Did you see the news announcement earlier today regarding Steam and how a quarter of the games purchased on Valve's digital distribution, digital rights management, multiplayer, and communications platform have never been played? Apparently Ars Technica conducted the research and shared their findings. You can find the announcement being talked about all over the Internet or you can find Game Informer's news post here.
When I first read the news my personal reaction was mixed. I think it started with a bit of disbelief before migrating over to the realization that yes, it was very likely accurate and reflected my own pattern of behavior too. But of course I wouldn't know for sure unless I actually checked the data. So yeah, that's what I'm going to do.
If Steam is accurate, and why wouldn't it be, I have 73 titles in my library. I don't think a week goes by where I don't add something. Why, just this morning I purchased System Shock 2 for the grand total of $4.99. I don't know if 73 is a big number or not - I've seen friends with many more and others with much less. It's also important to note, most of the games I purchase are less than $5 bucks. Maybe $10 bucks from time to time, but seldom ever the traditional full price of $50 or $60 bucks.
Games in my library with Zero Hours - 25
Team Fortress Classic (Played the original, but not the Steam version.)
System Shock 2 (Played the original, but not the Steam version.)
Strike Suit Zero
Space Engineers (Played 3 minutes.)
Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe (Played 1 minute)
Serious Sam: The Random Encounter
Serious Sam: Double D XXL
Serious Sam Classic: The First Encounter
Serious Sam Classic: The Second Encounter
Serious Sam 3: BFE
Serious Sam 2
Portal 2: The Final Hours
Nihilumbra
Left For Dead 2 Beta (Does this even count?)
Invisible, Inc. (Don't know if this is available publicly yet.)
How To Survive
Half-Life: Opposing Forces (Played the original, but not the Steam version.)
Half-Life: Blue Forces (Played the original, but not the Steam version.)
Half-Life Deathmatch: Source (Played the original, but not the Steam version.)
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast (I don't think this one counts either.)
Half-Life 2: Episode 2 (Played 12 minutes.)
Half-Life 2: Episode 1
Half-Life 2: Deathmatch (Played 8 minutes.)
Crash Time II
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Played 14 minutes.)
Games in my library with Two Hours - 12
I have 12 games I played up to two hours.
Games in my library with More than Two Hours - 36
I have 34 games I've played more than 2 hours.
Okay...so out of 73 games there are 25 I haven't played. Sure, some of them might indicate a few minutes of activity. I think that might mean I loaded the game and perhaps launched the game, but I don't recall actually playing the game. I also don't think some of them should count, but for the sake of this blog, I'll add them. I don't think it will skew the data too much. Anyway...with this numbers, and if I'm doing my math right...
I haven't played 34% of the games in my library.
Huh. Perhaps Ars Technica knows what they're talking about.
In the end, I don't think this is really that big of a deal. As I look at this list of games I haven't played, many of them are games I've played before...prior to their Steam-release version. Then of course there are the ones I've purchased because they were on sale, and I might come around to playing them one day. And some of them I purchase for the simple fact I want to get the Steam badge for the game (don't laugh at me).
So, what about you? What's your percentage of games you haven't played compared to the games you've purchased?
Weekend is almost here. Can't wait.
Cheers.