I own a few games on Steam that I had previously played on other platforms, such as my PS4. These are usually older titles that I picked up on one of Steam's sales for under $10. But per Valve/Steam metrics, I never played them.

For clarity, owning the Steam/PC version of such a game will allow me to fully max out its visuals, when I do eventually decide to replay it. Console versions commonly use a mix of medium/high settings, while you can bump that up much further on the PC.

I've definitely bought more games on Steam (and GoG) than I'll ever play in my lifetime.

Some games I buy with the intent of playing them but haven't gotten to them. Other games I have bought as part of bundles, where I wind up with stuff I'll never touch.

Overall, I'm okay with that. I've stopped looking at my Steam collection as a backlog I have to complete. I just play whatever interests me in a given moment.

Games also get removed from Steam all the time. In some cases I have versions of game in my Steam library that aren't even available for sale any more. This is a similar reason to why I buy a lot of duplicates on GoG, just to preserve the offline installers.

There's no statistics for GOG offline installers or Steam Offline mode.

I like browsing my stats so I let Steam get them. According to SteamDB I haven't played 58% of my games in my Steam library*. And for a while now I stopped buying games**.

* A bit inaccurate. There are games I own physically steamless or on another platform (Xbox/PS/GOG) where I did play them. There are also some "duplicates" where the publisher gave away automatically the remaster of games I already owned. It also counts certain stuff as separate games that it shouldn't (for example the Windows and Mac versions of GTA 3/VC) This improves the percentage drastically.

** I only buy 1 game for every 2 or 3 I've played.

Well, Valve put a lot of effort into making "Buy games from Steam" the best and the most interesting game they can offer, and everyone's playing it.

Experienced users can also try the "Make your own game and get through Steam Greenlight" mode.

MrFlibble wrote on 2025-07-09, 21:27:

Experienced users can also try the "Make your own game and get through Steam Greenlight" mode.

Steam Greenlight hasn't existed for ages. Anyone can put up a game for sale just by paying a fee.

I've a few games on GOG and Epic that I know I'll never play but grabbed as were giveaways at some point. eg Duke 3D even though I I still prefer my physical copes of these games on period correct machines.
I can also understand people "collecting games" Sometimes it's just nice to know you have say the entire back catalogue of Doom.

Only game I own in Steam is C&C Remaster, I do enjoy getting the annual summary showing me how many hours I've played it in the year.

Shponglefan wrote on 2025-07-09, 23:09:

Steam Greenlight hasn't existed for ages. Anyone can put up a game for sale just by paying a fee.

Well, my bad, but you get the idea.