The Steam Meta Game (AKA buying games to never play them)

I think they get me with the sales. Sometimes I see a good deal on something that I want, or that I think I'd like, so I go ahead and get it. It's not just Steam. I'll buy console games on sale if they interest me. Sometimes I find them for real cheap used. I used to buy DVDs of movies I like, some if which I haven't even opened. I don't buy movies anymore though with all the streaming services now. So for me it's not about trading and I have never idled for cards. I do want to play them, but I don't pressure myself to play them right away. They're available for when I'm in the mood to play them.

One reason is for my family to play them through family sharing. They all have different tastes in games...

I want to play 95% of my games list but i can only complete 1-2 a month due to time so they really do build up.

I have a hard time passing things up if they're on a sale. I bought like 20+ games during the winter sale and haven't gotten around to most of them, but because I wanted then NOW I just had to add them to my cart. :P Bundles don't help as well.
And my library is no where near as bad as it might be for the amount of time I've had a steam account. 225ish games over 6 years, although I was inactive for quite a few years.

I also think a lot of people simply tend to collect things, whether it's scarves, books, coffee mugs, rocks... some of us just have the "misfortune" of collecting data, which you can't physically interact with or show off or what have you.

Hi, my name is Daxter and I have a problem, with over 400 game and 250 DLC I can now say that I need help. (oh and those numbers are only on steam not counting the rest)

In my case, I'm just compensating for something.

No, not that, I'm compensating for those years from roughly 1990-2002 when all I had was a Macintosh and there were so few available games compared to my PC-owning friends. Even so, I didn't really use Steam until a few years ago, and even then, I mostly only bought games that were at least 75% off, because I'm cheap frugal.

Now with Steamgifts and the discovery of bundles, I've acquired lots of games via bundles, trading bundle extras, and of course some SG wins. There was a time when I'd activate any bundle game with trading cards (especially when it would basically pay for itself), but I don't really do that anymore.

But I still think though possibly I'm deluding myself that I don't spend that much on games, what with bundles and Steam sales. Most of the "real money" I spend is for giveaways (e.g., Humble monthly).

There's also the notion of guilt-free game buying. As long as you've reached a certain point in your life financially, spending money on bundles or a game that's 75% off just really doesn't break the bank. Plus, you get to give away a lot of it!

Finally, I agree that there's something to say about completionist types (me) and collecting games...though I really try not to "collect" games, and other than my early days in Steamgifts, I don't activate bundle games I'm not going to play, and I certainly don't enter giveaways for them.

This is my favourite game other than CSGO.

so far i spent 50-70$ usd on steam, got over 550 games and counting xD
i get most of them for free and i dont have a chance to play most of them ( cuz the games im downloading are minimum of 2gb and up to 31.6gb each )

I am and have been a collector for most (if not all my life). Started with cds, continued with dvds, books, and games. There is a cycle that comes with it for me. The thrill of buying and owning something new and shiny, the accumulation of item(s), and then the purge.

Build up a 500 cd collection, then tear it down to next to none. A few years later, do the same thing but tear it down to nothing. Use proceeds to buy books. Build up a 400 book collection, then vanquish all but a few.

Enter Steam. I was only going to start with a few games in 2008, then the winter sale came along and I was hooked. A couple of years later, bundles and free games arrived. My steam library got out of control. So easy to add another game. Since cards were introduced, I felt I was spending more time playing Steam: The Game than playing actual games. My library grew to 3000+ games, thus becoming quite unmanageable and bloated with shovelware and games I will never play. But it's a cheap game! It won't hurt. will it? Well, it can erode one's interest to game.

Things changed for the better when Valve finally automated deleting games from your library in early December. Since then, I have deleted almost 1800 games and 500 dlc and I am not finished. It has had a tonne of positive results. It may save gaming as a hobby for me.

im going to fucking die before i play all my games

only buy what i'm going to play, unless it's super cheap and i can farm cards :3

same applies to giveaway i enter, but no idling cards, just to play.

With 500 or so games I feel satisfied. I shouldn't try to get more before I deal with my backlog somehow. But there're many people who have thousands of games in their list and are still getting more, especially on SG. I knew only a bit of the lure that comes from adding one to the game list, seeing the number increase bit by bit. It's like clicker games. I think you're right on comparing it to a game.

I wrote up a long-winded reply, but brevity's good.

Cards? No.

Demos: I miss them.

Insane deals / Bundles / free games / Kickstarter: relatively new phenomenons that, combined, exploded my library count to embarrassing proportions -- it used to be awesome, but now they're all feeling a little toxic.

Money vs Time: <-- this.

OCD / the "meta" you mention: sometimes it's difficult to turn off and I wonder if that's more common among gamers.

