Reset Steam personal statistics (number of hours played)

[Sadwick]

Hello all community and users,

I would like to delete all my own personal statistics (hours I played on a game, last connection and so on) For the moment, they appear on my games (hours, last connection, etc)

I dont want them, and for private reason I would like not to show them at all, even on my OWN account :) (Note =i am not talking about using "privacy" to my profile page.. I am talking about what is shown on my personal Steam program and that is not mandatory .. hours and last connection aren't..)

So my question is not about "why should I -or should I not- hide those numbers"

My question is "why, as a customer using Steam, can't I reset or delete those numbers by choice, on my own page..?"

Even every day if I want !

That steam collects my statistics for them in backend, I have no issue with that, they still can do it, but I would really like to get back -as a user- the "control" of what I want to show, or not show, on my "own" steam account page.

Why Steam dev' doesn't allow users to take control of their stats/library content the way "we" want ?

If indeed we can reset those, please, can you clarify it for me ?

A big thanks to all,

Thanks for sharing !

Fen'

[Start_Running]

Simple answer OP. Because you don't own the numbers. You can't delete your account anymore than you can delete your shopping recipt from a store. It's information about you, but it doesn't belong to you. So better just suck it up.

[Emka877]

Początkowo opublikowane przez LowJack_VA1:

Początkowo opublikowane przez TabrisDarkPeace:

No normal adult wants this feature.

This thought was running through my mind when I first read the question.

OP only asked for a feature, he didn't ask for your judgement. And it could be helpful in some cases.
Steam users are really lesson-giving jerks, jesus.

[Skullduggory]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Hanomaly:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Fenril radio horizon42.fr:

Steam can still have all of your datas, and tell you "dear sir, you have 5,6 hours of play on Fallout 4"

We might even consider that for the refund, they add a simple "refund" button that shows "during" the first two hours..

So, at the end, they always know how many hours you played, if they want to know.

It is not about hiding from Steam - they can keep track of everything.. well, no doubt they KEEP track of everything- it is about avoiding those numbers on your own data.

Sure Steam will have the data but taking the time to *show users* their true play time when the user has decided to reset their play time.. with *enough proof* to satisfy an angry customer... might be a problem.

Lets say you are my RL friend.

You are new to gaming and just bought Counter Strike and have played 1.5 hours. i am over your real life house we are having a sleep over because we are kids. You go to sleep, i reset your game hours.. then i play Counter Strike 1.6 hours.

i DO NOT TELL YOU i reset your game time.

Tomorrow you wake up, decide Counter Strike was boring, look at your play time which reads "1.6 hours" and that seems about right (since you played 1.5) " ..so you go to do a refund..b ut the refund button is not highlighted!

"It must be a mistake," you think.. because you can clearly see your 1.6 hours and you had no idea i played when you were sleeping. And i don't tell you. Because in the end i was a horrible friend.

So now you open Steam Support and enter a support ticket explaining to Steam how their "Refund System" is broken because you only just bought Counter Strike and you can definitely see you only have 1.6 hours of play".

Even if Steam made an automated system that could send back to you "No you have played 3.1 hours" you might not accept that. Because as far as you know only YOU played and you *know* you didn't play 3 hours for sure.

So you send Support another ticket explaining to them how their "automated system" that is suppose to know their accurate play time is also broken and confused because it's claiming you played 3.1 hours but you did not!! And you demand a real human look into your account and fix this broken issue because you want a refund!!

....now Steam Support has to have a real person look into your account, maybe tell you proof and times when someone else played.. Maybe you still don't believe Steam Support because me (your horrible friend) promises i didn't play your game! And i've been your best friend since we were born! So you totally trust me (even though i'm lying) and so Steam Support must go back and forth with you several times before you're willing to believe your childhood best friend is an awful person who's sneaky play time caused you to lose out on a Refund.

