re just throwing money away.
The only one I actually properly paid for and haven't played is Elden Ring. Because I got sidetracked for too long between buying it and finding out it wanted admin access (for some anti-cheat rootkit) to play at all rather than just to enable competitive online things I wasn't interested in. Which I didn't feel like doing on a machine that also had non-game stuff on it.
How much of your closet is filled with stuff you haven’t worn in at least a year.
How much of your freezer is full of stuff you’ll never eat.
How many of the books on your bookshelf will you actually read before you die?
Items in a digital library seem much easier to completely and utterly forget about.
Everyone's different, but at least for me, I don't buy a game with the hope I'll find time to play it sometime in the next month, I buy it when I'm ready to start playing it, like right now.
I buy games I might play, my kids might play. And sometimes to repay my younger self debt.
- 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 them you have new games which you will played later -- leading to some constant amount of unplayed games (and some you end up never playing 'cause time)
- early access titles you already bought but will most likely only play on release
- buying very story driven games (mainly short indi games) where through watching someone else play you already now (and enjoyed) all the story but want to give bac to the authors anyway ("someone else" could be twitch, or you room mate, doesn't matter)
I have a few of this cases in my Steam library.
E.g. Little Misfortune for the last case or Hades 2 for the early access part or Dave the Diver for the I will definitely still play it part (very soon TM, jokes aside probably starting Wednesday).
Also one point I didn't include as it's kinda hording: Game bundles where you want all games but one, think the last game is still nice but anyway will never play it as there are too many other even better games.
Looking at my queue over 20 years... likely hording. Nuts. One of the gotchas I bumped into was I really need a larger disk for games. Some of the newer stuff takes an enormous amount of space, which means it waits and waits.
- donating to a charity event that gives you games
So I guess I fit in but still not?
The problem for me is that a good game that you really like can easily eat multiple thousands of hours. It’s just a time consuming hobby. And it takes a lot of effort to get started on a new game. I can’t help but think “wouldn’t I rather spend that time improving my ranking in x or y game…”
Ended up building a side project for myself which would yell at me for trying to buy something I already had.
But that’s ok, sometimes the collection is half the fun
What games do you guys recommend to me? Also any hardware accessories, other than GPU's, that is?
I just tried Steam, and was completely overwhelmed by choice.
It’s a deep sea exploration / builder with a story that gets crazier and crazier.
It’s also very approachable and mostly easy to play.
I started out on Microsoft Flight Simulator back in 99-2000. I feel like that was the peak joystick purchase era.
Get a monitor with a good refresh rate, get a good gaming keyboard and mouse, potentially look into mechanical keyboards if you watch some videos and find it interesting.
Watch some YouTube PC gaming channels.
Also there's SO many games you're right it is overwhelming.
You could easily go ten years back. And buy the top ten games on some gaming site rank list.
Obligatory mentions: - Red Dead Redemption 2 - The Last of Us - BioShock Infinite - The Witcher 3 - City Skylines (Sims City like)
Really depends on what category of game you like. Highly highly subjective thing these days.
You can almost make friends by aligning on the types of games you like because it's a bit of a personality litmus test.
I'd imagine a lot of people in HackerNews play Factorio quite seriously.
Any youtube channels you can recommend? Especially for older people with RSI :-)
As for what genere I like, I am not sure. I am looking for something that is immersive, where I can spend some long hours during my downtime. But that does not require any mouse. This is a deal breaker
I will try out some of your recos.
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 single player shooters, I recommend Half-Life 2.
Hope this helps!
PS. As for peripherals, a keyboard+mouse should be plenty. Some vehicle driven games require a gamepad to play comfortably.
As for a GPU, the games I mentioned here will run on anything semi-modern. No need to buy something brand new.
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.
You've played a 2D platformer and a multiplayer shooter, two very popular genres with massive offerings. If you're interested in more along the same lines, just off the top of my head I'll say try Hollow Knight as a 2D platformer, and Overwatch 2 as a multiplayer shooter (this one is free). Overwatch 2 may be overwhelming for someone new to gaming.
There is a genre called cozy games for more relaxed experiences, like Journey. There are also turn-based roguelikes, and for those I would recommend Balatro.
I don't know about Ubuntu or Linux compatbility so look into that, but I know Steam's OS and Proton have made massive strides.
I wasn't aware of cozy games, but I guess that's what I am looking for. Thanks for the keyword
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.
Alternatively get yourself a cheap PS4 pro on eBay, which usually come with plenty of games bundled. Don't need the latest and greatest console. PS4 still has a huge library of games and you can get those cheap on eBay too.
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 the years.
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...
Card games are out unless I am playing in real life ;-)
I haven't played board games much. I tend to zone out pretty fast.
First shooters, feels immersive enough, but when they become fast paced and need quick reaction, I get overwhelmed and zone out.
I guess I am looking for something that is immersive, but forgiving in it's gameplay. As I have RSI injury on my wrist, any mouse based games are out.
Your reco on Zachtronics, looks interesting, will definitely try out the publisher.
