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Thread: It's so weird how people on Steam want to add to their "collection"

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    Banana (Level 7) WCP's Avatar
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    Default It's so weird how people on Steam want to add to their "collection"

    I've been in a number of threads with people talking about the various Steam sales. The Holiday Steam sale, and the Summer Steam sale. They talk about how last Holiday they spent $250 buying various games on Steam. They have hundreds of games on Steam, yet have only actually played a baker's dozen.

    Yet... They are compelled to buy more. We're talking about digital downloads, that can never be resold, and are tied to one specific Steam account, yet it actually seems that some people seem to "collect" Steam games. It's the strangest thing...

    I think it's just primarily a psychological thing. Some people get satisfaction from finding a good deal, and buying the good deal, even if it's for an item that they aren't even going to use for many months, if ever. I used to collect Super Nintendo carts (and still do on occasion), but collecting something that is nothing more than a lease with Steam, seems a bit questionable. There is no guarantee that Steam will exist forever. So, it's really like when we are buying games on Steam, we are leasing them for the amount of time that Steam exists, which isn't guaranteed by any measure.

    I've been caught up in the madness as well. I have so many games floating on my backlog, yet when I find a screaming deal for $5, I feel like I have to buy it, even if I know deep down inside that I probably won't play it for 8 months or more. It's a strange thing really. Doing it with SNES carts is one thing, because they can always be sold to somebody else.

    It's a weird phenomenon.
    Last edited by WCP; 07-01-2011 at 11:13 PM.

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    Great Puma (Level 12) skaar's Avatar
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    My cat's breath smells like cat food.
    <Sothy> its the internet <Sothy> who cares

    Quote Originally Posted by Daltone View Post
    This is a classic gaming site and the most active thread is a load of people wanking off to my little pony.

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    Quote Originally Posted by skaar View Post
    My cat's breath smells like cat food.
    Did it just eat?
    Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.

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    Great Puma (Level 12) skaar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by kupomogli View Post
    Did it just eat?
    I think it might have. I hope so.
    <Sothy> its the internet <Sothy> who cares

    Quote Originally Posted by Daltone View Post
    This is a classic gaming site and the most active thread is a load of people wanking off to my little pony.

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    People used to buy pet rocks. People will buy just about anything.

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    I just gave Steam $10 for games I may never play.
    <Sothy> its the internet <Sothy> who cares

    Quote Originally Posted by Daltone View Post
    This is a classic gaming site and the most active thread is a load of people wanking off to my little pony.

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    Quote Originally Posted by skaar View Post
    I think it might have. I hope so.
    You should not feed it for a couple days, see if its breath smells the same. Just apologize to it. Say you're testing something out.
    Everything in the above post is opinion unless stated otherwise.

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    Kirby (Level 13) Leo_A's Avatar
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    Their eyes are bigger than their stomachs.

    I'm sure the vast majority of purchases are made with the intention of playing through it eventually, so they take advantage of the deal while it last despite already having a backlog of games. That's why, for instance, the gamers here (Not the collectors) have such backlogs. I've got hundreds of games yet to be played, but each and everyone of them was purchased with the intention of eventually giving it at least some attention. I'm not building a collection and just purchase games that I actually do want to play, but you can still build up a large amount of unplayed games that way.

    I don't think there is much concern about Steam going away anytime soon. Valve is a healthy company and Steam has been a successful distribution program that is just going to become more common and accepted down the road. So some unplayed games sitting on your Steam list isn't a huge concern

    Plus, for many people, including myself, PC gaming is somehow more disposable. I don't keep a PC from 1990, 1995, 2000, and such around to play games from those eras. And trying to do something like play a MSDOS game from 1995 isn't really convenient with a modern PC. PC gaming, with few exceptions (Half-Life, for instance, is a game I'll revisit every few years), is something I experience at the moment with no intentions of revisiting it years down the road. So not actually owning a game is easier to put up with than on a handheld or console (Although I still don't like it).
    Last edited by Leo_A; 07-02-2011 at 05:36 AM.

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    I have exactly one game on steam, team fortress 2? You know why? Because it was free.

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    There is a collector for everything. Just watch the show "american pickers". Just cause I don't care to download a song/movie/game off a service and like to have a physical copy doesn't mean someone else wont. I guess you could sell your steam account to someone (pain in the arse). Nothing beats a collection that someone has that you can check out and feel and touch what they have. I love the physical interaction with something old. My friend has a 77 pontiac lemans and it just smells like a car from that era. Much cooler than just seeing a picture of it.

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    I get stuff when it's cheap on steam, so it'll be in my account for when i have a computer that will actually run it well, or if i'm like staying at someone else's for a week and want to have some games to download and play, etc.

    It's not the most sound reasoning ever, but at least I can semi justify it. I don't mind not playing them now, they'll be there when I can run it well. I've never been big into cutting edge of PC hardware anyway, I always just wait a few years then play the stuff I missed.

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    I'm sure that, for someone who is primarily a collector, buying Steam games doesn't make a lot of sense.

