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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 have more fun browsing and buying games, than playing 🙈🙈😅
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.
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!
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.
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.
[…] 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.
deleted by creator
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.
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.
Well I’m happy for you if owning so many games makes you happy as it supports a hobby I love.
Personnaly, I think that not finishing so many of your games shows some kind of problem, but I’m not a psychologist. Owning so many too…
I might even have the inverted problem as I feel like it’s an obligation for me to finish a game unless I don’t like it.
not finishing so many of your games shows some kind of problem
If they’ve played 23%, that’s a lot of games, as in, well over 1k. Thy said nothing about how many they’ve finished, but I don’t think “finishing” is all that important.
What I’m more interested in is how much time they have for playing games. What’s they’re lifestyle like that they can play nearly 2k games while also accomplishing other life goals? It’s not an unreasonable amount, just sufficiently high that it raises some eyebrows.
I feel like it’s an obligation for me to finish a game unless I don’t like it.
If OP isn’t finishing any games, yeah, I agree. But there are a ton of games that I don’t find worth finishing, in any sense you define that, but that I still find worth playing.
For example, I didn’t finish Brutal Legend because I really didn’t like the RTS bits at the end. I still love that game and recommend it, but I only recommend it w/ the caveat that the ending is quite different from the rest of the game and it’s okay to bail. That type of game isn’t going to have an amazing ending, so the risk of not seeing the ending is pretty small (and I can always look that up on YT or elsewhere if I want). I did the same for Clustertruck because the ending had an insane difficulty spike on the last level and I just didn’t care enough to finish it.
However, other times I have pushed through, such as Ys 1 Chronicles, which has an insane difficulty spike on the final boss. I am happy I pushed through, because I really liked the world and the ending, which feeds into the next game (in fact, on Steam, it automatically started Ys II after finishing Ys 1). I ended up not liking Ys II as much (still finished), but I really liked the tie-over from the first to the second.
So yeah, I don’t fault someone for not finishing games, but I do think they’re missing out if they never finish games.
What I’m more interested in is how much time they have for playing games. What’s they’re lifestyle like that they can play nearly 2k games while also accomplishing other life goals? It’s not an unreasonable amount, just sufficiently high that it raises some eyebrows.
I’m lucky enough to work for myself at home, do things in my own time. More importantly, my work is entirely data driven—I rarely interact with people.
It is not exciting work. Actually, it’s quite boring. But it puts food on the table, pays bills, and gives me time to do things I enjoy.
That sounds awesome!
I chose a bit of a different life path with different rewards and caveats. I’m glad you found something that brings you joy. :)
Why should anyone be compelled to finish a game?
I kinda feel like I should finish the games that I start, but I often don’t. I don’t get a lot of screen time so if a game becomes hard work or I lose interest - I move on to something else. Feel a bit bad about leaving it unfinished tho.
Nah, finishing games is overrated. By the time you’re halfway through a game, you’ve seen a lot of what it’s going to offer in terms of style and gameplay. For sure, you’ll miss some amazing stuff if you don’t get to the end, but it’s hard to believe you miss as much as the new other game you could have half-completed in the same time.
There are exceptions, and I defintely think completing at least a few games is important. But if I had the choice of only having fully played 20 games in my entire life, or 40 halfway, I’d defintely have learned more, experienced more and enjoyed myself more with the half-assed approach.
Well for me it’s like starting 40 books, 40 movies or 40 songs and not finishing them.
If it’s a story driven game, I would never picture myself not finishing it unless I don’t enjoy it.
Also I see the starting something and not finishing it as a result of the short attention spans generation, but I might be getting old at 38😅
I’m older than you my friend, and it’s acurallt only something that I came to terms with in my 40s. When I was younger I did feel that pressure and expectation to complete stuff. Now I have no issue switching a movie off after an hour or stopping a book before the end. Life’s too short! And sure a story game I’m really enjoying, why wouldn’t i finish it? And play the sequel! But if I’ve played 100+ hours of skyrim without geting close to the end, and I don’t think it reduced my enjoyment. And if I’m getting bored of a metrovania I don’t see the point in grinding til it’s done.
I tend to not finish games because I don’t always have as much time to commit to some games, loose steam a bit. then I jump into the next game that my friends want to play together. It can be frustrating sometimes but I think I have accepted it as my cycle now.
I’m older than you.
I also grew up in an age when arcades were all the rage—and games weren’t meant to be completed. The goal was simply to get the high score.
That’s still my mentality to gaming. Most of the time, I don’t care about stories. When there’s cutscenes, I usually skip them.
I guess for arcade games it’s logical, but it doesn’t apply to games like Heavy Rain, Last Of Us, Uncharted or Final Fantasy.
But I guess every one behaves differently and enjoys different things.
I’m just worried when I see my 8 year old son trying a new game every time he faces a challenge in the previous one.
Of the games you’ve listed, I only own two of them.
I have Final Fantasy VII, which is the first game I ever bought on Steam. I’ve put in around 30 hours into it.
The other game is Heavy Rain, which I just bought last month. Haven’t started it yet.
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.
lol I’ll feel like I’m heading in the same direction😅
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.
Did you finish all of them? Or at least play them for an hour? If you’re using steam for 20 years, that’s a game a day.
I definitely don’t complete all of them. My goal is to at least play an hour each, but not every game is worth an hour.
The most time I’ve ever spent on a game is around 100 hours.
Oh sorry sir you are not playing these games on a phone or tablet platform therefore you are not really playing true games, you are only consuming mindless entertainment.
You’re really busy posting on the internet for someone that has 7.000+ games to play with 77% of them in backlog, and a family to spend time with.
That other thread got weird and defensive real fast.
Tends to go that way when the take is so dumb and disconnected from reality. Might as well have shown dick pics with diamond encrusted micro transaction “rewards”.
Great idea for a future thread.
