Why do I play all these games? Because it’s important that they’re played.
Because every game is a story, a world, a moment in time crafted by someone who cared enough to create it.
Because each one teaches me something new—about design, about culture, about myself.
Because in a sea of pixels, there’s magic waiting to be found.
And because, honestly? Sometimes I just want to escape, explore, and lose myself in different worlds.
So yeah. I own thousands of games, and I’ll keep playing them.
Steam summer sale final boss
How’s Robocop?
Damn, I thought I had a lot. Just checked and its only 500, with about 60 sitting in the “backlog”
Very similar to my account.
The comments of this thread give off major Reddit energy. Sure the post is a little fedora-lordish but why not add meaningful input by discussing the value of games and their stories like the post suggests, rather than bashing a stranger for no reason other than hypercriticalism?
It’s not a crime to enjoy something. Just because someone has a differing view does not make it a wrong view. And honestly if I get downvoted, it kinda proves that lemmings just critisize others and hate when someone is critical of them. Hypocrisy at its finest.
I too have chosen to spend a good chunk of my money on games, and came to, you know the “games” lemmy instance, to talk about them. That’s not hyper-consumerism, its me finding happiness in a world where there’s not much to be happy about. Like op said, it’s a way to escape, explore, and lose yourself.
Exactly!
And it’s highly unlikely that OP is playing 100% new-releases, especially w/ that 200+ installed games, so they’re probably getting a bunch of those well below store price (i.e. through bundles and whatnot). I have several hundred games, many of which I haven’t played, and most of those came in a bundle that included a couple games I did play (and the total price was significantly less than the retail price of the games I did play).
I’m guessing that’s OP’s case, and given how many they claim to have played, I’m guessing they have a lot of time to play games.
You are correct. I have never once bought a new release on Steam.
Black Myth: Wukong tempted me. But I did not cave to temptation.
Sure the post is a little fedora-lordish but why not add meaningful input by discussing the value of games and their stories like the post suggests, rather than bashing a stranger for no reason other than hypercriticalism?
Because the post doesn’t suggest anything. It’s a random stranger gloating about spending thousands of dollars on games they barely play. No interest in starting any meaningful conversation whatsoever. OP did not say anything meaningful or specific about their favorite “stories” or “moments” in games, and did not show any interest in learning about yours or ours.
It’s not a crime to enjoy something. Just because someone has a differing view does not make it a wrong view. And honestly if I get downvoted, it kinda proves that lemmings just critisize others and hate when someone is critical of them. Hypocrisy at its finest.
You or OP can do whatever you want, but if you gloat about your senseless consumption habits online while showing zero interest in starting any meaningful discussion, don’t throw out the pikachu face when you get clowned.
I too have chosen to spend a good chunk of my money on games, and came to, you know the “games” lemmy instance, to talk about them. That’s not hyper-consumerism, its me finding happiness in a world where there’s not much to be happy about. Like op said, it’s a way to escape, explore, and lose yourself.
Talk about them then. No one’s stopping you or OP—although I imagine it’s hard to talk about thousands of games they haven’t played 😂
Let me demonstrate: one of my favorite moments in gaming was S ranking Furi’s first boss on Furier.
IDK why, but for some reason I didn’t know I was actually capable of improving at things. I had this silly idea that people are either born good at something or they aren’t, until I picked up Furi in 2017.
I heared the game is most fun on Furier, I find a code that unlocks it, and I start my first playthrough. As if that wasn’t enough, for some reason, I decided my first playthrough will be a challenge run: beating bosses is not enough, I will not move on to the next boss until I S Rank the one before them.
Now, Furi has nothing but boss fights and walking segments between each fight. Nothing to fallback on if you suck except your response time and pattern recognition skills—no weapons or skills to unlock, no shop to buy consumables, nothing. I shit you not: it took me 35 hours to S rank the first boss, and the moment I did it, I genuinely felt like a different person.
