What's with the members with seemingly fake or artificially inflated hours in games?

[Zeke45]

This goes beyond AFK players. They've got some other method or "hack." I once saw an account showing thousands of hours in a game that was a week old. There's a character on here -- Steam level is ridiculously high, granted -- owns thousands of games and a few of them show more than 20,000 hours apiece -- dozens more have thousands of hours, dwindling down to hundreds of hours, etc.

I just don't see how it's possible. Do they leave, like 10 PC's logged in simultaneously, with games running 24/7? Is that even feasible on Steam? I only have the one PC loaded with it. I'd have suspected there's a single-login-per-account policy.

EDIT: there are approximately 8760 hours in a year, to put all this in perspective. One of those gamers I'm talking about is "sporting" on the order of 120K cumulative hours, at-a-glance before getting bored adding up the numbers, give or take a dozen thousand or two.

[wuddih]

there is the simple fact that you do not need the actual game running, you just need to tell Steam that you are running appid 12345 .. and that is about it. you do not even need Steam itself to do so.

there are also commercial services to do so and for the cheapos, the programming effort to do this yourself is marginal. there are opensource frameworks to do this in a jiffy.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

What is the suggestion for Steam?

[Zeke45]

Then really, what's the point of even having the statistic publicly displayed, if it's so easily and casually spoofed?

Seriously.

[Zeke45]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

What is the suggestion for Steam?

Get real. The suggestion is, don't have features and statistics that are rendered useless and meaningless.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Zeke45:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

What is the suggestion for Steam?

Get real. The suggestion is, don't have features and statistics that are rendered useless and meaningless.

1 word... Achievements

[B-o-B]

I suggest its a good indication of how honest a gamer someone is. Users actually consider they're gaming time important.
And it sorts us into two nice little groups.
In today's steam culture i find honesty very important.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by 𐂃 𐂃:

I suggest its a good indication of how honest a gamer someone is. Users actually consider they're gaming time important.
And it sorts us into two nice little groups.
In today's steam culture i find honesty very important.

Propose how to make such a system...

[Zeke45]

BTW, I wasn't telling the above reply to "get real." Get real is my suggestion for this platform.

I guess it just baffled me -- I was looking at mixed reviews for a game I was considering purchasing, and one of the more compelling positive reviews showed some ridiculously high hours, and I was incredulous and started looking at his publicly visible profile with those preposterous numbers and stats, and I ended up laying it out here.

You can see one part of the problem, when you're weighing reviews and see someone with like 15,000 hours in a game that may absorb 100 to 500 hours for the most dedicated fan of the title. It detracts from the credibility.

[Brian9824]

Originally posted by Zeke45:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

What is the suggestion for Steam?

Get real. The suggestion is, don't have features and statistics that are rendered useless and meaningless.

Literally 99% of people don't do this, so just because a handful spoof it doesn't mean its useless.

I mean heck by your logic all achievements should be removed

[Zeke45]

Originally posted by brian9824:

Literally 99% of people don't do this, so just because a handful spoof it doesn't mean its useless.

I've seen at least two instances jump out at me in the past couple weeks without even looking for them, I don't even spend very much time perusing other people's posts and profiles or reading too deeply into the reviews, the above commenter stated that it's almost common knowledge and easily done, so I don't know about the veracity of that statement.

But whatever. Have a nice day. I've truly got bigger fish to fry. Just thought it another of Steam's "curious" idiosyncrasies, and there sure are a lot of them.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by Zeke45:

Get real. The suggestion is, don't have features and statistics that are rendered useless and meaningless.

If any feature that could be biased had to be taken out we'd have no feature at all.
Is still a important stat for many and other people cheating their stat doesn't make yours less valid.

Originally posted by Zeke45:

You can see one part of the problem, when you're weighing reviews and see someone with like 15,000 hours in a game that may absorb 100 to 500 hours for the most dedicated fan of the title. It detracts from the credibility.

That's why the stat is there so you can weight it yourself.
Over the years I've seen every playtime stat being criticised (too many play hours, too little...) So it's evident everyone value it in a different way.

[T9]

Originally posted by Zeke45:

Then really, what's the point of even having the statistic publicly displayed, if it's so easily and casually spoofed?

Seriously.

There is none. Useless feature

[SNP]

Numerous communities use hours to catch cheaters very easily. Alongside achievements. They aren't just eye-candy...