The Stack

Steam has a Wishlist feature. It’s presumably meant to function as a wishlist — a way of marking things that you actually want. But that’s not how I use it. I use it as more of a vague interest list. My typical use case goes something like “Hm, that game looks like it might be worth taking a closer look at. But I don’t feel like doing that right now, so I’ll throw it on my wishlist so I’ll remember to look at it again when it’s on sale.”

Consequently, when the seasonal sales come around, I have a whole bunch of obscure little indie games on my wishlist, many of them discounted to less than three bucks, some even to less than one. I’ve been experimenting with a rule lately: when I want to buy something on Steam, I have to get everything cheaper than it off my wishlist first, either by buying it or by just removing it from the wishlist. The theory is that if I’m willing to pay $x for a game I want, then unwillingness to pay an amount less than $x for a different game signifies that I don’t really want it. But when the prices reach the sub-dollar range, I’m very inclined to just pay for them regardless, and make up my mind about them by playing them.

And so for the past few days, I’ve been spending my leisure time on a sort of smorgasbord, sampling many little delights and feeling no great obligation to stick with any that displease me. I’ll be describing some of the more interesting ones in subsequent posts.