Once a week each summer and winter, you may notice a unique type of excitement overcoming the hardcore. Usually, only fans of a certain genre will get hyped about a new game. However, all the hardcore appear to be going into heat. What is going on is the Steam sales that take place every winter and summer. (Steam is an online digital distributor of video games that also acts as a digital rights manager. The worst nightmare to a Hardcore Gamer is being banned from Steam in which he would lose access his video games (most of which he hasn’t played).)
The hardcore will sacrifice sleep to catch flash deals. In between refreshing the Steam store page, the hardcore will be searching the Internet and asking other hardcore in the gaming forum about which games to buy and whether or not to buy the downloadable content (downloadable content is a technique the Game Industry has made to get hardcore to buy the game multiple times).
What may appear shocking is that rarely does the hardcore play the games they purchased during the Steam sale. It is typical for the hardcore to have a Steam list of dozens of games they have never played (this doesn’t prevent them from purchasing more of course).
The reader may be wondering why the hardcore keeps buying games he doesn’t play. The answer is that the very low sales price represents the true value of the game. Since the hardcore values the game in a low way, it means the game does not get played or gets played only a few times. However, the hardcore loves collecting games he doesn’t play. To the hardcore, buying games is a “game” itself and engaging in Steam sales means they are ‘winning’ the sales “game”. To make friends with the hardcore, compliment how savvy they were in purchasing all those “quality games” at such a low price and how you wished you didn’t miss the Steam sale.