Sadly most games these days are not accustomed to be entirely controlled by a keyboard. However, any game that supports a controller should allow you to configure it to use a keyboard instead. The only games I can think of that are keyboard-first are old-school genres like MUDs and classic roguelikes. For a starter MUD I'd recommend DiscworldMUD, and for a starter roguelikes I'd recommend Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (which is not quite "forgiving" in an absolute sense, but is relative to its genre). Both of these games are free, can be played in either the browser or a native MUD client/SSH terminal (respectively), are extremely Linux-friendly as a result, and are "immersive" in the sense that they invite you to use your imagination (although DCSS also has a graphical version).
If you're willing to be "immersed" by a game with a top-down perspective, I'll go out on a limb and recommend Moonring. It's free and made by a single indie developer and designed to evoke the classic Ultima-style RPGs of the 80s, but with modern conveniences and sensibilities. It gives you a free-form world to explore, and even if combat can sometimes be punishing you never really lose any progress for dying.
To go on top of kibwen's questions; what kind of game do you think you'd like? Do you like a long movie/book that gets you heavily invested in the character?
Do you tend to prefer genres like action, romance, comedy, drama, or even sub-genres like spy films, whodunnit, slapstick over dry humor etc etc. I'm not asking for you to respond with all of these answers but it if you're looking for something that will click with you - you have a better chance using whatever genre/styles you like in other entertainment mediums.
Lastly, do you want to see what you've "missed out on" in the last couple of decades us nerds(collectively) consider the creme de le creme? Or are you looking for a game you* specifically will enjoy? Again, just something to think about.
As someone in their mid-30s whose dad got me into gaming when I was in diapers while I watched him play Hexen and Tribes 2, here are some random games off the top of my head - these will only include 'modern' games aside from roguelike/card/'programming' games, going from what I think would be "easy" to "hard" in terms of accessibility:
Portal 1/2 Terraria/Minecraft Half life 1/2(maybe at a lower difficulty) Team fortress 2(something my father still plays today) Disco Elysium Uncharted Series """ this is the point I'd consider to be somewhat difficult at this point) many of these games I recommend just becuss the developers are known for their intuitive introductions to controls, UI, gameplay mechanics, etc. I'm really not sure about Disco Elysium though you may want to research it a bit more and see if its something youd be interested in)
""" And for some personal picks if you're able to pick these games up or want something further down the road some of my personal favorites of the last decade(definitely not titles I'm recommending for a first): """
Nier Automata/Nier Replicate Baldur's gate (series) Mass Effect(1-3, the only ones that exist :) ) The Witcher 3(the first two are great as well IMO but haven't aged well visually or in terms of gameplay mechanics) Metaphor: Refantazio The 'Yakuza' series or as its now named 'Like a Dragon' Claire Obscura: Expedition 33 Red Dead Redemption(old and new)
And if you destroy any or all of these games or find yourself to be a masochist when it comes to games you can try my personal favorite series(toss up between nier):
Dark Souls(and all of the spinoffs available to PC)
I purposely stayed away from games from genres that kibwen mentioned, although I think those are much better choices than my own.
Oh and as far as controller; either a Nintendo switch pro controller or ps4/5 controller would be my go to if you don't like the feel of keyboard/mouse. A decent headset like a Bose QC37(whatever the most recent over ear headset is) or just a decent sound system(doesn't have to be a headset) as well as a decent monitor with a refresh rate higher than 120Hz...
I went on forrr wayyy longer than I expected to, but hopefully some of what I said makes sense. If nothing else just research the 'easy' titles and kibwens recommendations.
I'd just hate for you to pickup a game that just didn't vibe with and have it ruin your reintroduction with gaming. As I alluded to at the top, movies and games share enough similarities where it feels almost like someone asking "I haven't watched movies/TV/read any entertaining books in the last few decades, which movie/TV show/book would you recommend for me?"
Portal 2 is even better than the first one, but play them both.
So-called JRPGs (Japanese Role-Playing Games) tend to offer decent bang-for-buck and are generally more controller-friendly than CRPGs (Computer Role-Playing Games). Besides the Final Fantasy games you could also check out the Persona series.
Why? Earlier Humble Bundle subscription... And in addition I've bought so many bundles separately I've never played.
I'm sure many of you are being fastidious engineers and immediately thinking about all the failure modes. But that's the delight in something so simple: we didn't have to worry about everyone else's failure modes.
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.
Conversely, there’s publishers that I avoid like the plague. Nothing Ubisoft or Electronic Art will ever see my disk any more.
Some games I have 1000s of hours on.
Whether a given game will be the former or the latter is hard to tell.
Given these facts it makes sense to buy a lot of games knowing I will only play a few regularly.
nemomarx•7h ago
But I also buy a lot of books I intend to read later, so I almost think it's inherent to digital copies? The less friction in storing them the easier it is to buy aspirationally.
miffe•7h ago
nemomarx•7h ago
I also use steams category system to then tag some of those into a backlog category, although that doesn't help as much
masklinn•7h ago
Nah, it also occurs plenty with physical copies. Look up tsundoku.
tumsfestival•49m ago
I've tried something similar before and it worked, for a while, but I started feeling the free time I spent gaming at best felt like a chore and at worst like a job. Nowadays I just play what I feel like and don't really bother much with completing games or not, because realistically I never will finish my backlog.