Game quality vs. affordability: it's easier to buy lots of trash than take a risk on one treasure. But, I need to flip that switch.

DLC / Superduper editions / preorder exclusives: I hate this (bull)shit. (When it's not a free upgrade. And I miss large Expansion Packs.)

2016: I've avoided all bundles so far this year, other than the monthly Humble, because I can't afford it anymore. Thank you to SG, and freebie games. Hopefully with the savings, I can buy a small handful of truly complete edition games that I will spend many hours on each, and finish to completion (pending reviews, and complete editions, the new Deus Ex and XCOM2 are the ones I mostly have in mind).

Collecting, but I had an excuse prior to today. My original gaming laptop had died and I was borrowing an i3 w/ an Intel HD graphics card. I literally couldn't play much.... Now that I have my new one, I've decided it's time to start playing again, and I've already 100%'ed one game, Ys I.

More 100%'s should be coming in the future :D

I've just gone past 750 games in my Steam library and counting. I'll admit that I am a bit of a completionist - I've bought lots of games in the same series, just to have all of them, even if I haven't gotten around to playing the first one yet, and I'll always buy GOTY/Complete/Ultimate editions where available to make sure I get all of the DLC because otherwise I feel like I might be missing something. I've also bought a lot of older games that I used to have on disc, just because I'd like to have them in my library. I hope I'll have time to replay them one day, but I know I probably never will, especially with so many new games to play.

That said, the bulk of my collection has come from bundles - and trading bundle spares for other games here on SG. I buy maybe one full price game per year, and even during sales I get my games from traders on here so they work out even cheaper than the store. So even though I have over 750 games I haven't actually spent that much on it over the years so I don't feel that bad about it.

Something like this :D

I half way agree with most of this. The problem is that I have no free time during the year and then all the free time during select time periods. So I build up tons of games and maybe play an hour of each game I get and then play the best of them for real when I get a big infusion of free time. Then, upon finishing up that time frame I have only played 2 or 3 of the 15 games I picked up in the interim which builds up until I haven't played half my steam library.

I buy the games I'd like to try out, but I buy them in bundles and so I get a bunch of other games along with them.

Yeah, that's it.

Thanks for Skyrim!

I'm one of those with a 1k+ account (1684 games right now).
And yes, I have thought of steam as a game in itself even back when I had just 300 games, a game that encourages you to buy more stuff. But for me it's not for the cards, it's not a completionist compulsion neither. It's just a cheap hobby.
I mean sure there are more productive things to do with my money, but steam only costs me somewhere between 15 to 25 dollars per month, sometimes even less. With all the bundles and deep sales out there constantly happening gaming has become a very affordable entertainment. I spend more in hardware every year that what I spend in games, like 3 or 4 times more.
I should also point that back in the 2000s I used to be a pirate, I never paid for a single game, during a whole decade! But that was back when I was a teenager and didn't really understood the amount of work and money needed to make a piece of software. So now I feel guilty for my attitude back then.
And it's not like I don't plan on playing every single game I own for at least a few minutes, I'll give a fair chance to all of them at some point. Steam is not going away any time soon, and if it lasts for at least 2 more decades I'll probably have enough time to go though my whole library... I hope.

I have 2054 games.
68 finished
47 meh (garbage)
I made a spreadsheet with 346 games to finish.
According to http://howlongtobeat.com/ it will take 3795 hours to finish the main story (no side quests, no 100% achievements).
If I play 2h/day, I'll take 5 years to finish these games.
So, in 5 years I'll have finished 22,44% of my games (if I don't buy anything else).

TL;DR: I'll never beat my backlog. Hope my daughter does.
=(

I've been building my Steam library for a long time, and I used to play a lot more than I have been recently. I don't really consider myself a collector, as I have had lots of keys for games that I don't own that I gift instead of keeping because I'm not really interested in them.

I'd estimate my library is made up of about 1/3 of each of these categories:

• Games that I really want personally, and either have played or believe that I'll get to play eventually - probably when my kids are on their own and I have more spare time.
• Other games that my kids or wife want to play that I put on my account and offer via Steam Family Sharing.
• Cheap/bundled games that I either think I might enjoy and would like to give a shot, though I would probably never pay much for individually OR that have cards that I can idle/trade to justify keeping them economically, and maybe someone in my family will get some enjoyment out of otherwise as well.

Collector mentality.
At least they don't need physical space like books or figures etc.
In the back of your mind you have reasons why this game is worth it (complete a collection, good score, good dev) when actually all you're doing is looking for an excuse to validate your behaviour of adding (not neccesarily buying) another game to the collection when you may not actually install and play it for the next few years.
Does it harm anyone? Not really. The RL alternative would mean more resources wasted on figures, cards etc. ;)