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Why don't developers like showing you your played time?

blitzblake

blitzblake

Banned
Jan 4, 2018
3,171
One of the coolest features from the Wii U was the activity centre. It showed you a graphical representation of how you spend your time on the WII U over the week, months, or even years. Seeing the hours spent in Mario Kart 8 really made me appreciate the legs that game had. It was like a graphical game diary.

I can't believe that system didn't make it into the switch or patched into xbox/ps.

Now playing RDR2, I remember reading that the story would take ~60 hrs to complete, and i was curious as to how much time I had spent in this game... nope... no play time to be found anywhere.. why? Wouldn't a game such as this be proud of the amount of time you've invested into it? I mean jesus, just put it there next to the time and date in the save file....

It is because dev's don't want you associating an hour-to-cost figure to their game? Or it is just because they think it's not worth, what I can assume isn't much time, to implement?


EDIT: on ps4.
 
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Cess007

Cess007

Member
Oct 27, 2017
14,070
B.C., Mexico
Activity log should be mandatory in all systems and games. I love those stats.

On the other hand, it will be actually scary to see how many hours I sunk into Rocket League after all this years lol
 
1-D_FE

1-D_FE

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,246
Should just be a platform thing. Why should devs have to code for this when it's so easy to do on a higher level? Seems like Steam has showed you your playtime for a decade now.
 
flashman92

flashman92

Member
Feb 15, 2018
4,557
It sucks. I want to know how long I've played certain PS4 titles and the fact it's not a universal function sucks.
 
BocoDragon

BocoDragon

Banned
Oct 26, 2017
5,207
Back in the day, since the 32-bit era, almost every game had an in game clock. Has that changed when I wasn't paying attention?
 
Lindsay

Lindsay

Member
Nov 4, 2017
3,127
Cess007 said:
Activity log should be mandatory in all systems and games. I love those stats.
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1-D_FE said:
Should just be a platform thing. Why should devs have to code for this when it's so easy to do on a higher level? Seems like Steam has showed you your playtime for a decade now.
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In full agreement! Especially because many games that do include playtime are more often than not INACCURATE and display less time played vs me real-time clocking my time played.
 
Shoot

Shoot

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,515
Phantom Thief said:
PlayStation does not.
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I believe there was an email sent out to some PSN users earlier in the year showing their most played games of the previous year along with their respective play times. So while PlayStation does not have this feature, it does not seem to be a technological issue like PSN name changes.
 

Min

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,067
I think it's a priority of experiencing a portrait over experiencing the systematic breakdown of a portrait; however, you can pull up a checklist of every activity you can accomplish for 100% in RDR2, so it's kind of a flawed implementation if that was the intention.
 

Deleted member 249

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
28,828
Camel said:
I believe there was an email sent out to some PSN users earlier in the year showing their most played games of the previous year along with their respective play times. So while PlayStation does not have this feature, it does not seem to be a technological issue like PSN name changes.
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Yeah, it's not a technical thing, it's just a lack of implementation.
 
Kolx

Kolx

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,505
You can see that on any platform just not on PS, which is fucking stupid since they already track these stats (at least when you're online)
 
Falconbox

Falconbox

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,600
Buffalo, NY
Camel said:
I believe there was an email sent out to some PSN users earlier in the year showing their most played games of the previous year along with their respective play times. So while PlayStation does not have this feature, it does not seem to be a technological issue like PSN name changes.
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I wonder how accurate that is. Obviously they can only track the time you spent on a game while you were online.
 
I Wanna Be The Guy

I Wanna Be The Guy

Member
Oct 28, 2017
16,773
I like knowing how much time I spend on a game it's a good guage for how much I enjoy it and where it ranks among my favourite games.

That's not to say that more playtime necessarily means better game, but at the end of the day how long a game is able to keep me engaged without dropping it is a good guage of my enjoyment.
 
Kapryov

Kapryov

Member
Oct 27, 2017
10,118
Australia
Kolx said:
You can see that on any platform just not on PS, which is fucking stupid since they already track these stats (at least when you're online)
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Wait I can see this on the X1X?
Where?

