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Comment by lupusreal

3 days ago

> Steam is a great low-pressure sales environment.

Eh.. It seems very common for Steam users to have libraries of thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed, purchased at steep discounts during sales. The way Steam operates does a great job of instilling Fear Of Missing Out, and getting people to buy things they never end up using.

15 comments

lupusreal

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SXX  3 days ago

It's not like this is Steam fault. You can always return games you played under 2 hours no questions asked. Some people just like to buy stuff they dont need or hoard random things, but it's as old as humanity itself

At leastrented digital games on Steam account dont contribute to global warming, waste problems and dont use tons of electicity to mint some tokens.

I guess only major issue Steam really have to solve is ability to inherit these digital purchases if owner has died. Their license agreement dont have proper procedure for that.

  • lupusreal  3 days ago

    When I was a kid, this pattern of over-purchasing video games was very rare. When you had to go to the store and buy a game, it was very uncommon for people to buy a ton of games and then never get around to playing most of them. Even when the stores had discount bins, people would usually buy just a handful at a time and then play them until boredom (or frustration) before going back to the store. The one exception I can think of is when buying those CDs that came packed with dozens of old games from years ago, e.g. shovelware, when you hardly even knew what you were getting when you got the CD.

    Also today, with gaming consoles, Nintendo's platforms, and similar, I don't think the pattern of buying lots of games and then never playing most of them happens very often.

    What I'm saying is this pattern has something to do with the way Steam is structured, it's not an intrinsic property of game consumers which occurs with any kind of games store.

  • ZeWaka  3 days ago

    > ability to inherit these digital purchases

    They have the (much improved) Family Sharing now, which does combat that somewhat. Still not a proper solution.

  • vel0city  3 days ago

    > You can always return games you played under 2 hours no questions asked.

    Within 14 days.

    • SXX  3 days ago

      14 days is pretty much standard cool off window for lots of services.

      If you havent played game at all most likely Steam will just accept return in much wider return window especially if there some new sale has started making game much cheaper or something.

      Also if for some reason game was compatible with your platform (Linux, Mac) there are cases where Valve refunded money years after due to developers breaking compatibility.

      PS: Yeah in the beginning Valve was certainly forced into implementing return policy by authorities, but today their return policy is one of the best of all software distribution platforms.

      2 replies →

ZeWaka  3 days ago

> thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed, purchased at steep discounts during sales

This is more of a Humble Bundle thing than a Steam issue.

  • blooalien  2 days ago

    > This is more of a Humble Bundle thing than a Steam issue.

    And Fanatical, and (many) other Steam-friendly game bundlers, but Steam themselves also contributed to my massive game library on Steam, due to those seasonal sales bein' just too good to pass up. :)

jasonjmcghee  3 days ago

> very common for Steam users to have libraries of thousands of purchased games, 99% unplayed

source?