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Steam Stats: 36% of Registered Games Unplayed

By - Source: VG247 | B 31 comments
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Ars Technica compiled 172 Steam profiles-worth of data to make the call that 36 percent of registered games remain unplayed.

Between holiday sales and game bundles, it's too easy to shell out money for a ludicrous number of games and forget about half of them. Many a Steam user's library may boast hundreds of games, but it's likely that most of these titles are untouched. 

According to data collected by Ars Technica from 172 million Steam profile pages (collected from 80-90K users a day for months), about 36 percent of registered Steam games are left untouched.  

There's also plenty of other interesting figures to glean from the data. Unsurprisingly, the two most owned games on Steam are free-to-play ones with DotA 2 at 25.93 million and Team Fortress 2 at 20 million. The next most owned game is apparently Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, though Ars estimates that the game might be loaded up on many Steam user's computers and left untouched. 

What about the most played game on Steam in terms of hours dedicated per user? Surprisingly, it isn't Call of Duty, Dota 2 or Skyrim, but Football Manager. Owners have clocked in, on average, over 100 hours into the game. Apparently, when the addiction sets in for Football Manager, it really sets in... 

The biggest takeaways from Ars Technica's data is in terms of sales. According to Ars's numbers, it's worthwhile for publishers to chase big hits for their portfolio. Steam is very, very hit-driven, and the year's biggest titles are the ones that "represent 83.1 percent of all sales and 87.7 percent of all played games." In terms of total hours, the top 20 percent of games represent about 98 percent of Steam's overall play times. 

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Top Comments
  • 14 Hide
    ddpruitt , April 21, 2014 6:43 AM
    I have a whole bunch of Steam games I haven't touched. But that's because I wait for them to go on sale in bundles and then buy the bundles. Some of them have games I'm not interested in so they don't get played. There are very few games on Steam that I've paid full price for, Steam sales can be really spectacular.
  • 12 Hide
    Avus , April 21, 2014 8:47 AM
    This is the beauty of the frequent Steam/gamefly/greenmangaming/gog discount sales. M$ (Xbox) should learn from that... People always said console gaming is much cheaper than PC gaming, but it is actually not that true. Yes, PC hardware are more expensive than console. So the initial cost is higher. But the $$ you saved from games will off set the more expensive PC hardware cost very soon. Unless you are stupid enough to only buy PC games at launch. Of course console game also have discounts, but the discount % and frequency are not as high as PC games.

    And "Gaming PC need to upgrade every .5/1/2 years are just myth. People said that usually know shit about computers.
  • 12 Hide
    wanderer11 , April 21, 2014 7:26 AM
    Most often in a Humble Bundle there are more games I don't want than those I do so I buy 5 or 6 games and only play 1 or 2.
Other Comments
    Display all 33 comments.
  • 14 Hide
    ddpruitt , April 21, 2014 6:43 AM
    I have a whole bunch of Steam games I haven't touched. But that's because I wait for them to go on sale in bundles and then buy the bundles. Some of them have games I'm not interested in so they don't get played. There are very few games on Steam that I've paid full price for, Steam sales can be really spectacular.
  • 0 Hide
    infernocy , April 21, 2014 6:46 AM
    well bundles offer many games together and usually the person buys them for like 3 or 4 games only , and plays only those 3 -4 , i dont really find this hard to believe , most people are interested in multiplayer team play so most single player games in steam are left with out a touch . , they use steam as a platform to come together with friends and play specific games .
  • 0 Hide
    pilsner , April 21, 2014 7:05 AM
    Well, I can confirm this. I just checked my Steam library, and I have 16 games in the list which I never played or even installed. They all came with bundles, which I most often bought because of only one or two games (unlike Mr. Comment above, it's most often a single player game which I wanted, and the multiplayer shooters rot in the Steam library :-) )
  • 12 Hide
    wanderer11 , April 21, 2014 7:26 AM
    Most often in a Humble Bundle there are more games I don't want than those I do so I buy 5 or 6 games and only play 1 or 2.
  • 1 Hide
    redgarl , April 21, 2014 7:33 AM
    Well, I still have a pile of video games I need to go through. I might end up selling 20% of them since I don't have time. Totally normal when you see something at 10$.
  • 2 Hide
    theje , April 21, 2014 7:53 AM
    I'm actually on a campaign right now to play through my whole Steam library in my Theje's Catalog series.
  • 1 Hide
    Evolution2001 , April 21, 2014 7:57 AM
    Yep, pretty much what everyone else is saying... I will get a collection of games dirt cheap from something like Humble Bundle. Maybe someday I'll go and play 'em, but maybe not. I really do it more for the charitable part of it more than the probability of me ever playing them. It's the same thing with my account on Origin, as many of the games are on both platforms.
  • 12 Hide
    Avus , April 21, 2014 8:47 AM
    This is the beauty of the frequent Steam/gamefly/greenmangaming/gog discount sales. M$ (Xbox) should learn from that... People always said console gaming is much cheaper than PC gaming, but it is actually not that true. Yes, PC hardware are more expensive than console. So the initial cost is higher. But the $$ you saved from games will off set the more expensive PC hardware cost very soon. Unless you are stupid enough to only buy PC games at launch. Of course console game also have discounts, but the discount % and frequency are not as high as PC games.