I want to see how long I've been in RDR2, the game inexplicably doesn't include it in the stats when other Rockstar games used to.
 
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blitzblake

blitzblake

Banned
Jan 4, 2018
3,171
I Wanna Be The Guy said:
I like knowing how much time I spend on a game it's a good guage for how much I enjoy it and where it ranks among my favourite games.

That's not to say that more playtime necessarily means better game, but at the end of the day how long a game is able to keep me engaged without dropping it is a good guage of my enjoyment.
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exactly, seeing something like 100hr spent in bloodborne or god of war makes you go "fuck yeah, that was a great game that i loved!"
 
Senor Spielbergo

Senor Spielbergo

Member
May 18, 2018
841
Kapryov said:
Wait I can see this on the X1X?
Where?
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Go to the leaderboard section in its game hub. Here's my stats on BF4

bRFMzorqJg0bohvgaIF0SXiJm5H6LYYSZA0LWS6IBcgd8f6sx-hnFtqvP4_H-XD_CvG7u-bbNWwN1DQ93hEPSqN89IvvFzApNIIekr3U0T38Bmb_jVbeXyJHj579WRB1PDMbJj8tDjpcuVPU9B6rgZg2O8rxA7x2wTCFX-Djw2ZkcTWLRaqYcIOalYwgJ6yZCtVfwTou2rI3dXnQwXrSywSmLHa_KGGf3AO768cFvO-LZPMo1g9w0884nqng9pAT8o92BvH4p3l_EHPQLu6xsJ2_xfj1dkLkExyh-HOIMAAy5rr3EumsjJNTtv_KEGNOb36XySLgP-FAdbTinnCE55r9D-76dFPIUsNN7zMktLoK2Nw03p7vicAOn138RHB7PJ-rWMKxU7tVQEHZDMo1D3dI9DVeXV1ABl1abkPJmkwbbbdItyxRt5ud8ctV1nbcFQxnEGvx33DGylgHGfCoBmdWOQUMZTV7HRzab1f1b1XxEaOGowmc5MM0SpPGCdw_xDzXGlzG36Ggl40f0pEJzk0BwZa38iKOaXcNRENo1C-KBk-u0P7YkHCG5gpYNLGNM0KDuRDwIZHeErmanw9bUG68wrUob-CjvBIlcij60kYDwG34BlnKZXiqTpQfTNStsdPjQXpF9dXQ5WKRZGtFuBiKa4UbXujeUigDGmK_90fFew=w857-h1522-no
 
Stiler

Stiler

Avenger
Oct 29, 2017
6,659
Most games, especially big open world ones usually have this built in via a stats screen, or even though like the save game when you save a game it lists your play time.

However RDR 2 doesn't have this at all, which is a bummer and makes no sense since both RDR 1 and GTA V had it.
 
JustinH

JustinH

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Oct 27, 2017
10,382
johan

johan

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Oct 29, 2017
1,554
Not a priority for most games I reckon. "But it's just a small feature!" - sure, but then again there are a million small features that'd cool to implement and thats how you get feature creep

Should be done on the system level anyway
 
shaneo632

shaneo632

Weekend Planner
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Oct 29, 2017
28,964
Wrexham, Wales
I agree it's super basic this isn't a universal thing. I like to log my time for games and having to use a stopwatch just makes me feel like a geek.
 
ODDI

ODDI

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,336
RDR 2 is the only game I can think of that does this, which is so strange as R* past titles did a really good job of keeping your records.
 
Spinky

Spinky

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,112
London
Camel said:
I believe there was an email sent out to some PSN users earlier in the year showing their most played games of the previous year along with their respective play times. So while PlayStation does not have this feature, it does not seem to be a technological issue like PSN name changes.
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I apparently have 676 hours on the first Injustice (on PS3), so yeah, they record everything.

Infuriating that we can't see any of it. Would love to know how long it took me to 100% Spider-Man.
 
MagicDoogies

MagicDoogies

Member
Oct 31, 2017
1,047
I guess other platforms don't have this? I can't remember a time where a game I played hasn't had some indication of play time. Either it be through in game, on the UI of the console/handheld itself or the storefront.
 
