"Add to" / "Override" Toggle for Playtime Stat

[CaptainScarLeg]

So I've become interested in the individual playtime stat for games on our profiles and I think it's pretty cool that you can change it for each game manually if you want. This works perfectly for manually added games or platforms that don't track play time, provided you have an idea of how much time you've spent on each game, of course.

However, it's a little less useful for games that do track playtime, but for whatever reason you want to add a chunk of time to that stat. Back-compat Xbox 360 games in particular come to mind, as the playtime on Xbox One and Series consoles is tracked, but any time you put in on 360 was never tracked and is missing. You can override the tracked time, but if you play that game again then the tracked time is going to increase but you won't see that increase reflected on your profile, you'll just see the overridden time you put in. You would have to then manually update it every time.

In short, it becomes inaccurate (and a pain to manage) as soon as you play that game again.

What I'd suggest is a toggle between completely "overriding" the total time with the amount you input, and "adding" it to the tracked time, if there is any. Some games actually track your playtime within the game itself, so you could just add that time once, and any additional time you put in would be tracked and added to the total so you never have to change it again.

Would that be doable? It doesn't seem like it should be too difficult to implement and unless I'm missing something, it would completely solve the issue.

I hope that all made sense!

Edit: Seems I got the playtime and last played date functions mixed up a bit. Reworded and tweaked my post.

 

[x3sphere]

Yes, I like the idea. I'm thinking maybe the toggle isn't necessary though?

I know some folks use the feature to correct their time played since for whatever reason, the automatic tracking isn't always completely accurate. But could allow negative values to be entered, that way they don't have to completely override the time in either case.

Doing it this way would require converting the existing overridden values in the database but that's not much work. Just think it might better to have only one way of adding/subtracting the hours, keeps things simple.

 

[CaptainScarLeg]

Yes, I like the idea. I'm thinking maybe the toggle isn't necessary though?

I know some folks use the feature to correct their time played since for whatever reason, the automatic tracking isn't always completely accurate. But could allow negative values to be entered, that way they don't have to completely override the time in either case.

Doing it this way would require converting the existing overridden values in the database but that's not much work. Just think it might better to have only one way of adding/subtracting the hours, keeps things simple.

I love the idea of negative values being allowed, hadn't considered that.

My only concern with removing the ability to override the tracked time is that some people may have used it to "block" any additional tracking and keep the playtime fixed. For instance, I imagine some people might use the current override feature to keep track of exactly how long it took to complete each game on their list rather than keep track of their total playtime. I know there are probably other sites more specialized for that sort of thing (but why redirect people elsewhere if they can use this site?) but I can certainly see that as a use for the current override feature. I'm sure there could be other reasons to override the tracked time too.

That said it's up to you if you want to keep it simple. I'd certainly prefer the addition/subtraction option rather than the override option if I can only have one or the other. I'm just not sure it would really hurt to have both options, some might see it as a "lost feature" if they can no longer override playtime completely.

On a related note I've noticed any playtime added for manually added games doesn't appear to be included in the total accumulated playtime, but added time to tracked games does. Not sure I see the harm in including it in the total? Or if there is a reason not to include it, perhaps have a second total that does?

 

[CaptainScarLeg]

By the way, I just noticed some games on my profile had play times that were stuck/not updating. I'm going through and editing each game to reset to tracked time, so far it's just a few Steam games.

My only theory so far is that maybe I edited those games at some point to hide them and when I clicked save it treated the current tracked time as if it was manually entered and froze it? Unsure what else it could be unless the site just has a random bug.

 

[CaptainScarLeg]

By the way, I just noticed some games on my profile had play times that were stuck/not updating. I'm going through and editing each game to reset to tracked time, so far it's just a few Steam games.

My only theory so far is that maybe I edited those games at some point to hide them and when I clicked save it treated the current tracked time as if it was manually entered and froze it? Unsure what else it could be unless the site just has a random bug.

Actually, scratch that, it also happened to Microsoft Solitaire Collection. I figured that game just tracked play time on PC and not on Android but it jumped from 85 hours to 277, yikes. Gotta get those daily challenges in.