Steam sales are the best and worst thing about playing games in the modern age. It turns out that when hundreds of games go on sale for ludicrously cheap prices, we can't help but buy ALL OF THEM, even when we know we have no chance of playing them. It's comfort-buying.

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Keza MacDonald

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Mitch Dyer

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Meghan Sullivan

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Brian Albert

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Jon Ryan

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In an effort to make ourselves (and perhaps you) feel better about our purchases, we're baring our Steam sale shame for all to see, and giving some recommendations along the way. Feel free to share yours in the comments.Far, far too much, as I have absolutely zero impulse control and I just got a new PC. Risk of Rain, The Swapper, Terraria, Rome Total War II, Age of Empires II HD, Don't Starve, Skyrim Ultimate Edition, Evoland, Gunpoint, Kentucky Route Zero, Mark of the Ninja, Monaco, and Rogue Legacy. Most of it's pretty great, the rest was cheap enough that it didn't matter.To be fair, I have played most of it, but there's a very slim chance that I'll ever bother to start Skyrim all over again just to see the DLC I haven't played yet. So far I've played Age of Empires II HD for about an hour just to laugh at the "Scottish" accents, which I'm not sure justified the expenditure. Terraria was a completely pointless purchase as I've already played it so much on 360, but that big green sale sign proved too tempting. I WILL get around to Total War: Rome II. Definitely. Just watch me.The Swapper and Gunpoint were both excellent purchases. One's a spooky space puzzler with Metroidy exploration, the other is a good-humoured 2D stealth game where you can jump super-high thanks to a pair of magic trousers.£90 ($150) in the most recent Winter sale. I hate myself.I blame Valve for my youth's totally responsible credit card debt. More recently, I bought DayZ, the entire Broken Sword saga, Fable III, The Novelist, Overgrowth, and received Reus as a gift from IGN's lovely Katie Kasarda.Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahhahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaha.I am head-over heels in love with Rust right now, a survival game whose emergent storytelling is the sort of thing my friends and I will remember forever. I can't wait to see how this Early Access thing evolves, and how the player behavior changes to adapt to its updates.I don't want to talk about it.The Witcher, The Witcher 2, FTL, Gone Home, Dust: An Elysian Tail.I started Dust and finished Gone Home, but The Witcher, The Witcher 2 and FTL have been sitting on my desktop since the last Steam sale, patiently waiting for me to play them.Gone Home is a very moving indie game that I recommend to anyone who enjoyed titles like Dear Esther and Journey.I don’t want to know.This sale marked the beginning of a very foolish and costly tradition. In addition to purchasing tons of games, including Kentucky Route Zero, Monaco, Antichamber, DayZ, The Stanley Parable, and Metro: Last Light, I also bought nearly two dozen outfits (they were on sale!) for my favorite Dota 2 heroes. No, that’s not entirely true – I even bought outfits for characters I don’t like, solely because they were cheap. I am part of the problem.I’ve already played plenty of DayZ with friends, and I’ve “finished” The Stanley Parable at least five times by now. I won’t play Kentucky Route Zero until all the other episodes are released, and I doubt I’ll get around to the rest of my shame pile. It’s unfortunate, really, but between work and my Dota addiction, I find it difficult to start something new.As broken as it is, I still recommend checking out DayZ if you haven’t yet. Yes, it’s buggy and incomplete, but the emergent gameplay it generates is some of the best of its kind. The Stanley Parable is a clever examination of video game choices and storytelling. You should play that too.$120.All of it. Not literally, of course, but since last years winter sale (2011-12) I've bought more games than I could play if I had a five-month long vacation from all my other life obligations (including sleep, food and bathrooms). Original Steam titles notwithstanding, here's a sampling of my 64-title library: Metro 2033, BulletStorm, Amnesia, Deadlight, Gone Home, Walking Dead (seasons 1+2), Hotline Miami, Portal 2, both Dead Island games, ALL the Hitman games, Driver: SF, Saints Row 2-4, every Deus Ex title, System Shock 2, the Thief Collection (all three games), PoP collection (Prince of Persia, Sands of Time and Warrior Within) and somehow I managed to end up with two copies of GTA III, Vice City and San Andreas (plus the original GTA and GTA2). TWO COPIES. EACH. The how and why of that I don't understand; thinking about it, along with the rest of the games I've left unfinished, is frankly making me depressed.None of it. Sadly, this is because the gaming PC that I built in 2010 sputtered and died shortly after Thanksgiving after several years of faithful service; but even it if it was alive and well, I can say with much shame and self-loathing that I'd probably only get through about 20-30 percent of my library - much of which I already own and have finished on a console. That being said, I love the Thief games, System Shock 2 is still one of my favorite first-person adventures, and as soon as the Compy486 is back on line I WILL be joining the Day Z and Rust alphas.If you haven't already enjoyed them on PSN / XBL, respectively, both Hotline Miami and Super Meat Boy are excellent choices for fun and easy-to-get-lost-in games. If you have a machine that can run it well, spend the $2.50 on Just Cause 2 - the newly-minted multiplayer mod/DLC makes this one of the funnest and most insane online experiences you can have in a game. Also, this isn't a game recommendation but a piece of life advice: DO NOT BE LIKE ME. I feel like a junkie who simply refuses to check themselves into rehab, no matter how many people tell me they "won't watch me kill myself..." with video games.I don't even know anymore. I used to limit myself to $50 per sale, but that rule died just about as quickly as it was made. I'm sure that if I tallied up all the full-price costs, it would easily reach $250-$300, but thankfully I can claim almost all of these purchases as 'business deductions' on my taxes, because America. So that's nice.

Jared Petty

And now for a counterpoint, an inspiration to us all in our regrettable excess:I play most of the games I buy on Steam, not always to completion but usually enough to justify the purchase. A lot of this peculiar behavior is tied into the years I spent collecting classic games. I used to cram hundreds of old cartridges and consoles into my tiny Japanese apartment, most of which I played for about five minutes and never touched again. After years of hoarding, I realized I was using only twenty percent of my library with any regularity, and subsequently cleaned house.Digital hoarding takes up less physical space, but it's still a waste of money. Steam sales offer the best discounts in gaming, and I use them as opportunities to purchase games I really want instead of loading up on every discounted item. Adhering to a self-imposed rule that I always wait ten seconds and think before clicking the "Purchase" button helps keep my library slim. I slip up every now and then, (that copy of Star Wars: Empire at War Gold is probably never getting installed), but most of the time I manage to resist the temptation. After several years of adhering to this method, I've never found myself suffering from a lack of games to play.Also, I don't buy games while drinking. Ever. That helps a lot.

Share your own shame (and recommendations) below, if you can bear it.