Creaking Bones

This is the perennial question I ask myself as scroll through my Steam library. Among the Baldur’s Gate 3s, the Skyrims, and Rollercoaster Tycoons there lies a vast swath of greyed out titles. Games I don’t remember buying and have certainty never played or even installed before. Just looking upon them fills me with a sense of anxiety and guilt at all I have left to do. I briefly consider installing one before ignoring the feeling and once again sinking another hundred hours into something tried and tested and dependable.

Yet the games keep ending up in my cart, the list keeps growing, and the shame grows too. As the winter sale roles round again I weigh up the latest deals. The potential to buy thousands of hours of top quality entertainment at knocked down prices. But why stop with the games I’ve heard of? Surely there are so many more amazing games I might be missing. Luckily Steam provides easily filtering for those on a limited budget. Why spend more on a single game when I could get 20 different ones for the same price? And with prices as low as 44p, what do I havve to lose? That’s about the price of a Freddo bar after all. And so the problem continues.

Is there anything wrong with this?

It is my money after all. Some people collect stamps, or snow globes, or ceramic duck statues. There’s nothing harmful or particularly odd about keeping a video games collection. However, a statue fulfils its purpose by simply existing. It can be viewed, regarded and remarked upon, even if only by a deeply uninterested friend or family member desperate for a change of conversation.

Video games are different. Until they are actually played and experienced the only thing they achieve is making it impossible to find anything in my library. The outlay for ‘The Wizard’s Pen‘, ‘One Finger Death Punch‘ or ‘Insaniquarium: Deluxe’ might be tiny, but sitting unplayed in my library they are entirely worthless by any metric.

Aren’t these games worthless anyway?

At least a Freddo bar is delicious, what value do most of these games have? Let’s face it, the majority lurking in the depths of Steam are not going to offer a good return on the time investment. For every game lovingly crafted with passion and ingenuity there are thousands cobbled together without thought or care from copy/pasted assets. Games where the glitches are the best feature, offering an excuse to uninstall and request a refund without wasting any further time.

I have at least practiced some modicum of quality assurance for purchase – I won’t be covering anything that’s obviously an asset flip without transformative development, or is likely deeply offensive with humour a 6 year old would cringe at.

So why bother?

Some of my most engaging and memorable gaming experiences have come from games I had zero expectations of and which cost only pennies. ‘Downwell‘, ‘Abzu‘ and yes, ‘Zuma’s Revenge‘ all appeared in the bargain bin at one point. As well as quality indie/solo developed games available at a steal, there are many venerable older games which have descended into the less than £4 section – ‘Mass Effect’, ‘Fallout 2’ and ‘Deus Ex‘.

Opinion is subjective and I’m not looking to meticuously dissect the games covered, only determine what’s worth playing and what deserves to remain in obscurity. Still, I will occasionally seek an outside opinion from notable gaming experts – Bonnie and Clyde. Clyde has a preference for puzzle platformers and bright colours. Bonnie specialises in first person shooters and obsuring the screen during the most crucial cut scenes of story driven games.

The future is an undiscovered country. Maybe there are lessons to be learnt from these games which are missed in newer or more well known titles. Or maybe it will be disaster after disaster. Either way, it should be fun.