Support NeoGAF

[Celcius]

These days it's popular for websites to show how you spent your time over the year. Twitch does an end of year recap on what you watched, reddit does an end of year recap on what you read/posted, and gaming platforms do it too.

Steam's recap shows

• How many games you played, how many of those were new 2023 releases, and list of all games played in 2023.
• How many achievements you unlocked, how many of those were rare, and list of all achievements attained in 2023.
• What percentage of games you played with keyboard + mouse and how many you played with a controller.
• How many hours you spent playing each game and how many sessions you spent playing each game. (a session is every time you started the game up and played it)
• Your longest streak for the year in terms of consecutive days spent playing on Steam and longest streak for each game played.
• A graph of the different genres of games that you played in 2023.
• Community numbers like number of forum posts, reviews written, etc...
• Yearly graph of how much time you spent playing each game that month.

Nintendo's recap shows:

• First game played in 2023.
• Number of games played and number of hours played.
• Most played games in 2023.
• Percentage spent playing each genre of game.
• Month with most hours logged.

This seems like a relatively recent phenomenon, as I don't recall seeing these 5 years ago for example. The recaps are interesting to see and reflect on, but Steam's stats in particular seem really detailed. Many of us buy our games digitally these days which makes it all the more easier for companies to see our gaming data. Does the gaming community have any cause to be concerned about all this data that is being collected and stored, or do we not really care? I'm just curious what people thoughts on this are.

 

[acm2000]

dont see any of that as concerning at all.

 

[Salty Popsicle]

Unless these companies get a hold of my SSN or hack my phone camera to record me playing with myself, I can care less if they count how many hours I played a game or how many achievements I unlocked.

 

[kiphalfton]

Even if worst case scenario they decided to use that information against you, not much you can do when hulkamania runs wild on you brother.

 

[Skifi28]

They track the games you play, the amount of hours and your peripherals. Sounds pretty harmless. I'd be more concerned with the data Google or your provider has which they don't let you know about.

 

[X-Wing]

These recaps are never available to me because I always turn data collection off. So, no.

 

[T4keD0wN]

If you think this is bad just imagine what google/apple or whoever track through your phone.

 

[Bloobs]

I like stats

 

[Bojanglez]

I would be worried if they weren't tracking this kind of stuff. If they use the data correctly, it allows them to gauge which games and services are worthwhile investing in. This is why things like the PS Portal probably exist, they will have the data telling them that when people engage with Remote Play they probably play and spend more once they do, so making it easier makes sense.

 

[Fbh]

Eh, none of that seems particularly concerning. These days you have to assume any internet connected device is going to keep track of data like this, so at least you are getting some fun trivia out of it.

If anything I wish the Ps5 would be a bit more accurate because the playtime it shows on many games is definitely bullshit.

 

[Spyxos]

Wait until you find out what google, facebook or whoever knows about you.

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

You’ll probably come to realise that when you scrolled through all of that ‘important please read’ EULA text and didn’t read it and put the tick in the box at the end that you consented to all of this anyway.

 

[Magic Carpet]

My Roomba knows too much.

 

[ReBurn]

Dozens of companies have data on you by virtue of making this post. The Google machine already has this post and has probably already tied it to the reams of information they have on you.

Reality is that it's probably no longer possible to participate in most societies without being tracked in some way. Every swipe of a debit or credit card ties information about your habits back to centralized databases that companies buy and sell every day.

When it comes to these year end things there's really no way to not have your data tracked unless you just don't use the platforms. Even if you are all physical you pretty much still have to have signed in to some platform service under an online id or email address or something to be able to play games. EULA's you click through to get to the thing you want to do give them all of the permissions they need. Even if you live in a place where you have the right to be forgotten these companies just remove your identifying info and keep using what they know about you.

 

[jshackles]

And that's just the data they feel comfortable showing you...

 

[graywolf323]

I wanna know why Steam doesn’t actually tell us the hours? everything seems to be calculated by the sessions instead of by time and IMO that’s just dumb (at least if it’s going to be the main/only way they provide that data)

 

[ManaByte]

 

[Magic Carpet]

And that's just the data they feel comfortable showing you...

Number of times F Bomb dropped.
MPH of thrown controller.
Bathroom break Pause/Play ratio. Get that prostate checked achievement.

 

[ButchCat]

In most cases data collection is processed at an aggregate level or adopts pseudonymisation that is governed by regional policies. This allows them to produce statistics (user behaviour, audience segments, patterns, etc) at a group or individual level without the identification of users. Now I am not saying it's impossible that Steam hasn't followed these measures but if they ever get caught they would be in deep deep doo doo.

 

[Zathalus]

Knowing what games you like and how you play them is not exactly concerning information.

 

[Pelta88]

It’s literally in the terms and conditions when you sign up.

 

[xrnzaaas]

A lot of this stuff can be datamined from trophy & profile stats. Hell, sites like trueachievements can also show your milestone trophies or total playtime for various games since it's publicly available unless you make it private.

The only thing that would concern me was counting that keyboard&mouse ratio. Means not only it's being checked when starting a game, but also during the game.

 

[Banjo64]

What are they going to extrapolate from that?

That I’ve played Splatoon 3 for 50 hours?

Scary.

 

[MikeM]

This is the kind of data I don’t mind sharing.

 

[SmokedMeat]

That’s not concerning.

Concerning is my phone knowing where I’m headed the moment I hop in my car, and telling me how long it’ll take to get there.

 

[Celcius]

A lot of this stuff can be datamined from trophy & profile stats. Hell, sites like trueachievements can also show your milestone trophies or total playtime for various games since it's publicly available unless you make it private.

The only thing that would concern me was counting that keyboard&mouse ratio. Means not only it's being checked when starting a game, but also during the game.

The keyboard and mouse vs controller ratio was the main thing that struck me as "I've never seen that reported anywhere before... I had no idea that was being tracked!"

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

My Roomba knows too much.

Username checks out.