Steam users have bought nearly $20 billion worth of games but never played them

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How high is your proverbial pile of shame? On Steam alone, games are said to have been bought but never played, whose value is the gross domestic product many countries.

When you’re young, you have the time, but often don’t have the money to buy all the games you want. Later on, things change: thanks to your job, you have the money, but you don’t have enough free time to play everything you want. This situation has become even worse in recent years due to the never-ending service games.

For many, however, not having enough time is no reason not to buy. When the first discount deal comes along, many gaming enthusiasts jump at the chance. Over time, this creates a considerable “pile of shame” of games that have been bought but not played. More positive minds also like to call this the “mountain of joy”.

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How much is Pile of Shame worth on Steam? The people in charge at PCGamesN and SteamIDFinder have joined forces to answer this very question. They looked at the accounts that are publicly visible via the SteamIDFinder database to find out how much money the respective Steam users have spent on games that they have not yet played.

It is important to note that only about ten percent of the Steam accounts worldwide are publicly accessible via SteamIDFinder. The result of the research:

  • The 73 million accounts examined contain games worth $1.9 billion that are currently lying unplayed in libraries.
  • If you extend this amount to all Steam accounts, you would arrive at a total of about 19 billion US dollars.
  • That is more than the entire gross domestic product of countries like Malta, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Mongolia or Palestine (figures from October 2022, via Wikipedia).
  • With $19 billion, you could buy ZeniMax Media twice. Microsoft spent about $8.1 billion on the company, which also owns Bethesda, in 2021 (about $9.108 billion with inflation included).

    • What pearls lie dormant on the Pile of Shame? Unfortunately, the author of these lines has a few. This could be due to the MMORPGs, which normally eat up a lot of time. The victims include Command & Conquer 4 and Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, but also Darksiders 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Dishonored: Death of the Outsider.

    But there are also classics in the library that have not yet been played, such as Fallout 1 + 2, FEAR 3, the two Guacamelee! parts and the JRPG The Last Remnant. There are also various Lego parts that were intended for fun co-op rounds with the kids, but have not been well received so far. Here is a current price tip: Survival game from Germany is launching on Steam, is still available for under €10

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