Check Your Backlog! Steam Analysis

Has anyone ever stopped to think what this says to producers? It screams "We don't need to make a quality game, we just need to make something with neat screen shots or a quirky game play idea and people will buy it off steam if we put it on sale!"

Anyone buying shit on steam 'just because' is hurting the gaming community as a whole. Anyone can come up with some random idea, throw a game together, put it on steam for $30 bucks then on the next big sale discount it to $5 and make tons. Way more then that shit pile would normally merit. Large companies spend tons of money doing research, you think they haven't seen this?

Sure, if the company don't mind people buying their games only when its $5. That may apply for indie games, but then again no one expects indie games to have the same quality of a $60 game.

As far as AAA titles are concern, I'm sure most companies would prefer people buying their games on day one at $60 or $50. That's something they still have to work for. And I don't think it will be profitable for the bigger dev to drop their quality down to the indie level and sell their games at indie prices.
 
Username: Justin Corrigible
Games Owned: 243
Games Played: 150
Games Never Played: 93
Percentage Played: 61.73%
Total Hours: 469.90

I must admit I've bought some games I don't care about (after trying them). Majority of those came from publisher packs where I wanted just a few games, and justified the pack price that includes them. I did just get an increase in hard drive space, and I have every intention of playing all of those games over the next year. I also split my game time with my other non-Steam games and am involved in a relationship with a child, so I don't foresee amassing 10+ hours in a lot of those over the next year.
 
game bundles - steam gifts - adding old games to my list out of nostalgia plus the convenience of having them on steam rather the keeping the game disc ( deus ex jagged alliance 2 doom1 etc ) - buying many games on 75% off so i can do the steam objectives during events and hopefully win the big prize ( wishlist top 10 - FREE )

not to mention that i have like 4 steam accounts back in 2003, i happened to own hl1 goty + half-life generation back then, so i made a seperate account every cd-key ( 1 with HL goty key 1 with HL key 1 with CS retail 1 with opposing force key )

I made a fith account near HL2 release date, spent many hours playing HL2 CSS hl2dm etc but steam says 0, why ? because steam started tracking playtime only 3 years ago !!!

Soooooo, my 61% and 1962 hrs of playtime mean shit :)

http://lambentstew.com/webblog/miniproject/steamanalysis?steamid=SoFGR
 
Username: MajikPolak
Games Owned: 97
Games Played: 19
Games Never Played: 78
Percentage Played: 19.59%
Total Hours: 102.40

Haha, only at 19.59% played. :p You can thank Steam's Summer and Winter Sales for that (and the lack of free time); I can't resist such markdowns!

What I don't understand is this can't be since my Steam account began because it says I only have 10.1 hours in Counter-Strike: Source when I know that I've personally put in at least 100-200+ hours in that game since release, most of it in its early life.
 
Has anyone ever stopped to think what this says to producers? It screams "We don't need to make a quality game, we just need to make something with neat screen shots or a quirky game play idea and people will buy it off steam if we put it on sale!"

Anyone buying shit on steam 'just because' is hurting the gaming community as a whole. Anyone can come up with some random idea, throw a game together, put it on steam for $30 bucks then on the next big sale discount it to $5 and make tons. Way more then that shit pile would normally merit. Large companies spend tons of money doing research, you think they haven't seen this?

No, not really. You ignore the fact that people still buy games they're interested in, opposed to just buying games for the hell of it, even if they might not get around to playing it. If you make a shit game that no one wants to play and it gets shit reviews and shit user opinions, then it won't sell well.

Other than that, the only way your shitty game will sell well is as part of a pack that has other games people want to buy.

Granted, it does show publishers that, given a good deal, people will buy your game and never even play it. But the game still has to be interesting and get good feedback from the community before that's gonna happen.

Aside from that, publishers already know good marketing sells games. The big boys are at the point now where they sink more money into marketing and promoting a game than the actual development of the game. That clearly shows they think investing in advertising and such is more valuable than investing in the game itself. However, IMO, that has nothing to do with the Steam-sale crowd, that has more to do with the casual console gamer crowd who needs to see posters of the games up in gamestop before they'll buy it :p
 
The idea of buying a game before you're ready to play it is fucking retarded, especially on Steam which is known to have massive discounts. Plus it's DD so you can have it as soon as you’re ready to play it.

For you guys who have a big list of un-played Steam games, go back and look at how much you paid for them and compare that to what they are selling for today, then add up the difference. If stupid was quantifiable, the figure you come up with would be the dollar amount of your idiocy.

Using this logic - I should only buy food as soon as I'm ready to eat it, I could save so much.... NOT.

And I guess when I bought 5 oil filters yesterday online at Kia dealership was probably a bone head move seeing as how I won't use all of them in the next month huh? Never mind that instead of paying 10 dollars for a filter I only paid $4

Entire sites like slickdeals shouldn't exist based on your logic -- maybe your financial situation is different from some of us here, but $3.50 for a game isn't a big deal, even if we don't play it for 6 months, who really cares?
 