It was mind blowing. Like, what else can I do? What else can I get better at? I know it’s a video game, but my experience is indisputable proof I can improve at least at one thing and maybe even pick up new skills I don’t already have.
This lead me to re-examine and rebuild my idea of who I am and what I can do, snapped me out of my chronic depression, and eventually lead to a career change.
I still carry that feeling with me. Every time I pick up a new action game, I get excited about the learning process, and what I can accomplish after 35 hours.
What about you? Is there any moment you always carry with you?
Now, that wasn’t hard, was it? Wouldn’t it have been nice if OP did this instead of generically gloating about amassing a huge library of games they barely play?
Found the type of lemming I was referencing. Here I was simply posting an ambiguous critical commment and they go defensive mode for no reason. Hypercritical, overpolitical, and wrote paragraphs about a game to prove a point rather than to express passion for said games.
My bad. Didn’t know I was replying to a bot. Didn’t even know we have bots here, TBH. TIL.
Because the post doesn’t suggest anything.
I mean, I wrote a whole lot of text explaining why I collect so many games.
It’s a random stranger gloating about spending thousands of dollars on games they barely play.
I haven’t even told you how much money I’ve spent. And of the money I’ve spent, it’s not exactly a lot. I know people who’ve spent more money on hardware than I’ve spent on games.
No interest in starting any meaningful conversation whatsoever.
And yet, there’s lots of conversation here. You’ve already written paragraphs. Go figure.
OP did not say anything meaningful or specific about their favorite “stories” or “moments” in games
If you want to see posts where I talk about specific games, just go through my history.
and did not show any interest in learning about yours or ours.
If you want to share your story, do so. Actually, you already did.
You or OP can do whatever you want, but if you gloat about your senseless consumption habits online while showing zero interest in starting any meaningful discussion
Oh, there’s sense. Maybe not sense in your prescribed manner, but there’s sense.
don’t throw out the pikachu face when you get clowned.
I really don’t mind the many different reactions.
Talk about them then. No one’s stopping you or OP—although I imagine it’s hard to talk about thousands of games they haven’t played 😂
Yep, no one’s stopping me – which is why I talk about specific games.
Wouldn’t it have been nice if OP did this instead of generically gloating about amassing a huge library of games they barely play?
Just because you’re seeing this post here now doesn’t mean I don’t talk about specific games elsewhere. In fact, if you go through my posting history, you can see all the many times I talk about my experiences with games. Feel free to comment on them.
The reason why you’re commenting here now, and not on my post about Curse: Eye of Isis is because this specific post created an emotional reaction in you.
Or hell, you can look on my Akkoma account. I posted this about Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death last night:
I mean, I wrote a whole lot of text explaining why I collect so many games.
And suggested nothing.
I haven’t even told you how much money I’ve spent.
You said a few thousand dollars, which’s exactly what I said. Why you acting like I made up a number?
You’ve already written paragraphs. Go figure.
No thanks to you.
If you want to see posts where I talk about specific games, just go through my history.
Yeah, I may actually. Wish this was one of them.
Oh, there’s sense. Maybe not sense in your prescribed manner, but there’s sense.
Go ahead and walk me through it, please.
The reason why you’re commenting here now, and not on my post about Curse: Eye of Isis is because this specific post created an emotional reaction in you.
Not really. The reason I’m commenting here now is the original comment I replied to criticized my response to your post. I commented on your post and moved on—feed here is just too short I ended up seeing it again shortly after.
And the reason I’m not commenting on your Curse: Eye of Isis post is I never saw it in my feed. Simple as that.
Or hell, you can look on my Akkoma account. I posted this game about Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death last night: https://atomicpoet.org/notice/AvkWBhY1PJvUqiElYu
Nice, keep at it. Doesn’t change the fact that the post we’re in RN is low effort and deserves criticism.
you are saying this like you own some kind of extraordinary awsome games only…then you show off a spongebob cartrace, and a robocop game.
collecting is a valid hobby, but stoo kidding yourself that you are buying some high artforms.
