Tired of having more and more unplayed games in your library? You’re not alone. An article on the PCGamesN website published recently explored this prevalent trend, especially among Steam users.
Collectively, the results show that the sum of unplayed games on Steam amounts to $1 in each participant’s equivalent. 9 billion.
Steam Backlog: A $19 Billion Graveyard of Unplayed Games
This estimate is based on the public profiles which comprise about 10% of the total of users of Steam. If applied to all the users, it means that unplayed games’ worth can amount to an astounding 19 billion dollars.
How Did They Arrive at This Figure?
PCGamesN used SteamIDFinder’s database to look into and curate the purchase histories of public profiles that the user shares in the application.
Thus, evaluating these profiles, they summed up the total value of the games that had never been released.
This approach gave a summary of the kind of financial investment of Steam users that go into games and which lie idle.
What Could You Buy with $19 Billion in Games?
Just to give you an example, $19 billion can scoop you a baseball team from the United States Major League New York Yankees which is priced at $7. 5 billion.
If you are more into social media, you could buy Twitter from Elon Musk in the range of $12 billion, relatively cheaper than what it has been recently costing, for instance.
For the indulgently wealthy, the History Supreme yacht, which is thought to come complete with a statue made from a T-Rex bone, and priced at $4.
Such is the case of Facebook, where for instance, with about 1-8 billion people worldwide, you own fans. With this kind of money, you could even buy an island or small nation, literally.
The Takeaway: Play the Games You Buy
As interesting as these possibilities might be, the literature reminds us to, in effect, play the video games that we consume.
Unlike other assets, unplayed games disappear when you do because Steam accounts are not inheritable, at least, when you kick the bucket.
The next time you are thinking of indulging in a deep sale, try to think of how you can reduce the amount of stock that has accumulated in your shop first.
Due to this, people derive some form of satisfaction, in as much as it is in the game they play, not the number of titles they achieve.
About the Author(96 Articles Published)
Jeeva Shanmugam is a highly skilled content writer with expertise in writing articles, blogs, and other forms of content on various Esports-related topics.
