For many games on my game list, the number of hours I am "on record" for playing are much less than I've actually played.
My numbers for the game Altitude (bought in 2009, did most of my playing in the month or two after purchase) are accurate, while my numbers for And Yet It Moves (bought in 2009-2010) are about 10% of what I actually spent in the game.
What determines whether or not Steam keeps tracking my play-time accurately? Are the actual for-real gameplay hours stored anywhere I can get at them?
Is this behavior intentional on Valve's part, something to improve performance? Or have they been struck by accidental data loss on multiple occasions?
Edit: I always launch my games from within Steam, and I never go into offline mode (yay for living with always-on broadband).
For all the example games I gave (and others I didn't), I have logged in to Steam in the past and had it show me accurate playtime numbers. But then, for some reason, those numbers disappear at some point.
Edit: Here is a screenshot from my games list
- Altitude came out on December 4, 2009. I believe the hours played number is correct.
- And Yet It Moves came out on April 2, 2009 (after the March 2009 date mentioned by Anto). I have beat the game, and logged probably 10-20 hours playing it. I believe that the hours on record displayed in the past was correct, but as you can see, it is not correct any more.