20 new games and 0 hours in them – the Steam autumn sale is filling up your backlog again

Every longtime gamer has a graveyard of games they bought but never launched. Seasonal sales keep it well stocked. Sometimes a person with a hundred untouched titles in their library opens the store thinking, "well, I'll buy twenty more."

The latest reminder is the autumn Steam sale, which Valve kicked off on November 25.

Discounts run through December 2. The community greeted the upcoming "shopping" with a mix of excitement and self-irony:

I can't wait to buy all these games I'll never play.

One player offered an explanation rooted in psychology. Looking forward to a game, he argued, is almost always more enjoyable than playing it. A title that sits untouched stays perfect, while an actual game inevitably brings both highs and lows.

That fits with research on the dopamine system: the brain responds most strongly to anticipating a reward, not to receiving it. The same user described the mechanism with an everyday example:

The best feeling isn't the first bite of a delicious meal when you're hungry, it's actually right before that.

That led to another idea: playing games and collecting games are two separate hobbies. Some days call for hunting discounts and filling the shelf, others for actually finishing something.

Advocates of strict discipline suggest keeping the wishlist tidy and installing no more than one or two games at a time. One participant in the discussion says this approach lets him finish around 50 games a year.

Platform veterans, meanwhile, largely agree the sale is a letdown. Many have already bought everything that regularly drops to a deep discount, and new releases rarely get cheaper.

The Witcher 3 at $10 for "the 8th sale in a row" no longer surprises anyone. Factorio stands apart from all of this. Wube Software states directly on the game page that it has no plans to take part in sales or cut the price for the foreseeable future. As a result, almost any discounted Factorio offer on third-party sites turns out to be a scam.

Collectible trading cards, handed out for every $10 spent during the sale, were the cherry on top. One user admitted to buying games he doesn't really need just to earn another card. Then came the classic first-day server overload, which left some buyers unable to complete their payments. Experienced players advise waiting a day or two in that case: the discounts aren't going anywhere.