This dude wouldn’t buy Robocop for a dollar.
Bro that Robocop game is petty good.
That Robocop game has an 87% positive rating, but I got it for 93.35% – for a total of C$4.63.
As for Nickelodeon Kart Racer 3, I have the previous two games and really liked them. It’s a great couch co-op game with my kid. So I got the third one for 92.4% off the original price – for a total of C$4.32.
All in all, I did pretty well for myself.
The RoboCop game is actually supposed to be quite good. I recently picked it up on sale, haven’t played it yet.
I’m curious, what’s your highest play time on a game? Or maybe top 3 even.
Sure, here’s my top three by hours spent:
- Spelunky - 92.2 hours
- Legends of Solitaire: Curse of the Dragons - 58.9 hours
- Civilization V - 50.2 hours
I actually own
The funny thing is, you don’t own them.
Say what you will, every game I’ve bought—I can still play. And I’ve been buying Steam games for over a decade.
Meanwhile, none of my GameCube discs work on my Switch.
You can still play them on your GameCube or Wii though, or take copies of the discs and play them on anything that runs Dolphin
While you’re not wrong, by that logic, it’s actually fairly trivial to take my Steam downloads drive and run it on any computer even without my Steam account.
Does that work? I always assumed games with DRM wouldn’t work if they couldn’t authenticate to your Steam account.
It works in the same way that dumping your GameCube games and running them on Dolphin works… It’s quick and easy, but it’s against the ToS and requires breaking DRM.
Steam’s DRM is weak, and in some interviews some Valve developers even gave hints that this is on purpose. Many Steam games will simply run without Steam if you just double click the .exe in the install folder, and the vast majority that only rely on Steam’s DRM can be opened by running a free “Steam Emulator” software that pretends to be an active Steam account with a correct license.
A lot of Steam games don’t have any DRM, and most of the rest are pretty easy to strip.
Give it a shot sometime. Completely quit out of Steam, turn off your internet, and try running some of your older Steam games directly from the Steam folder.
I do this somewhat often when my kids are on my other computer playing games on my account and I still want to play something. It’s a little trickier on Linux since you need something to run the Proton/WINE layer, so I mostly stick to Linux-native games in that pretty rare case.
Family share is actually great for this now.
It used to be that if anyone in the group was playing any game it would lock you out of playing anything else on the main account without kicking them off.
But they eased up on it now so you can both play at the same time as long as you aren’t playing the same game at the same time.
So just make a burner account for you or for your kids and family share the library to it and now you don’t even have to go offline unless everyone in the house wants to play BG3 simultaneously.
Really? I haven’t tried that since they revamped the sharing thing. I have three accounts, one for me, my wife, and one my kids share, and they’re all linked. Most of the time my kids use my account, but I can easily change that if it’ll allow simultaneous play (on different games).
Thanks for the tip, I’ll try it out!
You can still play it but increasingly games are becoming very different from what you bought.
I’ve started noticing a disturbing trend. More and more games that are older being sold at steep discounts or “free to play” and simultaneously jampacked with invasive telemetry and/or ads/microtransactions. And since Steam won’t let you play older versions, those games are effectively dead.
FYI if seems you can access older versions of Steam games, it’s just a bit hacky
If I want hacky, I’ll go pirate the game. I pay for them so I don’t need a computer science degree to play them.
That is what firewalls and sinkholes are for. Stupid telemetry.
Yet I never noticed such a “trend” in direct combination with steam. The whole industry goes to shit, but it’s not steam’s fault.
That is what firewalls and sinkholes are for. Stupid telemetry.
That shouldn’t be necessary and is beside the point.
The whole industry goes to shit, but it’s not steam’s fault.
- Steam has the clout to fight back against this
- As I already mentioned, it is partially because they don’t allow you to run older versions of games.
