We're Buying More PC Games Than We Can Play | Hacker News Reader

We're Buying More PC Games Than We Can Play

kotaku.com

6 pointsvenomsnake9 comments

The games I tend to play the most, are the games I paid full price for. The simple reason is because I anticipated those games and waited until they came out.

I still browse the Steam sales. But I rarely buy. Steam has pulled off an amazing feat. They get people excited to buy games that, a decade ago, would be sitting in the sad dusty $5 bin at Wal-Mart. These games would get overlooked because they were in that same dusty bin yesterday, for the same $5. They weren't $15 and suddenly were priced $5 for Christmas. No. They were just old games being sold for whatever Wal-Mart could get for them.

But, take those same games and put them next to Skyrim like Steam does, and now you change the perception. Shoppers don't see the sad tired box art of a game from 1997. They just see a $15 game on sale for this limited time only for $5.

I strongly disagree here. Majority of the Steam sales are very recent games, and if you are after quality you could play a lot of great stuff for a hundred bucks.

GoG capitalized on the 1997 stuff. The way steam changed my perception is that I stopped pirating - why bother when it will be 5$ in one year time, with me having a healthy backlog. (Note to self - finish XCOM:EW)

Not games for me, its books. I donated a metric tonne of dead tree to Oxfam just before xmas and I'm now not buying any titles until my 'pile of shame' has reduced.

I came here to basically enter the same reply. Though I am perhaps not as bad as you make yourself sound.

It's easier to control myself these days, because I like buying books in book stores and those are disappearing. With the exception of certain titles that I really know I want and am searching for (which I buy on Amazon), almost all the books I buy now come from one used book store. It's the last book store within a half-hour drive from home, and there is no book store within a half-hour drive from work.

I'm so guilty of this, especially games on Kickstarter.

yup....99 games purchased and I only play like 1 or 2 extensively. once a year I might venture out to a different genre that I bought in the steam summer sales of 2012 but I always end up not playing for more than 30 minutes. Never again will they hear from my wallet.

A lot of my steam purchases are ... lets call it copyright amnesty. Even more with gog - so although I have above 300 majority of them is old stuff that I have played back in the day. My backlog is maybe 10-20 games I am interested in. But lately I confine myself to 1 game per steam sale. Top 2.

>But lately I confine myself to 1 game per steam sale

I told myself that many many times. but it's really weird how they can make us spend several times more than we need.

It's the idea that you are saving money or getting more value for the money that drives you to spend more money on Steam.

I find it harder and harder to purchase new games because I have so many of it the value of the new one goes down very quickly.

Well - it is more - with the gaming industry churning out crap at large, it rarely has something worthwhile to buy. This year was incredibly weak in AAA titles and the majority of small games are below the impulsive buy threshold.

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