What's the most hours you've spent playing a single game?

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So many of the games I've played over the years were before the Steam Age and digital distribution, back when games were installed from discs/CDs/DVDs. I wish I'd had the foresight to actually record my gaming hours back then, as I'd really just love to know.

Daggerfall, Morrowind, & Oblivion were huge games for me, and I believe were my first exposure to the "open world" type gameplay. But there's no way I could even guess at hours played.

Currently, looking at Steam, my hours for Skyrim (this is combined from the original Skyrim + Skyrim Special Edition as they are the same game) are 2774.7 hrs.
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Next closest would be Fallout 4 at 2594 hrs.
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I feel this thread almost a silent answer to this post
Yeah, Fraser is revealing a bit too much laddishness there! Not everyone's a one-night-stand gamer :D

Fraser Brown said:
most gamers, who struggle to finish a 20-hour game. Hell, even a 5-hour game is a stretch for a lot of us
Steam playing percentages and times are interesting, but do nothing to back up Fraser's arguments. Aside—I wonder how do they count refunds in their numbers and percentages?

There's a raft of games I haven't played beyond 5 hours, and it's nothing to do with struggling to finish a game or having the attention span of a teena gnat.

Labels like "20-hour game" are just wrong anyway. Those who study game length professionally and commercially like HowLongToBeat have 3 different lengths to provide a reasonable estimate for the many different playstyles.

For me, games are not '5-hour' or '20-hour'. They're 'Bad', 'OK', 'Good', 'Great'. Quality and enjoyment are my yardsticks, not supporting characteristics like specs required, platform availability, or the various play lengths.

I'm currently enjoying a daily 3-minute game, and it won't be long before I dip back into my beloved 2K+ hours Civ4.

Fraser said:
I'm willing to believe Techland needed 80 hours to tell its story as well. But every hour beyond that increases the likelihood that you're just playing through padding
Very poor conclusion to draw imo. ANY of the many games where I've continued playing after the story finished were because I was thoroughly enjoying the gameplay and/or the world. Think about it: who's going to play thru 'padding' if they've already played 80 hours of a game that doesn't turn them on? My guess is not many.

Fraser said:
What's this obsession with story? We had a discussion about this here recently if I recall correctly. Some players love a story. Many don't. No need to rehash that. For many, me included, gameplay and the game world are the primary attractions—whatever story is included serves as a framework to support the game and world.
 

PCG Jody

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Dec 9, 2019
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Well, this is officially the Weekend Question now.

I've got over 300 hours in Skyrim, counting both Oldrim and the Special Edition. Since those are separate entries in my Steam library, it puts Total War: Warhammer 2 at the top of the list. I've got 287 hours in that and still don't feel like I'm done with it. Haven't played a Beastman campaign yet, and I never did finish my Wood Elf or Goblin run.
 
Very poor conclusion to draw imo. ANY of the many games where I've continued playing after the story finished were because I was thoroughly enjoying the gameplay and/or the world. Think about it: who's going to play thru 'padding' if they've already played 80 hours of a game that doesn't turn them on? My guess is not many.

Could do with its own thread, loading.....

[Mod edit: added link]
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Well, this is officially the Weekend Question now.

I've got over 300 hours in Skyrim, counting both Oldrim and the Special Edition. Since those are separate entries in my Steam library, it puts Total War: Warhammer 2 at the top of the list. I've got 287 hours in that and still don't feel like I'm done with it. Haven't played a Beastman campaign yet, and I never did finish my Wood Elf or Goblin run.
If we're counting the old Skyrim and SE together, I guess I have 295 hours, so I'm pretty close to you. I only have 25 hours in the old version, though.
 
A lot of the games I've played, they either don't track my hours, or I played offline and that messed with Steam's tracking, or I shared the game with my wife and that similarly messes up the results. (Steam thinks I've played hundreds of hours in ESO, but I have not.) Or I left the game on but minimized for whatever reason. So I don't have particularly valid "receipts."

But if I were to combine the hours spent in every version of Skyrim that I've played -- original, Special Edition, and VR -- it probably has made it into the quadruple digits by now. The same might be true if I combined all the versions of Age of Empires II I've played over the past twenty years, though a more conservative estimate might place it around 800 hours. (A lot of that was from weekend LAN parties when it first came out.) I've been playing Minecraft off and on for...eleven years? Twelve years? And have no idea how many hours it's been. A lot. Though probably not as much as Skyrim.

And then there's Everquest, which my wife and I were addicted to in 1999-2001. I don't know how many hours it was, but it was a lot. Probably not as much as I have in Skyrim, but we're only talking a 2-3 year period. I think whenever we weren't working, sleeping, eating, or doing other life tasks, we were probably on Everquest. It was ridiculous in hindsight. Eventually I got burned out on it, which I'm guessing is why I've bounced off of most MMO's more or less ever since. [pretends to not see WoW over there]
 
The hours played counter in steams game list is not accurate , before my warframe account got hacked i used to look at how long i had played it and it never seemed accurate , i then tried something , i logged in and just sat reading conversations in the chat room and then i looked at hours logged. It had not moved so i figured it was only recording the hours that i had actually being doing something such as going on a mission.

I recently got a game called satisfactory , i have never done a game of this type before and i am totally hooked on it , i think it is because it reflects what happens in the real world , for example in the real world if you put plastic and cement into a machine you will not make copper wire and the same applies to the game.

Back to hours played ...... my steam client says i have done 379 hours , i have used it every day for about 5 hours in between doing things in the real world and that equals 75 days owned/used ....... well all i can say is i think those figures are wrong because i think my hours used should be showing a higher figure.

If your wondering how i can afford to spend so much time gaming ......... i took early retirement to look after my sick wife.
 

Sarafan

Community Contributor
I'm pretty sure it's Hearthstone. Battle.net doesn't offer playtime tracking so I can't be sure how much hours I've sunk in this one, but I suspect there's at least 500 in overall. If we're talking about single player games, Steam shows Fallout New Vegas 242 hours. Also The Witcher 3 is close to this result, but I can't tell exactly because my first playthrough was done on an offline installer from GOG.