    And "Gaming PC need to upgrade every .5/1/2 years are just myth. People said that usually know shit about computers.
  • 2 Hide
    genz , April 21, 2014 9:14 AM
    Well Steam Sales I think are probably the only reason I still game. When your budget goes through the floor you tend to stop spending money on luxuries, and through steam sales I'm still able to buy a game every now and then.

    If it wasn't for that, I'd be a non-gamer, gamer that only played old games, or a pirate, god forbid.
  • 2 Hide
    Bondfc11 , April 21, 2014 9:22 AM
    I think I have created an artificial jump in the Civ V numbers on my own - at 286 hours on that darn game!
  • 1 Hide
    John Bauer , April 21, 2014 9:40 AM
    I blame the Humble Bundle. Get 5 or 6 of them for 1 or 2 of the games in each, and all of a sudden you find that half your library (in my case about 60 games or so) are all bad indie titles. ie Rocketbirds, Sacred 2, Risen, Eets Munchies, and loads of others.
  • 3 Hide
    mortsmi7 , April 21, 2014 9:50 AM
    I don't think my hard drive could fit all my steam games at once. I install the ones I want to play currently. A lot of older games I have already played or dismissed remain uninstalled.
  • 1 Hide
    gm0n3y , April 21, 2014 11:45 AM
    I've bought a few of the publisher bundles during the major sales and they contain many older games that I'll never play. I'd be surprised if I've played even half of the games in my library.
  • 0 Hide
    jhansonxi , April 21, 2014 11:48 AM
    So many sales, so little time. Multiple times I've accidentally bought the same game twice for Steam. Usually happens when I buy bundles from different vendors that use Steam keys. I wish I could turn the duplicates into gifts after purchase so I could clutter up someone else's Steam account. Even on Linux with Humble Bundle, Steam, Desura, Indie Royale, Indie Game Stand, and Kickstarter there are so many games that you just can't keep up anymore.
  • 0 Hide
    4745454b , April 21, 2014 12:00 PM
    I've got 115 games. (I think it's probably a bit higher then this as I've got a couple of bundles to redeem. I've installed 22 of them. I play on a REGULAR basis three of them. TF2 (paid), Blur, and audiosurf. In that order. L4D2, HL2:LC, Metro:2033, and both poker nights get some play time, but nothing worth mentioning. I have every intention of playing the other games. When I get around to it... It would cut into my TF2 time which simply isn't allowed.
  • 0 Hide
    timaahhh , April 21, 2014 12:52 PM
    I have over 100 steam games, almost half of them are un played. Many of them purchased in bundles or via the humble bundles. When I had to go to store to buy a game (and i miss those days) I played every game I bought. Granted that was when you generally didn't pay less then 15$ for a game.
  • 1 Hide
    BranFlake5 , April 21, 2014 1:20 PM
    Quote:
    I think I have created an artificial jump in the Civ V numbers on my own - at 286 hours on that darn game!

    I'm guessing you are about half way through a game then?
  • 0 Hide
    sincreator , April 21, 2014 1:23 PM
    A lot of the games not played could also be from video card purchases. The never settle bundles that AMD had last year included a lot of different games, and Nvidia was also bundling games as well. If someone buys two video cards for SLI/Xfire they get extra codes to redeem which also can unused. If anyone is looking for deals on games check out this site as well: http://cdkeyshere.com/ A couple buddies got FarCry 3 on the site for $19.99 a month after the game came out.
  • 0 Hide
    bustapr , April 21, 2014 2:38 PM
    I have 115 games in my library. Alot came from like 2 years ago when I just shelled out money on every steam sale. damn those sales. Also I believe around 40% of them are from humble bundles, most of which I havent ever played. Id say Ive never played half of my games and most of the other half hasnt seen more than 2 hours game time. I learned all too late how beautiful and deadly steam sales are.
  • 0 Hide
    Alex Lawrence , April 21, 2014 3:48 PM
    I've got 150 hours in Civ V, 3 times the next highest (Garry's Mod).
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