36.9% Of Games Bought On Steam Never Get Played [Study]

Whenever a Steam sale rolls around, we’re sure many gamers get excited at the idea that they can buy games that were too expensive before. Sure some of the deals might be great, but usually it results in gamers spending more than they’d like on titles that they might not have thought of in the first place.

Now let’s face it, despite the plethora of titles in our Steam library, how many of them do you actually play? According to a report by Ars Technica, they found that more than a third of the games that have been purchased have never been played, 36.9% to be exact. It is unclear as to why this might be; perhaps lack of time, perhaps no motivation, but it’s still a pretty interesting insight.

Their report also found that Valve’s DotA 2 is the most owned game on Steam with 25.93 million copies downloaded to date. In fact 13% of Steam’s most owned games are from Valve which is unsurprising given that Valve did create the Steam platform as a means to distribute their games in the first place.

This report seems to be part of a trend of reports that shows how gamers interact with their games. For example earlier we discovered that most gamers tend not to finish games they have have started, and that gamers tend to quit mobile games after one day.

We guess these studies can be used by developers to better understand their market and perhaps design games that are more engaging and provide incentives for gamers to finish them, but what do you guys think? Any of our readers guilty of purchasing games on Steam but never getting around to playing them? I know I am.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Gaming
Tags: Steam (Valve), study, Valve