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MONEY SINK

Steam users have reportedly spent almost $20billion on games they’ve never played

Steam players' backlogs are much larger than people realised

STEAM is well known as one of the best places to build your gaming library, as there are frequent sales on the platform.

With the introduction of the Steam Deck, gamers don’t even need an expensive gaming PC to take advantage of their Steam libraries.

Steam has games worth billions left untouched
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Steam has games worth billions left untouched

Games can cost as little as 10% of their prices on consoles, leading to people making impulsive purchases on deeply discounted titles.

Not only that, but many other storefronts like Humble Bundle offer bundles of Steam games where you can get even bigger savings.

However, this means that millions of these games go unplayed, whether that’s because people don’t find the time, or because it was part of a bundle with a game they really wanted.

In 2019, Valve revealed that there were more than a billion Steam accounts, so it has only increased from there.

More in Steam

A report by PCGamesN estimates that there is roughly $19billion/£15billion worth of unplayed games lying in users’ Steam libraries.

This means that each account only has an average of $19/£15 of unplayed games, which doesn’t seem a ridiculous amount.

But people should bear in mind that many of these accounts are inactive, including accounts that have never purchased or redeemed a game.

Still $19billion/£15billion is an unimaginable amount of money. 

For reference, it’s more money than the chairman of KFC, Pizza Hut, and Costa Coffee has. It is also equal to the GDP of countries like Jamaica.


If you want to read more about Steam, check out the latest Steam Deck sale.

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