Echo

Echo

Banned
Oct 29, 2017
6,482
Mt. Whatever
Seems like Sony is the one letting you down here, everyone else does this on a system level.

Steam and every other PC platform has been showing me this stuff for years and years. Though I forgot where to look on my 3DS for playtime there...
 

Deleted member 10737

User requested account closure
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Oct 27, 2017
49,774
switch does store your play times, but doesn't really show them in a nice way.
it's baffling soby hasn't implemented some form of activity log yet.
 

Deleted member 1413

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
8,617
It's probably that publishers don't want you knowing the exact time if the game isn't super long.
Anything under 20 hours would probably be bad PR in a lot of cases even in great games
 
matimeo

matimeo

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Verified
Oct 26, 2017
979
johan said:
Not a priority for most games I reckon. "But it's just a small feature!" - sure, but then again there are a million small features that'd cool to implement and thats how you get feature creep

Should be done on the system level anyway
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This. Seen this type of feature cut many times due to low priority and with platforms rolling out this it's even lower priority unless there is some critical gameplay mechanic tied to it.

And yes there is ux and psychology around that time but I've yet to see that be a reason why it was not implemented on the gaming side.

Also agree makes more sense to be driven at the platform level. To be clear games do have the ability to track this but doing extra work to display to the user is often cut.
 
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blitzblake

blitzblake

Banned
Jan 4, 2018
3,171
Dreamwriter said:
Um...Switch *does* have this. Did from day 1.
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I don't actually have a switch but I remember people wondering why they changed the way it was displayed compared to Wii U (which is think is the same as the 3ds but I'm not sure.)

Mass Effect said:
They do, it's just not part of the system features. Wish they would add it though. Why only send it through emails?
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So I live in Australia and my PS4 is set as such and I've never ever received any email with a breakdown of my play times etc?? Is it a region thing as well? Or do you have to opt in or something?
 
Dreamwriter

Dreamwriter

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Oct 27, 2017
7,461
blitzblake said:
I don't actually have a switch but I remember people wondering why they changed the way it was displayed compared to Wii U (which is think is the same as the 3ds but I'm not sure.)
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They changed the way it shows the time, but it does show it. Example, I've played Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for "160 hours or more", Zelda for "85 hours or more", Binding of Isaac for "55 hours or more", Taiko no Tatsujun for "10 hours or more", etc. What confused people at launch was it won't tell you until you've owned the game for a week. You can also see how long your friends have played their games.
 
Mass Effect

Mass Effect

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Oct 31, 2017
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blitzblake said:
So I live in Australia and my PS4 is set as such and I've never ever received any email with a breakdown of my play times etc?? Is it a region thing as well? Or do you have to opt in or something?
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It comes with the PS+ Free Games newsletter. It shows it at the bottom. IDK if its region-specific.

re: Switch - Nintendo nerfed the hell out of the playtime feature on the Switch. It's super basic now. 3DS was the GOAT, with charts that you could break down on a yearly, monthly, or daily basis. Had a little ranking system too.
 
Sande

Sande

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Oct 25, 2017
5,973
While I like having the stat, it has never made me want to play the game more, often the opposite. "What am I doing with my life" and all. So I'd imagine it's that.
 
FarZa17

FarZa17

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,566
Tracking the gameplay time definitely the feature I like on Steam and even more on 3DS, with its unique chart and overall presentation.
I wish the activity log also available on PS4 since it's my most played home console.. Though some games do have record the time spent in the game, but I prefer the OS, launcher or system itself to do it for every games I played..
 
Cantaim

Cantaim

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Oct 25, 2017
33,286
The Stussining
What's worse is the Wii U's activity log was a step down from the 3dses. Still I completely agree I find the activity log is a great way to see what I was playing at a given time a few years ago and is a fun novelty option.
 
daniel77733

daniel77733

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,639
Would prefer every game to have this more than the consoles themselves simply because when playing a game, I want to know how many hours I have put into the game where as once im done with a game, I don't care about that game anymore.
 
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