You're reading Reaction Time, a weekly column that claims to examine recent events, games and trends in the industry, but is really just looking for an excuse to use the word "zeitgeist." It debuts on Fridays in Engadget's digital magazine, Distro.
I've already bought several games during this year's Steam Summer Sale, including Legend of Grimrock, an old-fashioned dungeon crawler with a modern veneer. Good for me! Oh, except Legend of Grimrock is a PC game. I don't even have a PC right now, and I've never bothered to set up a dual-boot partition on my MacBook Air. The dread of missing out on the deal was so great, it overwhelmed the fact that I don't even have the preferred equipment for the game.

It happens every year, as Valve gets more and more adept at carving off costs and doling out deals at the perfect pace - slowly enough to keep you coming back, but not fast enough to let you realize that you're spending something you don't have.

Money isn't the problem. Spending five bucks on the latest indie gem, even if it's buried in a shopping minecart of indie gems, won't be the death of you. The actual death of you, however, might be slightly more prohibitive when it comes to buying all these games. When are you going to find time to play all this stuff?