The Unexpected Reason You Don't Play The Games That You Buy

Diving into why it's hard to find games to play from your big Steam library of unplayed games.

Here's the games that I played in the video:
Pyre by Supergiant Games
Lovely Planet by QuickTequila
FTL by Subset Games
Hollow Knight by Team Cherry

[gavin]

I always thought it was funny when you look at a game's achievements and there's one called like "first beginnings, open the main menu" and stream is all proud like "only 40% of players have this achievement!"

[node]

This has to be why I’m usually so excited to get off work and chill out and play some games but when I sit down and look at my library I usually just end up watching shorts for 2hrs and go to bed lol

[CerisuHakka]

One thing I've done to help alleviate the problem of overchoice is make a sublist of 10 or so games I'd like to play next and then select from that group instead of my entire library. It's much easier to choose multiple games you would maybe like to play next since it doesn't feel like you're making as large of a commitment.

[shanedillis]

The thought of your dad telling your mom it’s a DVD player just to smugglers it in so, you can have it makes me so happy you have a loving father!

[chriscangelosi]

About 20 years ago, researchers decided to study how we react to having too much choice. They set up a table full of jams in a grocery store, some with 24 samples, and some with just six.
Although shoppers were more likely to stop and peruse when there was a larger selection, they were also less likely to buy anything.

[j.j.]

I also feel like the main reason is lack of time. I buy i game, i play it and even when i like it, at some point, i have to stop playing to focus on other things in my life. When i finally get more time to return to the game, i may not be in the mood for it. Maybe i want a different games. Plus, i probably forgot where i was, what was happening and maybe even the mechanics.

At this point, it's much easier to just play a new game.

[vitordossantos]

A phenomenon called "laziness" happens to me. While there is a part of my brain that wants to play a game, there is another part that feels lazy to play.

[wiinis-official]

While I love emulation, it poses a similar issue to a large Steam library: it opens up the floodgates and give you access to too many games at once. I find that it’s easier to separate the ones I really want to play at the moment into a bracket, and then focus on them. Because if not, I end up just jumping from game to game, not finishing them. And for me, there’s nothing worse than not being able to finish a game.

[trickstabber]

The fridge analogy at the beginning is so spot on. I thought I'm the only person in this world who felt this way when opening my fridge. Stockpiled full of food yet nothing to eat. It's cynical when comparing it to countries in Africa but still.

[ardentword]

I think that in addition to overchoice, as we mature we also become much more wired to find "meaning" in our actions. When I was a kid I'd just play those Flood vs Covenant fights in Halo 1 over and over again to mess around and use my imagination to tell a story as the battle played out. Nowadays I just don't do that; it would feel like I haven't achieved anything after the first two or three times. For kids as long as it's fun they don't care about the wider implications of meaning and efficient use of time, so they can just pick up and play something. Adults seek to find meaning in order to justify what they're doing. That's probably the biggest put-off for me with games these days if they don't manage to hook me in with a great story or with gameplay I want to get good at.

[neonyeko]

The biggest thing that I appreciate here is that, when you covered your experiences with FTL, you pointed out a lot of good things that the game takes pride in and recognizing those before respectfully saying that it didn't personally interest you. A lot of people let personal bias shroud their reviews of games, but you gave the game a lot of respect even though it wasn't your speed. I might be a simp for FTL so I might just be biased too, but damn, massive respect to ya for giving respect to things even if they aren't your thing.

[pito]

For a while now, I've intentionally avoided buying games on my wishlist if I know won't be playing them for a while, even if they are on sale. As such my backlog is only 10 games long and getting through them doesn't really feel overwhelming.

It's a perfect amount of games that I can make a choice what I want to play depending on my mood without it feeling overwhelming. And due to to the small amount of games it's satisfying to see the backlog noticeably shrink every time I complete a game

[nokronis]

I always come back to a study I remember reading about Decision Fatigue. They have 2 groups, one that had to pick 1 jelly from a list of 3 jellys, and a second group that had to pick 1 jelly out of 30 jellys. There was a 100% pick rate from the 3 jelly group, and a 30% pick rate from the 30 jelly group. People hate having too many choices, it freezes them!

[bucks]

Something that has helped me a lot is making sure I only have 3-5 games installed at a time, then showing only ready-to-play games. If there is something else I'm in the mood to play I gotta remove something in its place. This has the added benefit of motivating me to actually finish games instead of leaving them half started

[woodlandxwarrior]

I have what I like to call anticipation anxiety. I want to do things but when I think about them and the more I think about them then the more anxiety that I have. This eventually leads to the nevermind phase.

[moomoocupcakes]

If you need to hear this here it goes: if you're not having fun it's okay to move on. You don't have to force yourself to finish media that's boring you.

[Bentroen_]

I once watched a TV report on a local ice cream shop that faced exactly this problem: previously, with over 20 ice cream flavors to choose from, many customers would have a hard time picking one, and some would even leave without consuming anything. After going through a renovation, they reduced the amount of flavors to about five -- then, customers made their choice much more quickly and, oddly, the satisfaction level seems to have gone up as well!

[HerOwnKnife]

this was a very pleasant viewing expirience! well edited video with good commentary and an interesting topic. with this level of qiality i bet youll reach 10k subs in a couple years maybe, it might seem like a crazy huge number now but i assure you that it wont seem like it soon. keep up the good work man, youve earned a sub from me

[sol]

I went through the same thing. Uninstall every game you have except one you decide to play. And stick with it until you beat it. Trust me, it makes it a lot more fun

[coahmain]

i spent 7000+ hours in tf2 and once i quit the game, i decided to try to branch out and play other games. sometimes its very hard for me to play something in my library because it doesnt seem like the kind of game i would like, but a lot of the times i try to make an effort to play them and most of the time i dont regret it. i think this concept of too many choices is also why i have a hard time reading books anymore, theres so many but its hard to choose just one to read.