'Knowing Steam players are hoarders explains why you give Valve that 30%,' analyst tells devs: 'You get access to a bunch of drunken sailors who spend money irresponsibly'

I have a friend who buys every single console game released and never plays any of them. Physical copies georg is an outlier and should not be counted

My wall of shelves loaded with board games says otherwise...

pirating food

You wouldn't download a burger

Per the article you posted (interesting read BTW!)

With digital hoarding, however, the act of saving the file becomes an uncontrollable urge.

“It means that they’ve lost the choice — they feel they have to save it. If they do not, they may feel uncomfortable and, more often than not, anxious that they may need to have access to the information and it’s not going to be there,” he says.

I'm not sure "picking up some games you might want to play when they are on an extremely good sale" qualifies as Digital Hoarding, per the definition.

Buying an indie platformer that you might not play is not anywhere close to actual IRL hording. And it's not even what is being described as digital hording in that article from UCLA.

It's straight up irresponsible to compare it to an actual hording mental disorder. Like, you must not have ever experienced that in any capacity to think that.

Although, surely digital horders have some cross over. But the prevalence of people not playing a game they bought on discount ain't it fam.

From the article: "Hoarding is a disorder characterized by difficulty in parting with possessions" and this is key, "Digital hoarders often will cite an emotional attachment or a sentimental value to files they collect — including photos or email exchanges — associated with their own life experiences or with people in their lives. In such cases, he says, anticipating difficulty coping with feelings that accompany a permanent loss of these items becomes a barrier to controlling their hoarding behavior."

The mental disorder comes from the difficulty of parting with those possessions because the individual is tying emotional response to them. Have you ever tried to remove an object that you consider trash from a person that is hording? It's going to be a really bad time and a massive emotional roller coaster for everyone. This article made more sense to post than the original one from PC Gamer. I do wish consultants and experts would stop labeling people with disorders because of anecdotal evidence or trying to have some kind of shock value. It starts to associate people of a massive community with a mental disorder too. If someone deleted my steam library, I would be upset, but not on the actual level of an person that hordes. You ever see the show "Hoarders"? It's extremely sad and painful to watch.

That's not to say digital horders don't exist on steam. The moment they lose a game and start freaking out beyond "i just lost money", that person needs professional help.