THAT clogs up the whole system for everyone. Not just a single instance..

but if even a 100 users every month have playtime confusion because someone in their OWN HOUSE, or who visited their house reset their play time (unknown to them)... blocking them from getting Refunds.. that could really slow down Support Response times for everyone.

It is better for everyone, Valve, Developers, Publishers, other users, and YOU, to all see play time as exactly the same number.

I don't get why you keep pushing this scenario wherein resetting statistics would have no security whatsoever. You make it sound like it would be a "press a button to reset your stats" thing, when we need to validate with a code everytime we log in to a new device. Do you really think Valve will let you reset stats as easily as you keep saying in your scenario?

The way I see it, a simple code validation that gets sent to your email almost eliminates the possibility of your friends being able to reset your stats without you knowing. :)

[697830]

Początkowo opublikowane przez SkullDuggory:

The way I see it, a simple code validation that gets sent to your email almost eliminates the possibility of your friends being able to reset your stats without you knowing. :)

no, no not the email, Valve - Gabe don't like e-mail validation anymore, for malware hijacking, so...lol...

...queue "not everyone has a mobile phone for 2FA to wipe play time VALVE!!!"

I do. So let me control more of my account features. "Welcome to City 17, its safer here"

[Reckonre]

lol @ the replies in this thread.

Pretty much every streaming entertainment service has a feature to remove your viewing history. Arguments about how it will affect refunds are so ridiculous. This is data, they can show you that your statistics were reset. That is the worst possible argument against this. You guys sound like bad customer support for Valve. I was just curious about this possible feature because I tend to leave games on at the menu screen and it counts towards play time. I'm not going to make a big thing about needing it, but my word you guys have terrible logic. Just help the guy out and point him to the feature request (like you eventually did) or move along.

wow.

[Salciano]

It's beyond discussion, why and how we manage our profiles. I'm an adult and if it has to be through parental controls then so be it, but those don't seem valid reasons at the slightest. If Steam wants to keep records for themselves, why not? Just don«t make us keep it

I mean, if I want to erase my history (Internet, files, documents, YouTube, Google or anything for that matter), it's my damn busyness. Why should I have to keep the unfiltered trash among the content that interests me on Steam?

Anyway, to me, it's about hiding or anything. It's about not clogging up with crappy games. Specially those you tried for only 0.3 hours!

Now stop being off-topic and help us out finding how to do it!

[Start_Running]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Salciano:

It's beyond discussion, why and how we manage our profiles. I'm an adult and if it has to be through parental controls then so be it, but those don't seem valid reasons at the slightest. If Steam wants to keep records for themselves, why not? Just don«t make us keep it

I mean, if I want to erase my history (Internet, files, documents, YouTube, Google or anything for that matter), it's my damn busyness. Why should I have to keep the unfiltered trash among the content that interests me on Steam?

Anyway, to me, it's about hiding or anything. It's about not clogging up with crappy games. Specially those you tried for only 0.3 hours!

Now stop being off-topic and help us out finding how to do it!

Just remove the games from your account then. You will not see the Hours played or anything.

[The Giving One]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Salciano:

Why should I have to keep the unfiltered trash among the content that interests me on Steam?

If you are so much against it, maybe you should not have agreed to not being able to do it ?
Nice that you actually used the word "content" there, as that is exactly what is covered below....

http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/

6. USER GENERATED CONTENT

A. General Provisions

"User Generated Content" means any content you make available to other users through your use of multi-user features of Steam, or to Valve or its affiliates through your use of the Content and Services or otherwise.

You grant Valve and its affiliates the worldwide, non-exclusive, right to use, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, transmit, transcode, translate, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and publicly perform, your User Generated Content, and derivative works of your User Generated Content, in connection with the operation and promotion of the Steam site. This license is granted to Valve for the entire duration of the intellectual property rights and may be terminated if Valve is in breach of the license and has not cured such breach within fourteen (14) days from receiving notice from you sent to the attention of the Valve Legal Department at the applicable Valve address noted on this Privacy Policy page. The termination of said license does not affect the rights of any sub-licensees pursuant to any sub-license granted by Valve prior to termination of the license. Valve is the sole owner of the derivative works created by Valve from your Content, and is therefore entitled to grant licenses on these derivative works. If you use Valve cloud storage, you grant us a license to store your information as part of that service. Valve may place limits on the amount of storage you may use.

