What really surprises me about this, is that it's apparently worthwile to make sequels to games most people didn't finish. I can understand not finishing a game because you didn't like it enough, absolutely, it's not like I played all of Horizon Zero Fun... but apparently a ton of people will pay a hefty sum for a sequel to a game they never completed, instead of playing that second half of the game they already own, and apparently like enough to pay for more of. And it's not some singular case, but a sustainable business model. It really ties my brain into a knot.

I've finished several. Some with cheats and some without. I'm in the middle of Ys 8 as well as some smaller games. After that, Ys9 and X I'm going to try to complete before 2025. If I have room, I'll finish Tokyo Xanadu and get cracking on Trails FC. Also yeah, several of those AVN's get completed on my end of things.

I wouldn't even try to understand it. Breja. All you need to know is that the vast majority of casual gamers out there are largely morons. This is why simple "Match 3" puzzle games devolved from fully playable Bejeweled you could buy outright and fully unlocked for $10 around 20 years ago, to "monetizing" Candy Trash Saga to the tune of $50 per gamer to rent "progress unlock coins" on Google Play for a reskinned knock off by an IP troll. And this is the new "mainstream" gaming...

Why does it surprise you that most people don't finish the games they own?

Apart from the other reasons, others have stated, I would add today’s time's trend that many people have: They’re trying to see/taste/get involved in many things simultaneously, without delving deeply in any of them. Trying to learn 2-3 languages, 2-3 musical instruments, and doing 1-2 sports, all these at the same time! Trying to become mediocre at many things and as soon as possible, dumping it afterwards, when they deem themselves adequate enough.

Something similar can happen when buying games. When so many of them get so cheap, one can buy 10 games at the same transaction, and before even gets to try all of them, other games go on sale! I try to be as focused as I can (not always possible though).

Most of my GOG purchases are for nostalgia. I already played most of these games and now I have them for preservation purposes.

I do play them from time to time, but not fully. Just enough to scratch the itch.

I'd say it's a little weird, but what really pisses me off is when people buy food in restaurant and left half of it on a plate. When I go for meal with some company, I'm often like the only person who ate everything I got.

Let's just quote Bloodlines on that: https://youtu.be/gqQ3Gp_AHdA?t=120

Do people actually play their games?
Yes

Do people actually finish their games?
No

Remember, just by posting a question on the GOG forums you are disqualified from being labelled an "Average Joe". Most gamers are Average Joes. They do not finish games.

=================================================================================================== Welcome to Baldur's Gate 3.

Well, I do, usually.

I can tell you that the percentage of purchased games that I finish is somewhere between 10 and 20%. At the same time, PC games* are cheap enough that I can afford to buy 10 games (in sales and bundles), try them, find the one or two games among them that I actually enjoy and want to play through, and in the end I still keep a decent bang-for-the-buck ratio (contrary to just buying one game for $60 that looks like I might enjoy it, then finding out I don't actually do). In a way, I guess, the cheap prices have replaced demos.

Of course, trying that many games can also lead to jumping back and forth between several and getting so distracted that in the end you never finish any of them.

EDIT: * But since you were talking about the PS4, consider that there's Playstation.Plus which is like a monthly subscription to play hundreds of games, so people who play games on a Playstation might not even have bought them and these games are not necessarily "their" games just because they try them for a while.

What is "play" and what are "games"? I've never heard of these.

But, joking aside... Yes. I do. It's a constant thing. *hides current RimWorld colony that's 100+ hours deep in just one save game...*

Achievements are crap. So many people, especially on GOG, them off. But, you're right, GOG's method of including ownership rather than "installed and played the game" like other places as the baseline for the not-completed-achievement does highlight just how many people "collect" rather than play.

A ton of bad people buy games elsewhere, then get a "backup" on GOG when it comes here, never playing their GOG copy. It's strange. If only they'd do proper behavior and wait for GOG in the first place...

FINISHING games is an entirely different story too. It's hard to finish a game. I have too many things to deal with forcing myself to finish a game that doesn't hold up through the end. Arcanum is a great example. I played the hell out of it, but never finished it, because its late game is atrocious and I couldn't deal with per-square save scumming because of the dungeons filled with tons of instadeath traps that even my "rogue" like character couldn't deal with. I considered it finished in my mind and moved on to another game. My time is more valuable to me than to force myself with a bad late game.

And (this is part of "achievements are crap"), so many games have stupid decisions in their achievement systems: like disabling them if you mod [not so common on GOG], or only conuting the game as complete if you do all sorts of stupid other things like get to max level, or only count it as finished if you play 4 times to see every ending.

So, while these low percentages give us some valuable insight... the gaming world would be better if achievements never became a thing.

This has been a thing ever since games started being things you could finish. Research showed the vast majority of players never reach the end, so developers would put less effort in the back half of their games. It's why so many games have a lame "Congraturation! You Win! Thank you for playing!" text screen instead of a satisfying ending.

Nope, it suspect it is totally the case, and some of it just a product of the times.

There are certainly many reasons why this might be so.

Back in the day, some 30 years or so ago for you youngsters, most folk would buy a game, and play it to death, because often the price and finances meant you needed to.

Now we have so much variety at our fingertips and in many cases real cheap. Hell with all the discounts and freebies of the last five years or so, you could have a good gaming life for bugger all money now.

With all that variety, and a desire to keep trying something new, it isn't surprising that many folk just dabble in many games, never really finishing them, though perhaps thinking they will one day. Variety as they say, is the spice of life.

It is also true, that games can be disappointing in many different ways, and so why tolerate or hang in there putting up with something less enjoyable, when you have some great games (or potentially so) just waiting to be installed and played.

I suspect many gamers now, don't subscribe to the mentality of many game developers, where they get an ego trip out of making things real hard. So not being able to save regularly or not being able to rebind keys or no controller support or no proper mouse and keyboard support, all play a part in what we (they) will tolerate.

I also think gamers are to a large degree fussier now than in years gone by,

On a personal note, since getting back into gaming in 2017, I have mostly been collecting not playing games, especially as many life circumstances have made playing difficult for me. The desire is there, but obstacles currently remain. My ultimate aim is to play more though, and hope life will allow that.

Still, like any hobby, collecting can be fun all on its own.

And in a very real way, I am giving support, to both GOG and game providers, developers and so forth.

But you are a big fan of the Yakuza series of games though, right?

All of those games are chockful of the exact same kind of stuff that you are complaining about in that quoted post, although you designate your complaints under the "Achievements" umbrella.

But even if those games had zero Achievements, then they'd still be every bit just as much chockful to overflowing with repetitive, tedious, grindy, very aggravating & very unfun gameplay that is necessary to do if you want to complete all of the tasks on the players' "completion lists" for those games.

Ditto for pretty much every "open world" game out there, which almost always contain tons of grindy, repetitive, copy & pasted tasks that the player is expected to do over & over again ad nauseum, forever.

And again, that has no relevance to Achievements being present or not.

Modern games would still have all of that crap remain being ominipresent in them, even if Achievements did not exist.

So to scapegoat all of those kinds of problems onto Achievements really isn't fair.