The Games I Play
I have been tracking my gaming for a long time now, and now I have consolidated everyting. Over the last few days I have backfilled the lifetime totals from my Steam account (which I have had since 2009), extracted my 15 year old Activity Log data from my 3DS as well exporting monthly totals from my Switch. In total, it comes to roughly 4,600 hours across 535 games.
I obviously like slow, single-player, low-stress affairs. The cosy life-sims for pottering: Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley. The traditional JRPGs for questing, such as Pokémon and Dragon Quest. And a city-builder-and-strategist streak: Cities: Skylines, Civilization, Football Manager, Tropico, Two Point Hospital amongst others.
Broken down by franchise, a handful of long-running series do most of the heavy lifting. Pokémon is my most-played thing ever at around 520 hours, then the wider Mario family (platformers, karting, Smash and the rest) at about 455, Animal Crossing at 355, Dragon Quest at 250 and Zelda at 170. Below those, the Steam backfill adds series I could never see before: roughly 125 hours of Elder Scrolls across Skyrim and Oblivion, a good 65 in Civilization and another 60-odd in Football Manager. Fifteen years, and I am still mostly playing the same dozen names.
Two of my biggest franchises do not fit any of that. Mario is platformers, karting and party games, and Zelda is action-adventure. Neither belongs in the cosy-or-JRPG box, they just quietly clock up hours in the background.
Weekends win
On the properly-timed sessions again, the weekend wins comfortably. Saturday and Sunday are the two heaviest days, a typical weekend day runs about 1.4 times a weekday, and Friday sits third as the run-in. The daily peak is the early evening, roughly 6pm to 8pm, with 8pm the single busiest hour and a quick drop-off after that. Post-work wind-down and lazy weekend play, not late nights.
"Properly timed" is doing a lot of work here. Switch archives only had a number of days played per month, and a total duration for that period per game. Therefore, the totals are correct, but the session lengths are averaged. It also means that they aren't placed at the correct time during the day, as that data is simply not available. I have the same issue with Steam data before July 2024 (when I started manual tracking) - Steam's API has totals only. Here we subtracted my manually logged duration from Steam's reported total and stuffed the sessions back in 2009. Activity Log data was sourced and uploaded directly from my 3DS handhelds. This means the totals are correct but the individual sessions are not. Going forward, everything is tracked mostly live and this isn't a problem.
The games I play
Fifteen years of logged playtime across handheld, console and PC.
Genre Breakdown
My most played games
Fifteen years, hour by hour
Hours logged each year. The solid bars are properly tracked (3DS up to 2016, then Toggl from 2024). The striped bars are the Switch years, rebuilt from Nintendo’s monthly summaries. Steam sits out of this chart entirely, since its totals carry no dates.
| Year | Hours |
|---|---|
| 2011 | 19h |
| 2012 | 144h |
| 2013 | 340h |
| 2014 | 288h |
| 2015 | 145h |
| 2016 | 187h |
| 2017 | 380h |
| 2018 | 368h |
| 2019 | 239h |
| 2020 | 386h |
| 2021 | 276h |
| 2022 | 244h |
| 2023 | 208h |
| 2024 | 242h |
| 2025 | 240h |
| 2026 | 140h |
Top three, every year
| Year | Most played | Then | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | Mario Kart 7 6h | Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D 3h | Pullblox 3h |
| 2012 | Pokémon Black 21h | Pokémon Black 2 20h | Animal Crossing: Wild World 10h |
| 2013 | Animal Crossing: New Leaf 148h | Pokémon X 44h | Animal Crossing: Wild World 35h |
| 2014 | Pokémon X 70h | Fantasy Life 48h | Animal Crossing: New Leaf 45h |
| 2015 | Pokémon Alpha Sapphire 34h | Fire Emblem: Awakening 15h | Dragon Quest: Chapters of the Chosen 10h |
| 2016 | Dragon Quest VII 39h | Pokémon Yellow 36h | Story of Seasons 34h |
| 2017recon | Nintendo Switch 113h | Stardew Valley 56h | Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 29h |
| 2018recon | Pinball FX3 51h | FM Touch 2018 18h | Disgaea 5 18h |
| 2019recon | Super Mario Maker 2 25h | SNES Nintendo Classics 16h | Word Search by POWGI 16h |
| 2020recon | Animal Crossing: New Horizons 94h | Dragon Quest XI S 37h | The Witcher 3 19h |
| 2021recon | Luigi’s Mansion 3 17h | Dragon Quest V 16h | Pokémon Crystal 16h |
| 2022recon | Mario Kart 8 Deluxe 27h | Stardew Valley 22h | Persona 5 Royal 17h |
| 2023recon | SnowRunner 23h | Game Boy Advance Classics 20h | Game Boy Classics 16h |
| 2024 | Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom 26h | Stardew Valley 18h | Piczle Cross: Story of Seasons 17h |
| 2025 | Fantasy Life i 31h | Pokémon Polished Crystal 18h | Dragon Quest III HD-2D 18h |
| 2026partial | Stardew Valley 29h | Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D 24h | RACCOIN: Coin Pusher Roguelike 12h |
Platform, year by year
| Year | 3DS | Switch | PC / Toggl | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 19h | – | – | 19h |
| 2012 | 144h | – | – | 144h |
| 2013 | 341h | – | – | 341h |
| 2014 | 288h | – | – | 288h |
| 2015 | 145h | – | – | 145h |
| 2016 | 187h | – | – | 187h |
| 2017 | 100h | 280h | – | 380h |
| 2018 | 53h | 315h | – | 368h |
| 2019 | 22h | 218h | – | 240h |
| 2020 | 56h | 330h | – | 386h |
| 2021 | 96h | 180h | – | 276h |
| 2022 | 26h | 219h | – | 245h |
| 2023 | 26h | 182h | – | 208h |
| 2024 | 27h | 54h | 161h | 242h |
| 2025 | <1h | – | 239h | 239h |
| 2026 | 4h | 1h | 135h | 140h |
The Steam back catalogue
I have had a Steam account since 2009, but Steam only gives you a lifetime total per game, never a date. So this whole shelf, about 740 hours across 90 games, gets parked at the start of the timeline and only counts towards totals. Here is the top of it, and it is where the strategy and Western-RPG habit really lives.
A comfort-first, weekend-and-evening player who rotates between cosy life-sims, classic JRPGs and a steady diet of city-builders and management sims. Historically in quick handheld bursts, lately in slightly longer sit-downs. Fiercely loyal to a handful of long-running series, and treating gaming as a comfortable ritual rather than a rush.
This is post … of #100DaysToOffload.
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