Firewalls and especially sinkholes are VERY necessary, far beyond silly game telemetry.
They don’t allow this for a good reason. Imagine 1 million clueless gamers running an older version of their game because they’re too lazy too update. And, of course, then complain about a buggy game and the tech-support will drown even more and review would end up more badly. nothing worse than a fragmented game-world. how should online games work if every Joe and Jane got their “own” favorite version? the average user is a total clueless (pc-wise) person.
Also, you can install an older version. Just with more hassles. Also you could by GUI with many games IF the Dev wants you to be able to. Like a select few versions, if you’d prefer an older state. But, of course, only indie devs do that.
Firewalls and especially sinkholes are VERY necessary
You misread my comment. I didn’t say they weren’t necessary.
Imagine 1 million clueless gamers running an older version of their game because they’re too lazy too update.
- GOG already does this and it’s not a problem.
- It updates automatically but you can choose to roll it back at any time.
how should online games work if every Joe and Jane got their “own” favorite version?
Not talking about online games. Besides, the how or why do not matter, the point is the games are gone.
Also, you can install an older version. Just with more hassles.
I pay Steam to deal with the hassles. I am not a software engineer.
But, of course, only indie devs do that.
Valve has the power to enforce this system-wide.
Gog does it, but Gog only offers a mere fraction of what Steam has. Also your example of BL2 is not on gog either. For that reason.
Sure, Valve could enforce that, but…as said…why? They already offer the option for different versions. If the devs don’t use that, they will have their reasons. The biggest one i mentioned before: Fragmentation and the resulting nightmare of customer-support. On steam’s AND the dev’s side. Look at the Android or Windows-market. Someone complaining “my windows sucks”, but still uses Windows Vista. Or people screaming for support because “my favourite app doesn’t work” and use android 10.
Don’t get me wrong, personally I’d value the freedom of choice. But the vast majority of people are clueless (and still use those devices) and need to be “guided”. Every system gets dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. That’s why apple does so well (besides the “brand”-shit ofc).
[…] because they don’t allow you to run older versions of games.
They do if the dev makes it available, I’m looking at four different versions of Terraria in the beta menu right now that stretch back four major versions. I’m pretty sure a couple games in my library somewhere have their entire update history in there, though I can’t think of one to name off the top of my head right now, that’s not a feature I use very often. [Edit: Rift Wizard is one that does precisely this, I knew I had at least one in here]
This is not true of all games, but it could be, either directly by game devs without Valve even having to care, or via pressure by Valve by just making older versions available whether the devs want it or not. I think the latter option is probably the better move, but there’s technically nothing stopping the former other than the game devs themselves.
There’s also a valid argument that making downpatching very easy would be a huge boon to piracy. This is a reasonable talking point no matter which side of that fence you sit on. It would also probably benefit modding as well, which I think is a more objective good but some game developers or more likely publishers would probably disagree.
They do if the dev makes it available
That shouldn’t be their decision.
I’m looking at four different versions of Terraria
Literally never seen that before. I think I see if the dev pushing their 4th update that day and now I have to wait a half an hour to play the damn game.
downpatching very easy would be a huge boon to piracy.
Not my problem. Guess I’d better just pirate the game instead.
Out of the thousands of games I have, not once have I noticed anything like you describe.
Oh well if you haven’t experienced it, it must not exist then 🤷
hmmm that doesn’t ring a bell here either. Which games do this ?
The most recent ones I’ve noticed are Riders Republic and Borderlands 2. Helldivers also introduced a bunch of new microtransactions years after it’s launch.
And what there is steam’s doing? Borderland’s a greedy IP from a greedy company. What do you expect?
I have to say I never played those. Do these microtransactions lock content that was previously available out of the box?
I mean, if it’s a trend, you’d think I would have noticed it by now.
And I suppose my experience doesn’t count? Or you think I’m making this up?