I cannot believe how many games some of you people have bought. I understand there are some good deals out there but I do not think I have ever played something in the realm of 300 games my entire life and I have been pc gaming since 1995.
What the hell are you people buying? lol
 
Username: PinkPowerRanger
Games Owned: 178
Games Played: 67
Games Never Played: 111
Percentage Played: 37.64%
Total Hours: 1310.10

I know the problem! My hours played is too low ;)
 
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The idea of buying a game before you're ready to play it is fucking retarded, especially on Steam which is known to have massive discounts. Plus it's DD so you can have it as soon as you’re ready to play it.

For you guys who have a big list of un-played Steam games, go back and look at how much you paid for them and compare that to what they are selling for today, then add up the difference. If stupid was quantifiable, the figure you come up with would be the dollar amount of your idiocy.

I think you'll find a great many of the games were bought before they were ready to be played specifically because they were heavily discounted at the time, or came in a pack which was particularly good value for money.

I don't think there's anyone here who's buying full price titles constantly when they have no intention of playing them for 6 months, most of the time it's just because something is so cheap the cost is next to negligable.

When games are quite literally "cheaper than chips", that is to say less than it costs for a bag of chips from the local chip shop (~£1) then I simply don't care lol

(yes I know, I'm extremely British *sips tea*)
 
Games Owned: 91
Games Played: 54
Games Never Played: 37
Percentage Played: 59.34%


There info is off a bit though, or Steam doesn't report some games on my profile, like HL2, COH, CS:S, L4D2, STALKER:CP, X3:Reunion (I have hundreds of hours in that game).
 
Username: -#d00m
Games Owned: 27
Games Played: 18
Games Never Played: 9
Percentage Played: 66.67%
Total Hours: 751.60



totally false though.. i leave games running all the time hahah
 
The idea of buying a game before you're ready to play it is fucking retarded, especially on Steam which is known to have massive discounts. Plus it's DD so you can have it as soon as you’re ready to play it.

For you guys who have a big list of un-played Steam games, go back and look at how much you paid for them and compare that to what they are selling for today, then add up the difference. If stupid was quantifiable, the figure you come up with would be the dollar amount of your idiocy.


I am slightly embarrassed at mine but I have only bought games from indie bundles, daily/midweek/weekend deals, or winter/summer sales. I do think it is ridiculous how many games I have but when they average out to less than $4 a game I don't see it as that bad. I also haven't been getting in as much gaming as I had hoped for this summer, hopefully that will change.

Games Owned: 448
Games Played: 50
Games Never Played: 398
Percentage Played: 11.16%
Total Hours: 3116.50
 
Games Owned: 87
Games Played: 59
Games Never Played: 28
Percentage Played: 67.82%
Total Hours: 2136.20

The "unplayed games" include expansions that have certainly been played.
 
Username: Druneau
Games Owned: 251
Games Played: 141
Games Never Played: 110
Percentage Played: 56.18%
Total Hours: 1195.40
 
Games Owned: 15
Games Played: 14
Games Never Played: 1
Percentage Played: 93.33%

Thats only 93% cause I didnt notice the Vietnam link in BFBC2 haha, guess I bought the complete pack or something.
 
Games Owned: 124
Games Played: 83
Games Never Played: 41
Percentage Played: 66.94%
Total Hours: 1604.10
 
Something that I don't think has been mentioned is indie packs or bundles sites. Often I buy some of those packs with 3-6 games in them for just 1 or 2 games which is still below the price of the game on Steam. Plus you get extras like soundtracks which usually are fairly good. I have a huge backlog of games, and many will probably never actually be played. I have a number of freebie indie games that came with others in bundles that I have no interest in playing, but the game I bought the bundle for usually sees a fair amount of time within a month or 2.
 
41%... but yeah I think I've played Half Life 2 before, for more than zero hours. Interesting, nonetheless.
 
Something that I don't think has been mentioned is indie packs or bundles sites. Often I buy some of those packs with 3-6 games in them for just 1 or 2 games which is still below the price of the game on Steam. Plus you get extras like soundtracks which usually are fairly good. I have a huge backlog of games, and many will probably never actually be played. I have a number of freebie indie games that came with others in bundles that I have no interest in playing, but the game I bought the bundle for usually sees a fair amount of time within a month or 2.

Yeah, and I think around 30-40 of my games are just extra things that came with the half life 2 releases :p
 
Owned: 262
Played: 50 (18.66%)
Total Hours: 1561.20

In reality played is closer to 10 or 15. One game, Altitude, is 82% or 1287h out of total hours. Virtually all games were purchased individually during sales for between $2-5. Maybe bought 5 games at full price and they were cheap games already.
 
My problem is that its counting all of my super old games as 0 time played when in reality I've played them. So according to the tool I've played 60.1% and in reality I've played pretty close to 100%
 
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