Did you know: You haven’t played 1/3 of your Steam games?

This isn’t news, I found it in a post on Forbes from April 2014, but it’s something I’ve been wondering about for quite awhile. I mean, I have a pile of Steam games that I buy for basically nothing and while I do get around to playing some, there is an ever-increasing pile that I simply haven’t touched.

I did a count about a week ago and I’m right at about 1/3 unplayed as well. For me this is for a few reasons:

1. If I’ve heard good things about a game, it looks interesting, and it’s like, a couple of bucks, I’m an adult and I’m gonna buy that game.
2. I’ve purchased a few bundles containing older games and found that I really disliked going back in time with them. So that’s bumped up my ‘not played’ count.
   • For example, I bought a Star Wars pack (it had 5 or 8 games & sequels) and even though it makes me a bad person, I know, I just can’t stand playing Jedi Knight. It hasn’t aged well.
3. I’m going to get to them. Seriously! I tried Arkham Asylum and really hated it until I broke down and bought a decent PC gaming controller (it’s awesome with a proper controller, duh). I own all the new Batman games on Steam, so I’m going to play them eventually. I will, shut up!

The thing is, I don’t honestly care about not playing all the games I own. I don’t want to spend a pile of money on them, that’s clearly wasteful, but if I buy Balder’s Gate: Enhanced Edition for $3 and don’t play it for a few years, who cares? It’ll be there when I’m ready for it.

Until then, sleep tight little Balder’s Gate.

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Elder Scrolls Online: Logging in

Yes, sometimes I play games that have just been released. Try not to faint.

And yes, “Logging in” is possibly the lamest blog title that has ever been written by anyone anywhere. I don’t care. It’s appropriate.

I’m only about 30 or so minutes into ESO, and at Level 3 if I recall correctly, so I won’t talk too much about the quality of the game or compare it to WoW or anything like that.

I will talk a small amount about one particular thing that ticked me off.

To start, Bethesda made my favourite game ever, Fallout 3. Second, I got ESO for sale on Steam for 1/2 price ($30) including 30 days of playtime. Excellent deal. Third, Skyrim was the most fun I’ve had gaming in a LONG time. I haven’t played any earlier Elder Scrolls games (though Morrowind and Oblivion are among the long list of Steam games I own but haven’t played).

Thus, Elder Scrolls Online has a lot of rope with me.

BUT.

You freakin’ guys.

I couldn’t login to the game after I bought it. Seriously.

Normal steps in playing a game you buy from Steam:

1. Buy the game (why not? you got a sweet deal, else why are you buying the game?)
2. Download the game.
3. Hit ‘Play’
4. DirectX auto-installs… again…
5. Steam pops up your game key
6. You Cntr-C said game key because, hey, sometimes you need it.
7. If the game is kinda lame, you go to its website to create an account… *cough* EA *cough*
8. The game fires up, you enter your account info.
9. BOOM you’re playing the game and shooting zombies or whatever.

That’s like 9 steps max. More like 3 if you’re not an idiot.

ESO has a secret step.

Enter your game INTO THEIR WEBSITE TO ACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT or some BS like that. And, oh yeah, you can’t login until you do that AND IT DOESN’T EVER TELL YOU TO DO IT OR GIVE YOU AN ERROR IT JUST SAYS “ACCOUNT INFO NOT RECOGNIZED”.

Good Gord, what a piece of crap sign-in process.

After that, I had a freakin’ blast creating my Lizard-man stealthy guy.

PS – watch this video shared to me by Rocketbouchard.
Megaman + learning about learning in games = super-rad times.

Did you ever play Colecovision?

I sure as heck did.

For some reason, my family wasn’t into Atari so Coleco was my introduction to videogames. We had a pile of cartridges, I don’t recall many names except for Zaxxon and Ladybug. My mom freakin’ LOVED Ladybug – it was basically a Pac Man clone and there was something about collecting letters to spell “LADYBUG”. Don’t remember what that did, though it was probably awesome!

BOOM, Zaxxon!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaxxon#mediaviewer/File:Zaxxon.png

And here’s a playthrough of Ladybug with no commentary!

I don’t remember a ton of detail about games (though I remember the ADAM computer add-on and the fact that MY BROTHER HAD IT AND IT RAN ON CASSETTE TAPES… SO AWESOME), except for their simplicity, in terms of intro playability, and complete and utter soul-crushing difficulty. I don’t remember passing the 1st level of Zaxxon… it’s possible I never did…

Decided to not just write about retro games

Dear reader, as you can tell I haven’t written anything on this blog in… oh… 2 months. This hasn’t been because I haven’t been playing any games. I have, though not enough. I just haven’t felt like playing any retro games, which was the original point of this blog.

So, in the interest of expanding my publishing (and seriously, excuses for playing videogames) I’m going to start writing more about my gaming experiences in general.

First off, it seems like Steam sales are addictive in a really insidious way: like, $10 for Arkham Origins when I haven’t played Arkham Asylum or Arkham City (from previous Steam sales)? Definitely! Get in my pocket…

I want to think about that one a bit more.

Wow, I’ve been terrible lately

Well, dear reader. This has been the first big gap that I’ve had in the life of this blog.

Basically, I’ve been getting killed time-and-writing-wise by my Master’s thesis, sucking up all my energy for writing. BUT I’m almost through that and will be back to a much more consistent cadence.

So, sorry for the weeks-long gap, but I’ll be back.

queenofcharms.com

Post #6: a new milestone

If I decide to publish this post in the order than I’m considering right now, it will be my 6th. I’ve started a few random blogs over the years and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten this far. This site is also closing in on 100 visits in less than 10 days! That’s basically super-stardom as far as I’m concerned! I did have one post on Tumblr get reblogged like 5 times, so I’m not completely ignorant of the pitfalls of Internet stardom. But generally speaking, from here on out it’s all open road.

Now for some self-guided Q&A

First question: how dare you?

Well played.

Sorry, this was clearly recorded on a potato. I couldn't find a better version.

What have you learned so far?

Well, I had originally thought that I’d play old games and write about them.

Turns out that I’m writing pre-reviews, which is a freakin’ blast. My brain is terrible at remembering things and I’m really just trying to Alanis Morissette* each of the Pre Games without thinking about them too much. ‘Cause that seems like cheating

*by that I mean: stream of conciousness-ness

You’ve reached 6 posts, previously unattained by anyone, anywhere. How?

Even though I’m REALLY bad at them and other people know WAY more than me, I genuinely dig old games. Everything about them is cool! They’re old and all nostalgic-y; they’re a little hard to find; and I’m learning that games have been a part of many our lives.

*clinks expensive stem-ware filled with expensive champagne in a toast*