What games have you spent the most time in?

[vinraith]

It's not perfect but personally I never noticed any large mistakes, did you? OTOH I had in-game timers reporting largely underestimated playtimes, probably because they are tied to a single save.

There were cases of people reporting exceedingly short times (Portal 2?), but on average I suppose they are balanced by those forgetting (or purposefully leaving) games/launchers running in the background.

I've definitely had play sessions it outright didn't record, that's for sure.

Also, if a game closes wrong/crashes on exit, Steam will sometimes continue to count it as running. I once discovered I'd been "playing" New Vegas for 24 hours straight as a result of that!

[NathanH]

It's not perfect but personally I never noticed any large mistakes, did you? OTOH I had in-game timers reporting largely underestimated playtimes, probably because they are tied to a single save.

Steam claims 58 minutes of New Vegas and 1 minute of Fallout 3. Now, I did play them in offline mode quite a lot, but still.

[alms]

Also, if a game closes wrong/crashes on exit, Steam will sometimes continue to count it as running.

Probably going to sound as a fanboy, but it's hardly steam's fault if the game crashed leaving a zombie behind. I never had any occurences of it losing time, so I can't comment on that part.

Steam claims 58 minutes of New Vegas and 1 minute of Fallout 3. Now, I did play them in offline mode quite a lot, but still.

There you have your answer. It still boggles my mind that it needs to be online to record time, they could record the data and sync it at a later time whenever a connection becomes available. Then again with all the limitations the steam client still has, maybe it's just too much too ask :|

[NathanH]

There you have your answer. It still boggles my mind that it needs to be online to record time, they could record the data and sync it at a later time whenever a connection becomes available. Then again with all the limitations the steam client still has, maybe it's just too much too ask :|

I definitely played online for more than 1 minute though. Perhaps no more than a dozen hours, but still rather more than 1 minute.

[alms]

Problem is, if your connection is spotty or goes away, there's a chance your time won't be logged just as if you were in offline mode. That's how I lost the only couple hours of FTL I'm missing.

[vinraith]

Probably going to sound as a fanboy, but it's hardly steam's fault if the game crashed leaving a zombie behind. I never had any occurences of it losing time, so I can't comment on that part.

I'm not really interested in assigning blame, my point was simply that the count was unreliable.

[rhizo]

Most of my gaming hours were spent well before I started using Steam. The main culprits there would have been in no particular order EU2, Victoria, Civ2 & 4, a host of CM/FM games and of course RTCW:ET.

Currently topping the Steam hours:
(FM2011 - 1424 h)
BFBC2 - 990 h
(FM2012 - 965 h)
M&B WB - 320 h
Civ5 - 197 h
Skyrim - 168 h

Football Manager hours are not really relevant as the game might be open for 4 days straight while the active playing time there might be only a few hours. Of the Steam games, only Civ5 is still racking up more hours. I was actually surprised about the Warband and Skyrim hours though.

Also, judging by other's statistics it seems I've dodged a bullet or six by keeping away from MMOs. Time's scarce as it is.

[alms]

It is unreliable, but your hard disk, car, tablet are too. They're just reliable enough that you expect them to work every single time, and when they don't ...it stands out. Steam is usually reliable enough for a digital service that we feel the same way.

[vinraith]

It is unreliable, but your hard disk, car, tablet are too. They're just reliable enough that you expect them to work every single time, and when they don't ...it stands out. Steam is usually reliable enough for a digital service that we feel the same way.

I think we're talking past each other on this one. I'm not trying to make some broad statement about Steam/Valve, I'm not criticizing anyone, I'm only saying that Steam "time played" numbers are not a good source to use when determining what games have eaten up the greatest amount of your time.

[alms]

HLTB has a timer thingy that's supposed to help you keep track, but I'm never mindful enough to start and stop it when I'm playing a non-steam game. The convenience of Steam doing all automatically IMO greatly outweighs the chance of it getting wrong occasionally - I do have a fairly stable internet connection though.

[dancanman]

Arma 2: CO - 795.8 hrs. No I don't play DayZ, that's Warfare BE. Yes, I'll show myself out....
BF:BC2: 359.6 hrs
Men of War: assault squad: 128 hrs
New Vegas: 116 hrs
Skyrim: 100.4 hrs

[vinraith]

HLTB has a timer thingy that's supposed to help you keep track, but I'm never mindful enough to start and stop it when I'm playing a non-steam game. The convenience of Steam doing all automatically IMO greatly outweighs the chance of it getting wrong occasionally - I do have a fairly stable internet connection though.

Yup, the Steam counter is a nice tool. It can't tell you what game you've played the most, though, if you've been playing games since prior to 2010. :)

[mickygor]

Steam's time tracking is really inaccurate, but my old xfire profile shows the sort of ratio I've put into games I guess. Haven't used it in like 5 years, but eh:

World of warcraft, 1332 hours
Counter strike: source, 484 hours (steam still only thinks I've played 142 hours of it)
Jedi Knight 2 multiplayer, 247 hours
Eve online, 247 hours
Half life 2 deathmatch, 113 hours
Supreme commander: forged alliance, 73 hours (played more than that last month lol)
solitaire, 56 hours
wolfenstein: enemy territory, 54 hours

Every single one of those I've played a lot more than reported, even when I was using xfire I'd hazard a guess it was only open 1/3 of my gaming time.

[alms]

Yup, the Steam counter is a nice tool. It can't tell you what game you've played the most, though, if you've been playing games since prior to 2010. :)

I'm afraid the past can't be changed ...yet :P

[squirrel]

So this is one pro for Steam, to precisely record gameplay hours for a title.

Me, I played 171 hours Bad Company 2 online (disregard 6 to 10 hours something on the stupid campaign, I finished it out of the server outage periods). Not as impressive as you guys but I played in cybercafes, that's why. Yet I bought a legit copy myself and installed it in my own desktop, where I finished the campaign (and I start to wonder if I am stupid to do so for me not being able to play it online at home with my unreliable Internet connection).

[dspimoni]

Really? what the hell is there to do in 350 hours? One playthrough is 28-34 hours. you beat the game 10 times?

Only telling you what Steam tells me. I don't play a lot of games, but when I do, I play the hell out of them. Interesting side note, about 3/4 of those hours were not complete play-throughs.

I've also logged a similar number of hours on TF2, but I've been playing that one off and on for the past 5 years.

[Bankrotas]

All I know, that I have arround 120 h clocked on Tribes: Ascend and over 240h in Guild Wars 2. I can rely on the information the game gives me unlike steam.
Other games I can only speculate at the moment actually. Probably most played for me would be between CoD4 and AvP2, these games I probably spent near 500h and only maybe matched by F.E.A.R. Combat from back in the day.