"And publicly display"...right there in easy to understand words.

[Start_Running]

You know no one actually reads those binding legal agreements.

[The Giving One]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Start_Running:

You know no one actually reads those binding legal agreements.

You are right. They can at least read that section of it here now, I guess.

[Grit949]

I totally get Sainto Fen's post here and agree with him that no Adult ever needs to see hours played.
I noticed all the Steam hmmm.. employees and fan-boys shooting this down, trying to bury it, but some people do not want other people seeing what they play and how much!
I am 43 years old, and yes I should probably do more constructive things with my time then play on Steam, but I deeply resent anyone who has access to my PC commenting on how much I play because the figures are right there!
It seems stupid to me that they would put a feature in that makes you want to play less, if anyone other than the user sees it, but that's just an average Joe's opinion not a Steam lackey.
P.S The Comments on refunds are not valid, you rack up hundreds of hours on a Game are you really telling me at that point you would ask for a refund?

[The Giving One]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Grit:

I totally get Sainto Fen's post here and agree with him that no Adult ever needs to see hours played.
I noticed all the Steam hmmm.. employees and fan-boys shooting this down, trying to bury it, but some people do not want other people seeing what they play and how much!
I am 43 years old, and yes I should probably do more constructive things with my time then play on Steam, but I deeply resent anyone who has access to my PC commenting on how much I play because the figures are right there!
It seems stupid to me that they would put a feature in that makes you want to play less, if anyone other than the user sees it, but that's just an average Joe's opinion not a Steam lackey.
P.S The Comments on refunds are not valid, you rack up hundreds of hours on a Game are you really telling me at that point you would ask for a refund?

Right...as usual que the insults and rediculous comments about 'fan boys' because those users my just be posting facts or their own opinions.

You say yes and they say no so who says you are the only opinion that matters ?

[Mr. G]

Why are we on a thread that is about 8 months old?? I would have created a new topic instead of grave digging to be completely honest.

[The Giving One]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Grit:

P.S The Comments on refunds are not valid, you rack up hundreds of hours on a Game are you really telling me at that point you would ask for a refund?

Yes, they are. If more than 2 hours on a game , you are immensely less likely to get a refund due to not qualifying for one.

And you would be surprised how many times we see users making rediculous refund requests for games, specifically talking about playtime. I saw one once for a game where the user has 2,500 hours on that game he or she wanted a refund for.

Give some an inch, and they want a mile.

EDIT..Steam employees, when posting, have green profile names by the way.

[Sadwick]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Captain Price:

Why are we on a thread that is about 8 months old?? I would have created a new topic instead of grave digging to be completely honest.

because i keep following the post (i am the op). And one "big" post is maybe easier to "pin up" then differents small ones :)

I am reading this with good concern and attention. Even if i intend to agree everyone's meaning is interesting and make sense, I just don't understand answers about people who "thinks for me". We all have a different way to live and use things.

So if you like the actual way steam handles your privacy, good for you (really, no sarcasm here) I even didn't bother myself a few years ago.
But I dont know why it is suddenly a problem for people that I/we point out that Steam lacks of options about our privacy (like the hours as i said) and ask for a feature to (for example) reset it or hide it for good.

It is not about "forcing" everyone to loose data. It is about "adding" a feature that will interest some people out there .. who will use it. And if you aren't interest in the feature, you simply don't use it :)

(btw = i am not asking that Steam/Valve reset our hours on their data. Just that our profile doesnt show it if i dont want it. Might be different.)

voilà. Anyway, it sounds quite constructive most of the time, so please feel free to continue the support or the arguing about this. It makes sense !