    For someone whose goal is to play the games they buy, however, it makes a lot of sense to buy a Steam game on the cheap, even if they play it for only an hour.

    Consider a game that costs $2.50 on Steam - this is not uncommon; I've even bought a pack of something like 6-7 indie games for $10. How long does one need to play a game like that before it's "worth it?" Going to the movies costs at least $11 these days for a two-hour flick (if it's even two hours). That's just to see the movie - not to have it and be able to revisit it later. A game that costs $2.50 is, by comparison, a deal, as long as I get at least an hour's worth of play time out of it. Getting an hour's worth of play time is not hard to do.

    There are games on Steam that I've bought for prices in that range with the intention of only playing for about that long. Blueberry Garden is an example of that. It's weird, experimental - I'm not sure it really fascinates me like some other games. But it's kind of fun to tool around in. I think I've played about 40 minutes and could easily do another 20 or more. I've gotten my money's worth from it; it was worth the try.

    And, when it comes down to it, if you're talking about people who hoard with no actual plan of playing the game at all...what's the real, substantive difference between a digital pack-rat and one who buys shelves and a bigger house to keep all their stuff in? You could argue that the digital pack-rat is being a bit more practical about their hoarding compulsions. Unless you go down the path of saying that collecting hard-copies of games has "resale value," which is in a lot of cases can be a somewhat dubious justification / differentiation, because there are a lot of hard-copy games (maybe even the majority of them) that will never be worth their original sticker price when re-sold.
    You are startled by a grim snarl. Before you, you see 1 Red dragon. Will your stalwart band choose to (F)ight or (R)un?

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    I've only ever had a small handful of indie titles on Steam. Despite that, yesterday I picked up a number of games and will likely grab some more as this Summer Sale is happening. I got Just Cause 2 for $5, and all the DLC was a quarter or two a pop. It's hard to grouse too much about nickel-and-diming when it literally consists of nickels and dimes. Most of the other games I picked up were $2.50 each.

    This is why the takeover of digital distribution at all levels and on all platforms seems like an inevitability - the pure economics of it are simply too tempting to pass up, even for gamers who are well aware of its negative implications.

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    Quote Originally Posted by cynicalhat View Post
    There is a collector for everything. Just watch the show "american pickers".
    Don't forget the show "Hoarders" while you're at it! Digital hoarding is a very real thing. I saw a story about someone who had downloaded millions of Karaoke tracks even though they'll never use 99% of them... it's a pretty seriously compulsive thing.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wingzrow View Post
    I have exactly one game on steam, team fortress 2? You know why? Because it was free.
    That's exactly why I got a steam account, they had Portal for free. But then they suckered me into buying Torchlight and Civ IV Complete during a sale, both of which I still have yet to play. I have vowed never to repeat that mistake agai---Knights of the Old Republic is $2.49!? BRB.
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    Not this goddamn thread again.
    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond Dantes View Post
    I can't tell if we're discussing My Little Pony or Neon Genesis Evangelion anymore.
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    I just bought the X Superbox for $20, even though my PC backlog is too big already without counting my Steam account. I've been waiting to pick up Terran Conflict for cheap, and I could have gotten it for $10, but $20 for the whole series is the right price for me. A lot of my Steam games were gotten this way, in sales when one game I wanted was available in a cheap pack. Dark Forces makes me nauseous and I'll never play it, my Jedi Academy discs were too scratched and it was $5 for the whole series on New Years Eve. The Humble Indie Bundles are a big contributor too.

    You can star/favorite your Steam games so you don't see the massive list. I have 53 games on my Steam account, but I only ever look at my Installed list, which is 14 right now. Those are the games I care about playing, and I don't see the games I got as bonuses or don't need to play again (Half-Life 2 Lost Coast?).

    Now I'm going to go play X3 Terran Conflict, and maybe X3 Reunion, and I'll at least check out the early games, but half of them won't be on my Installed list in a week, and I'm OK with that.

    Some of my friends, however, live on their Steam accounts from the looks of it. Whoa, one guy I know has 218 games...

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    Great Puma (Level 12) skaar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kitsune Sniper View Post
    Not this goddamn thread again.
    Pretty much. Cat food?
    <Sothy> its the internet <Sothy> who cares

    Quote Originally Posted by Daltone View Post
    This is a classic gaming site and the most active thread is a load of people wanking off to my little pony.

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    Quote Originally Posted by skaar View Post
    Pretty much. Cat food?
    *sighs*

    Pass the damn bag... *munch*
    Quote Originally Posted by Edmond Dantes View Post
    I can't tell if we're discussing My Little Pony or Neon Genesis Evangelion anymore.
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    I bought four games already:

    SW Battlefront II: About to play momentarily, the first one was a fucking blast.
    SW: Empire at War: Been wanting to try this for a while.
    Oblivion: Could not play it on 360 with controller, need KB & mouse.
    Borderlands: Love the game, want to play through it again with KB & mouse.

    While it may seem people are padding their libraries, it's not absolutely true.

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