There are four aircraft carriers worth of unplayed games lying dormant in your libraries

Did you know how much an aircraft carrier costs? No? Well, we've done the research for you, and now hold on tight: a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered carrier is going for $4.5 billion – a real bargain.

However, this does not include the sums that Steam users have apparently invested in games that are now gathering dust in their owners' libraries. According to an estimate by our British colleagues at PCGamesN This amount amounts to an incredible 19 billion US dollars.

A lot of money with which you could buy four aircraft carriers in one go.

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How does this number come about?

Every player probably knows the Pile of Shame. Every Steam sale comes with new, interesting offers and of course you jump at the chance. However, hardly anyone has the time to play all of these new purchases and so the pile of unplayed games grows with every purchase.

Our colleagues at PCGamesN wanted to know how big – or how valuable – the global Pile of Shame is. However, you can't simply read this amount on Steam. The problem: Only about 10 percent (about 73 million) of the world's Steam profiles are public.

The colleagues’ projections are based on these profiles.

With information from the analysis tool SteamIDFinder our colleagues calculated that these 10 percent of Steam profiles contain unplayed games worth around $1.9 billion. And by unplayed we mean: The games were purchased, but then not started even once.

If you multiply this amount by 10 to get the full number of Steam profiles, you get the sum mentioned at the beginning of 19 billion dollars, or 17.8 billion euros. This is roughly equivalent to the annual economic output of Nicaragua or Mauritius.

However, broken down to the individual user, this is not a lot of money: If you assume that there are 73 million public Steam profiles, each user only owns unplayed titles worth $26. That's not an aircraft carrier, but at least you could buy yourself a few kebabs with it.

Whether unplayed or not – one person in particular should be pleased: Valve owner Gabe Newell. Because he gets a little richer with every purchase you make. And with an estimated fortune of 4.3 billion US dollars (as of 2024), the American can almost buy his own aircraft carrier.

And let’s be honest: Who wouldn’t want that?