How do I track how much time I spend playing games on Windows?

Question

I'm aware that various platforms, like Steam, keep track of how much gametime you accumulate. The problem is for those of us who use half a dozen game store platforms, or even standalone games, there is no easy way to easily track each week how much time you spend gaming across all of these.

Windows 10 does have a built in "Family Options" which indicates it can keep track of/limit screen time as well as produce "activity reports", but I'm a single person. I don't really want to create a "Family".

Is there a Windows 10 API or system that can show me how much time I spend gaming on Windows 10 each week?

Answer 1

What you are looking for, does not exist in Windows 10.

Windows' "Family option" has different purpose, you may want to read upon it on these webpages:

• https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/help-protect-your-family-online-with-windows-security-5e8b9fd8-8372-dba0-eba2-46da8e407026
• https://www.auslogics.com/en/articles/hide-family-options-in-windows/

Now, it is up to you if you take my word or not on the following. I work as Software Specialist in a group for creating developer tools for 7 years now.

The main hardship in your requirement "how much time I spend gaming" is that, no automatic system will analyze a software for you and make decision if it is in any possible aspect game/ing or not. Not even Steam does. Steam is having a huge database created by humans, entering not only games, but videos, software tools, etc. to Steam. By this category separation, as markup for games exist, it is easy to count seconds, in Steam's system. However inconsistent user entries can interfere with this. E.g.: Wallpaper Engine. It is not a game by purpose, but categorized as one. It's description reads: "Use stunning live wallpapers on your desktop[...]" A friend of mine has already "played with it" 13.3 hours.

Creating one? If somebody takes the endeavor to create one, it will take truly a big effort. You may consider an idea to ask for APIs from all(?) Steam-like platforms. but that has the risk your database is prone to the above inconsistencies and incompleteness.

Much back in past there was softwares like Xfire, you could hook up your games on it and so it collected your gaming stats. In this case it was personally you, who did the job "categorizing" an app as game and putting it under the timer of Xfire. You can do similar in Steam too. I have The Division from Ubisoft, works (currently) via Ubisoft's Connect, but if you add the .exe to Steam's non-Steam library, you can keep on counting spent time even with non-Steam games. And so I created a shortcut for it, so I can signal to my Steam friends, that I currently play Division, even though I own a non-Steam copy of it. This option would slightly miss your raised question, as Steam counts your 2 past weeks gaming time.

I hope I could cover your question. I'm open to brainstorming, let me know if you might consider other aspect.

Answer 2

I have found an article 'Set screen time limits on your kids' devices' which indicates there is some way to limit time for "Apps and games" using the Microsoft Family group account settings:

Unfortunately there seems to be a fairly major oversight with this feature: a single person can't use it without creating a second fake 'child' family member (which presumably translates into a second Windows login). There is no way to enforce game limits for an 'organiser' (i.e. parent) only for the children. Using your own email for the 2nd account appeared to work at first but that just gets the system into a confused state. Basically, it sucks :(

Answer 3

I guess you can compare the .exe are running in task manager and compare them recursively against the directory tree of steam, GOG, epic etc, I think they share a common folder in each store. You'll need to run it a as service I guess