Getting Value Out of Steam Games - Hours Played

[Grim.Reaper]

So, it wasn't enough for me to depress people about how much money they have paid for all the Steam games in their library using the enhanced steam plug-in for Chrome/FireFox, now I am moving on to make myself even feel worse and underscore what an impulsive buyer I am and often wasteful:(

Within the same tool, you can calculate the total hours you spent playing your steam games.  While using Chrome/FireFox with the plug in installed, go to the steam web site and login.  Select the menu option "Activity" under your username at the top.  Then on the righthand side, select the "Games" menu option.  Select the filter to see all games.  At the top of the list it will show you the total number of game hours played and recorded.

This is where my depression comes into play.....

Total Games Owned: 130
Total Cost Paid (at least when bought at Steam, even worse considering I bought many outside of steam): $642
Total Hours Played Recorded:  347 Hours
Most Time with a Single Game: 109 Hours (second place is around 33-35 hours)

So if I do the math.....

I average playing each game.......2.6 Hours since the time I bought them.....doesn't seem like I got much play time out of them:(  It's exactly what I thought....I buy many things on impulse to just try them, very rarely playing them for a long time.

As I went through this exercise, noticed a few games I have never started and many that I only played a few minutes.....yikes!

This has been very good therapy for me:)

[steve58]

[-budd-]

ok....I've had this installed awhile but haven't looked the numbers up in bit.

146 games [not sure if this includes the non-steam shortcuts of my matrix games i have in my list.]
cost $389.00
Time 561 hours
most time in game- Dragon Age origin- 82 hours       2nd 7 days to die 72 hours

Seems like when you uninstall the time goes away, some i've uninstalled but have put hours in show zero.

[Kushan]

Grim, you are one evil man.

Total Games Owned: 65
Total Cost Paid: $1,342.55
Total Hours Played Recorded: 1,449.8 Hours

Almost all of that time is divided amongst 3 games:

Skyrim: 649 Hours
Crusader Kings 2: 216 Hours
Europa Universalis IV: 194 Hours

[mirth]

Oh good. New metrics for sucking joy from my life :P

[MetalDog]

I have 16 Steam games, not all of which were purchased on Steam.

Warlock: Master of the Arcane - 519 Hours
Crusader Kings II - 158 Hours
Avernum: Escape from the Pit - 79 Hours
Europa Universalis IV - 65 Hours

[GDS_Starfury]

16 games and 1000's of hours.  mostly spent on CS:S.
I'd be surprised if I spent more then $125 for what I have.
money well spent!

[DennisS]

1034 hours..by totalling them up manually. Where can I get the stats that you'll all have?

[Kushan]

1034 hours..by totalling them up manually. Where can I get the stats that you'll all have?

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=10421.120

Scroll down to Grims post.

[-budd-]

only for chrome and firefox

http://www.enhancedsteam.com/

[Sir Slash]

Does time spent cursing the games count as actually playing them? Should in my book.

[GDS_Starfury]

I don't need an app to have an idea of how much time I've spent beating the shit out of people around the globe.   

[JudgeDredd]

I feel better with this calculation as opposed to the money spent one...

I have 169 games coming in with 1577 hours played - an average of 9.3 hours per game  ;D

[Toonces]

Well, I guess it's all perspective.

I spent $1000 and have 200 games, so I'm averaging $5 a game.  Honestly, how can we complain about that kind of pricing?

Depending on how you look at it, I have ~10 hours a game (80 games installed/800 hours) or ~4 hours per game (200 games/800 hours).  That's still not a bad return on investment all things considered.

However, it's so hard to quantify it like that.  For example, ARMA2, ARMA2 Combined Ops, ARMA2 British Forces, ARMA2 PMC, etc...all count as "separate" games even though they're essentially the same game.  Furthermore, a lot of these games came bundled and some of the bundled games I knew I'd never play.  So counting them is sort of...not right.

When I think about how much time I spend gaming and in front of this computer, I can't escape the conclusion that this is an extremely cheap form of entertainment all things considered.  While $1000 is a lot of money, for 800 hours of entertainment it is extremely worth the value.  And, these games keep giving- I haven't even touched some of the time sinks like Rome 2, Shogun 2, Morrowind, and so on. 

Don't sweat it.  Even at Jarhead kind of money none of us is doing too badly here.

[Jarhead0331]

Well, I guess it's all perspective.

I spent $1000 and have 200 games, so I'm averaging $5 a game.  Honestly, how can we complain about that kind of pricing?

Depending on how you look at it, I have ~10 hours a game (80 games installed/800 hours) or ~4 hours per game (200 games/800 hours).  That's still not a bad return on investment all things considered.

However, it's so hard to quantify it like that.  For example, ARMA2, ARMA2 Combined Ops, ARMA2 British Forces, ARMA2 PMC, etc...all count as "separate" games even though they're essentially the same game.  Furthermore, a lot of these games came bundled and some of the bundled games I knew I'd never play.  So counting them is sort of...not right.

When I think about how much time I spend gaming and in front of this computer, I can't escape the conclusion that this is an extremely cheap form of entertainment all things considered.  While $1000 is a lot of money, for 800 hours of entertainment it is extremely worth the value.  And, these games keep giving- I haven't even touched some of the time sinks like Rome 2, Shogun 2, Morrowind, and so on. 

Don't sweat it.  Even at Jarhead kind of money none of us is doing too badly here.

...and there is the silver lining analysis I was looking for. God bless you.