Do you have an unplayed collection of games?

I certainly do, even amongst my older boxed games from many years ago.

A study of unplayed Steam games was done back in 2014, and the findings reported around 37% of games sold had never been played even once. Many of those of course were free games, but a good number were paid for games, and Half-Life 2 was one of those that topped that list.

You can do a quick search of the web now, just as I did, and there are many posts about this phenomenon or state of affairs.

Here is one, also from 2014 - https://www.kotaku.com.au/2014/01/were-buying-more-pc-games-than-we-can-play/

The reasons are many I guess, but often it is down to sales, where we pick up bargains while we can, and sometimes that is a group of games, where perhaps we are only really interested in some of those, so the rest remain unplayed. And others no doubt, are get while you can at a good price, and maybe time permitting, check them out later ... which may never occur or not often, because of other life events or just simply because there is a constant stream of new games vying for your time.

Certainly for me, it has always been a case of get while you can at a good price, especially as in years gone by, games often disappeared or became extremely hard to get, even second hand.

I was a late starter with computer games, as I was in my early 30's and it was back in the era of Win 95. I started with an Apple IIE computer, but even though I dabbled a little with games at that point, it wasn't my main interest, and I mainly saw them as an immature thing. It wasn't until a few years later, at the age stated, that I got my first real taste of a decent game (Quake) and got hooked. That was on a Win 95 PC at my work, that we used during down time. Not long after, I bought my first PC, when work was upgrading to Win 98. I bought one of their older PC's that they were getting rid of. It alas was not even Win 95, but Win 3.1. But hey all the great games back then ran on DOS mostly.

While I certainly dabbled with various genres, thanks to the brilliance of Quake and a few others, I mostly fell in love with First Person Shooters, hook line & sinker. I even went back and completed a few earlier games, like Doom and Doom II. But I also fell in love with Blood, Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage, Tomb Raider, Hexen, Duke Nukem 3D and many others.

I think I've maybe played 2% of the game I have.

Overachiever.

Well in the winter we don't get much traffic and I have more time to play.

It would be hard to put an exact number on mine, but yours could be close to the mark.

I certainly have heaps of boxed games (talking big cardboard boxes here) and many others in CD and DVD cases that I have not unsealed, let alone checked or even played.

And then in the last two months with GoG, I have bought around 140 games, all at great prices or on sale (mostly) ... the free version of Shadow Warrior Classic having brought me once again to GoG shores.

Of those 140, I have only installed Shadow Warrior, and just played a bit of the beginning.

During that period, I also re-activated my Steam account, dormant for many years, for I hate their concept, and was kind of tricked into using them, not really understanding what Steam was all about at the time. Back then, it was nightmare to use Steam with a 56k modem, my only option. Just recently, I got a good boost in speed, so Steam was worth considering again, especially as I had the Orange Box and the SiN Episodes box.

So the only other games I have checked out recently (played a little of), were Half-Life 2, SiN and SiN Episodes.

As reluctant as I continue to be, to use Steam, I also took advantage just recently, to buy the Complete Valve Bundle for an excellent price, where it equated to about a $1 each for a stack of games. I have also picked up a few freebies.

So my game list (now many hundreds) continues to grow, and I have even more unplayed games ... though I have at least also played a little of Half-Life, Blue Shift and Opposing Force.

Well you made me do a quick count

I have around 460 games (boxed, GOG, other digital...) of which I played around 320. From the remaining, around 15 is stuff I got as part of a bundle, or a freebie, that I wasn't necesserily interested in. The rest I'm hoping to play some day. However given how I don't have as much time as I'd love to, and the fact that "played" does not mean "finished" (and "finished" doesn't mean "will never play it again") I'd say I have enough of a backlog to last me a lifetime...

Of course, many of my games were supposed to be played by my kids as well, but with the advent of the N64, and then the Xbox and beyond, that has not really happened in any meaningful way.

