Side note: I just discovered that if you don't start Steam games through Steam it doesn't log your time played. FFXI states I've played 90 days, 9 hours, and 30 minutes...Steam claims I've only played 15 minutes. Within the 90 days I've only scratched the surface of the quests you can do (and yes I own all the expansions).

Steam does a terrible job of recording your "Time played". I play all my games directly through Steam, but many of the times are wrong - sometimes saying 5 minutes when I've played dozens and dozens of hours, other times saying ~20 hours, when I've played 60+ hours.

I don't know how they calculate it, but it's pretty wildly reported that it vastly under-reports the time spent in many games (while other games appear roughly accurate). My account is rarely in Offline mode either, so that's not the cause. I've also had some games reset their time-played (i.e. they used to say 20 hours, but several months later they say 5 minutes).

tldr: Steam "Time played" can't be trusted regardless how you start the game. :mellow:

@Servant of the Lord

I realized that after my post. I started noticing that Steam shows a HUGE chunk of my library that it claims I've never played when in fact I have. I didn't know it was so faulty until now, but that was because I had never paid attention to it until now.

a bit off topic but i have the same with movies, i'll never go to the cinema again. waste of time and money

Last movie I went to see was Rango, but it was because my mother-in-law paid to take my son. The price also varies depending on movie so a single ticket at our theater ranges from $8 to $14 or $15 per ticket. For example, Ghostbusters is $13.99 for an adult ticket, $10.99 for a child ticket, and $12.49 for senior citizens (60+ here) while The Infiltrator is $10.49, $7.49, and $8.99. Cheaper to just wait for digital download and spend ~$16 - $20 so that if you hate it you won't be out a large chunk of change. If my wife and I went to see, say Ghostbusters, two tickets (after state tax) would be $29.65 (none of this is including the popcorn or drinks, or whatever you sneak in for the movie).

In before I mention of $4-$5 ticket price that I avoid not because its much but because I hate feeling of being fooled by a bad movie. And last movie I went was one of the worst ever,

Star Wars : A New Hope 2 (aka The Force Awakens) :/

I play all my games directly through Steam, but many of the times are wrong - sometimes saying 5 minutes when I've played dozens and dozens of hours, other times saying ~20 hours, when I've played 60+ hours.

For some reason, many developing companies dont have demos to try their game before buy, nowadays if you want to check for more features buy it or watch long seasons on youtube of gameplay, sad but unfortunatly the truth. I miss the old days when the demos of games came in cd's.

For some reason, many developing companies dont have demos to try their game before buy, nowadays if you want to check for more features buy it or watch long seasons on youtube of gameplay, sad but unfortunatly the truth. I miss the old days when the demos of games came in cd's.

Agreed! I have a full CD Spindle (from where I bought like 200 CD-Rs years ago) that is now just loaded with old PS1 and PS2 demo discs. For PC games I was fine with the Shareware method of play a level or two and then pay for the full game if you liked it, but even that is a relic of the past it seems (or at least it appears to have migrated to mobile gaming: iPad, kindle, etc.).

For some reason, many developing companies dont have demos to try their game before buy ...

I don't know why most do it, but I seem to recall seeing an argument put forth by Extra Credits that putting out a demo is somewhat risky for the developer--even (and perhaps especially) if the game is excellent.

In short, and if I recall correctly, the argument is thus:

The game itself might be roughly grouped into three categories: bad, okay, and good. (One could use a finer division, but I don't think that doing so changes much, and fewer groups keeps the argument simpler.) A demo likewise may be fitted into the same three categories. However, the category into which a demo falls doesn't necessarily match that of its parent game--it could show off only the best of an otherwise poor game, or the worst of an otherwise excellent game; something might shine in a short demo, but become tiresome in the full game; the developer might stumble over some element that's fixed or not present in the full game. In short, a demo is a nearly-separate product from the game.

For a poor game, this may be advantageous: an okay or good demo may boost its sales. An good game, on the other hand, might have its sales pulled down by an okay or poor demo--only a good demo would be likely to be advantageous.

On top of that, there's the element of word-of-mouth: a particularly poor or good game will likely develop some degree of reputation even without a demo. This is perhaps particularly true these days, with video reviews and Let's Plays providing a means of discovering and informing one's thoughts on new games.

Finally, producing a demo will likely call for additional development time on top of the production of the game itself--even if the demo is just a few levels from the main game, there may be additional logic to handle the end of the demo (such as "end of demo" screens, etc.), and one way or another it's likely an additional build to make and test.

That said, I do suspect that crowdfunded games might benefit from demos as a means to show that the game is under production, and looks promising (presuming that it is and does, respectively).

Hmmm are there still services that allow you to rent games? I used to love doing that, especially games that I was on the fence about.