The Steam Conundrum: How to Stop Buying Those Enticing Games You’ll Never Play

Originally posted on Total Apex Gaming | By Liesel Booker | Last updated Oct 6, 2025 6:17 PM ET

We’ve all been there. If you have an account on Steam, Epic Games Store, or any other digital game store, you know how tempting those sales are. You’re browsing the site, you see something that looks vaguely interesting and only costs a few bucks, and before you know it, you’ve bought the game and it’s in your library, never to be played. Soon, you’ve got thousands of hours’ worth of games in your backlog, and you’re still buying new games. How do you stop this?

About the Steam Conundrum

I don’t know if there’s an official name for this phenomenon, so I’m calling it the Steam conundrum. Sales on digital game stores are specifically designed to pry money out of your pocket. When normally expensive games only cost a few dollars each, who can resist the temptation? In addition, you have the FOMO (fear of missing out) element – the game might never be 80% or 90% off again, so you’ll just be wasting money if you wait to buy it. Worse, it could be delisted, meaning you’ll never get a chance to play it.

Of course, after a while your games pile up. I myself have fallen victim to this phenomenon, snatching up obscure games like Girlfriend Rescue and Black Home simply because they were cheap. Have I played them? Nope. Just a few days ago, I snatched a game that was 100% off, Zomborg, even though I don’t usually care for zombie games. I tried to logic it out by thinking, hey, it was free, it might never be free again, and besides, I could review it for my Weekly Indie Spotlight column.

Guess what? I haven’t played it.

What To Do About the Steam Conundrum

Screenshot image of Concierge courtesy of Digital Tribe taken by Desmond Harris

First of all, admit to yourself that you’re not going to complete your backlog. You simply have too many games to play and not enough free time in which to play them. Then, the next time Steam has a sale, think about which games you really want. Which games are you actually excited to play? Are you buying them because you genuinely want to play them, or are you buying them because of sales and FOMO? If you can answer those questions honestly, you’re more likely to actually play the games you buy.

For example, some of my recent Steam purchases such as Tiny Bookshop are actually getting a lot of play time. I was genuinely excited about Tiny Bookshop because I’m a lover of books and I enjoy a good cozy sim game. I had also played the demo, and I enjoyed what I played. As such, this purchase didn’t just go into my backlog never to be heard from again. I actually got to enjoy what I bought.

Conclusion

It takes a lot of willpower to resist a good sale, and you might not always be successful in doing so. Just remember that you’re not alone. Almost every gamer with a few dollars to spend has a backlog of games they haven’t played. But hey, maybe sometime when you’re not sure what to play, you could give something from your backlog a try. You might discover a hidden gem.

This article first appeared on Total Apex Gaming and was syndicated with permission.

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