Overview

• Chris Zukowski’s blog post draws on SteamDB data to show that more than half of the average Steam library remains unplayed, illustrating the scale of gamer hoarding.
• Valve’s seasonal sales, social tools and curation features incentivize purchases over playtime by appealing to the collector mindset.
• By turning games into collectible items, Steam sidesteps the attention competition facing services like Netflix and ensures steady revenue from unplayed titles.
• The rise of game hoarding parallels behaviors in hobbies such as LEGO, Warhammer and book collecting, framing digital backlogs as a form of accumulation.
• Indie developers are now weighing Valve’s 30% fee and emphasizing clear, familiar genres to stand out to hoarding gamers.