I guess I have only got myself to blame though, as I bought those consoles and their games for them ... and in at least the N64 case, also bought into some of the games too ... Goldeneye, Mario Kart, Diddy Kong Racing and a few other multiplayer games really grabbing me. Goldeneye especially was a revelation of fun fun fun.

And then we got a PS3 in a special deal with a 3D TV, and my daughter got a PS2 for the Singstar games, etc. The Wii also happened somewhere amongst that, and my lads of course moved onto 360 and the Xbox One.

To say we are a gamer household, would be an understatement.

The consoles games at least, have all been played ... even if only once ... and they would be a few hundred in number.

Sure I have a backlog. Not to extensive, but still. I always hope to one day achive Backlog Zero and then I'd have every justification to go crazy during the next big sale, but I doubt I'll ever get tehre, unless DRM -free games disappear and I'll stop getting any new titles. Although even then I'll have some stuff from Humble Bundles and some games from various gaming magazines that I never even intended to play and have no interest in. I think everyone who was a gamer in the late 90s-early 2000s has a stack of those CDs & DVDs from gaming magazines, and there's all sorts of games there, from some major titles and cool classics to random, never heard of them in my life games and total trash.

Well, you have been more diligent than me. I almost kept up with my purchases for a while, early on, but it did not take long to get farther and farther behind. Being a parent and having all sorts of responsibilities doesn't help much either.

My youngest two, while still at home, are both adults now, and so I am working toward getting back into some decent gaming time, but like yourself, I have got more to play than the hours of my remaining lifetime, even if those be many.

In a way, it is nice to know, that I never need really go looking for a new game, but I guess I may do .... can't avoid the advertisements or recommendations, etc.

It's for threads like this one that it pays off to have a spreadsheet with all your gaming data. :)

Let's see, from my digital gaming library:

- 1,010 Linux games - 337 played (33.4%) - 178 beaten (17.6%)
- 317 Android games - 148 played (46.7%) - 91 beaten (28.7%)
- 239 Windows games - 40 played (16.7%) - 21 beaten (8.8%)


I long ago came to terms with the fact that I'll die without getting even near the 100% completion mark. :S

LOL. Thanks for reminding me. I also have a stack of magazine games, and some really good ones amongst them.

There was also a time, when Demos were all the rage, and so I have a ton of Game Demo discs. In fact, I bought several collections of the things at one point, and stacks of bonus levels & mods (etc) for all sorts of games.

When I stop and think about, I have a huge collection of gaming goodies.

Many of the hundreds (perhaps more) of Game Demos alone, that I have, appear to be unavailable these days.

Gawd, not another one.

I too make lists, generally in Excel.

My gaming one is very extensive, but incomplete. I got very ill quite a number of years ago, and it was never completed.

Just recently, since joining GoG, I have been chasing down things hidden away in my back room, and have found many game goodies, and lots weren't on my lists, so I have started adding them again, if in a more abbreviated fashion ... I used to list all sorts of relevant data.

P.S. I did a quick search before starting this topic, to see if one about 'unplayed games' was already in existence, but nothing was evident in the first page of results, and I presumed relevant ones get listed first, so I started my own.

Well, you certainly sound organized.

I also believe myself to be organized, and there is certainly a rainy day aspect to my collection.

The problem for me though, is I like too much, and not just on the game front. i am big on music and books and movies and collect all of them and more. I am also a hobby programmer who codes regularly. And there just isn't enough hours in a day.

I don't know how you can play a bunch of games immediately. I have always tended to play a game until finished, which might take a couple of days to a few weeks. I then move to the next one, or in some cases start dabbling with bonus levels, etc. I even created my own Quake levels at one point.

I have done a few all-nighters when younger, but sense eventually got the better of me, and I am well aware of the mental impacts of letting yourself get too absorbed in games for too long.

Oh to have more than one lifetime and the immortality of youth & good health.

My backlog starts in the '80s and is still growing.