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Is it possible to avoid recording the time you play CS:GO on Steam? My friend and I had a deal that we would spend the same amount of time playing it so it would be fair. Now I have like 30 hours more on record.

I want to play more and get better but I don't want everyone to see I spend almost all day playing it.

Can I play without getting my time recorded on Steam?

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  • 15
    So you're saying you want to cheat on bet? That's not going to engender good will from the community.
    – MBraedley
    May 6, 2014 at 23:28
  • 8
    Clearly. But still, the question is legit.
    – Anto
    May 6, 2014 at 23:32
  • true that..but it's hard to keep the deal when she only wants to play half hour or an hour a day. she clearly has no interest as much as i have. guess i'm a bad person then :c
    – csGocsGocsGo
    May 6, 2014 at 23:57
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    The only thing I would suggest is to tell her that if she's not gonna play more (which she probably won't), you can't keep the promise, because you feel like you bought the game and it's being wasted now because you can't play due to some arbitrary rule you two made up. Don't make promises you can't (don't want to) keep :P
    – Elise
    May 7, 2014 at 3:13
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    If you don't want people to see that you play all day, don't play all day or buy a separate copy on a different account. If you had a deal with your friend to only play the same amount of time, you should stick to it or (since the deal seems kind of pointless anyway) not make it in the first place. But alas we aren't here to judge or give life advice, we can only answer your questions. See below.
    – Mkalafut
    May 7, 2014 at 13:44

4 Answers 4

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No. You cannot disable time tracking nor can you reset the time tracked as was once possible for source games.

You can create a new alternate (alt) account, purchase a second copy of the game and play on that with impunity as your friend will be none the wiser.

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  • You don't even have to re-buy the game, just enable family sharing (although this might not work with what she's asking for, I don't remember how family sharing keeps track of time).
    – Jon
    May 7, 2014 at 4:31
  • Fair point. I did not consider family sharing. I shall investigate that option further once I finish responding to a different question.
    – skovacs1
    May 7, 2014 at 4:39
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    You could do family sharing as playtime tracking appears to be kept distinct, however CS:GO (and possibly other games to which this answer may apply) suffers restrictions for family sharing in that CS:GO appears to disable competitive play when used through family sharing.
    – skovacs1
    May 7, 2014 at 4:54
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You can disable the "time played" clock while playing in offline mode. The only real reason to do this is to play an entire game then get your money back

You buy a new single player title. Play for about an hour. Go offline and disable the tracking. You spend the next two weeks playing and finishing the title and then get a refund before the 14 days is up.

First you need to have full control of your firewall so you can block the 5 steam executables (Steam, Steamwebhelper, html5app_steam, steamerrorreporter??, streaming_client).

I say "full control" because if you are using windows firewall, you don't have full control. Every time you block something your firewall tells microsoft and if they disagree, a new rule allowing what you blocked is created and Steam is on their don't block me list.

This is easy to fix, just get "Windows Firewall Control" and stop microsoft from micromanaging your PC. You're on your own with other firewalls.

Also block the games executable/s. (there maybe 2, 32b and 64b)

Don't skip putting about an hour on the game before blocking. 1: You need to play it awhile to know "I just don't like it" and 2: DRM like denuvo need to authorize your game on first run and after any update.

Meanwhile, only login to steam using your regular browser and in 13 days, after finishing that new hot title, request your refund and get your $60 back.

After getting your refund, you can unblock steam and go get another game.

PS I've tried to contact Steam to inform them of this, so far they've just ignored me.

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  • nice first post!
    – user143228
    Jun 7, 2016 at 16:50
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Start steam in offline mode. This way it will no longer track your progress.

Obvious downside : You cannot player multiplayer.

However, this is the only possible way of disabling play time tracking since it contributes to steam stats and thus is a vital feature for them.

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  • Doesn't it still track time on your local machine?
    – Frank
    May 17, 2014 at 17:44
  • @Frank When using offline mode for an extended duration, my steam time tracks sporadically and frequently resets to 0. If you resume online mode in between when it's started tracking and when it resets, maybe it would carry that time over.
    – sirdank
    May 15, 2015 at 20:31
-1

Launch the game through the .exe or launcher file instead of through steam

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  • This sounds plausible, depending on how steam tracks time, are the downvotes because people know this doesn't work?
    – DBS
    May 16, 2015 at 0:40
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    Works for some games, not for others. So not a 100% solution.
    – Ids
    Dec 1, 2015 at 20:37

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