I don’t know, you haven’t pointed out multiple examples.
But the vast majority can be played without steam. Mostly by force coughcough but still. I know, still no legal ownership.
Why do I play all these games? Because it’s important that they’re played.
Well, evidently not since you’re actively ignoring about 77% of them 😂 And who boasts about their hyperconsumerism on fucking Lemmy of all platforms 😂
Wrong. Not ignored—not played yet.
Not ignored—not played yet.
Journal, July 3, 2025:
The day opened with a round of Barbie Project Friendship.
I then followed it up with survival horror Amnesia: The Bunker from survival horror specialists Frictional Games.
Next on the list was gay dom/sub dating sim Blood Domination.
Then hard milsim Command: Modern Operations.
I wound down with some relaxing time in art toy Zen Trails.
I have always been partial to variety.
The only game I own on this list is Amnesia.
But yes, during a weekend, I’ve been known to launch a few titles. 😆
Come on, none of us will ever play all their games. I’d bet around 2000 of my games on steam are some free keys or other incredibly cheap shit I wouldn’t touch with a 10m-pole. If I’d ever find them again in the library, that is.
But I admire your positivity and optimism 😁
My completion rate is obviously much lower, but I’ve played at least two hours of 628/788 games in my 19 year old Steam account. I guess I’m a bit pickier with accepting freebies or buying on sales.
That is the result of a deliberate effort. Two year long project to play at least 2 hours of every game in my backlog minimum before I can uninstall it. Until there’s nothing let but the dregs. A YouTuber inspired me, except he had a time limit deadline for the video.
Backlog was 258 games, now 160. Really there’s about 30 left worth at least looking at. A lot of old crap from the very first Steam sale in there.
Most recent from the backlog was Alpha Protocol with some pcgamingwiki fixes. Yep that’s been sitting in there a long long time. Loved it so much I finished it!
Definately one of the more wiser purchase-guys :-) I went a lil nuts when inventory-gifts were a thing. You know, doing what the corporations all do: Exploit globalism to my advantage. But for many years I rarey buy anything anymore, only if i REALLY intend to play it. I’m old, not wise :-)
Hey, I’ve played every game I purchased between 2012-15.
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Playing for an hour to see how shitty it is? Or actually bought to enjoy for manymany hours, as intended? Thought so 😁 For us peeps with way more than a few k games, 20% actually been played would be already the big numbers I’d guess.
Hey, most games are not meant to be played for thousands of hours. And actually, most games I own can be completed in less than 100 hours. Especially if they’re not RPGs. Then there’s arcade games which are often not meant to be completed at all.
But then again, I’ve already said I’m not a completionist. I only complete games if they’re compelling enough to complete.
I have more fun browsing and buying games, than playing 🙈🙈😅
23% played? That’s basically 100% by Steam standards. You’ve officially made it.
Yeah, I have far fewer games and have played a lower percent of the ones I have. There are just so many bundles that have one or two games I do want and I just add the rest to my library.
Nice. Life is short, play games
*buy
buy, rent, pirate, whatever floats your boat
No, the Steam life is not to play games, but to buy them.
How much have you spent
A few thousand dollars.
Never bought a single game at full price. Almost all the time, it’s at least 90% off. Lots of game bundles abound. And free games are given away all the time.
23% average game completion rate? Or “has been loaded at least once”?
They said they “played” 23% of the games, not “completed.”
Unapologetically, I’m a non-completionist.
Only complete the games you’re compelled to complete.
Exactly. I have something like 10-20 “complete” games because they either give 100% completion for rolling credits or I really enjoyed the game and ended up completing the achievements anyway. Of the rest, I’ve probably rolled credits on 80% of my “played” games, because sometimes I just lose interest before I reach the end, while still enjoying my time w/ it.
Games should be fun, and if they stop being fun, move on.
lol I’ll feel like I’m heading in the same direction😅
