Question about the integrity of the database

Hi
I'm pretty new here, managed to submit only a handful of titles but I'm already hooked on the idea. Friend showed me this website and I joined up because I like to keep track of what and how much I'm playing since I play a lot. And if there's a way to use that information for something useful, hey, count me in!

But what really bugged me since day one is the following question: how do you guys make sure that people are really honest about their play times? For example, I remember finishing Bioshock Infinite lately, clocking at over 16 hours and after I submitted I was pretty surprised that people blazed through it in less than 10 hours. I always was a gamer who liked to enjoy a game without haste, especially if it's my first time with it but that was a pretty big diffrence and I wasn't even that thorough with it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna start questioning everyone's playthrough times becuase frankly, who gives a toss, but I'm just curious as to your methods of detecting BS.

I don't really see it as much of a problem simply because this site isn't about single statistics but rather the aggregation of the stats. The times of games will be skewed the most when less people have played the game, but games like bioshock infinite, where many people are playing and putting in times, all those low times of 10 hours or so will get balanced out by those taking their time to enjoy everything the game has to offer. It just comes down to sensibility. A 10 hour playthrough is something I could imagine is achievable by someone playing on easy or normal and rushing past practically everything, if someone were to say a 2 hour playthrough of Bioshock infinite, then I'd have pause for though since it's either legitimate through the use of sequence breaking or other glitches, or it's erroneous / false, but like I said, with more people submitting times the anomalies get weeded out.

The only place I can see this being a real problem is in regards to speed running. Typically if anyone wants to be taken serious as a speed runner they will be in league with Speed Demos Archive or SpeedRunsLive or some other major site that deals with the topic. If someone just non chalantly inputs a speed run time that happens to be world record pace there would be no real way to know unless they had conclusive proof such as a submitted video or they live streamed the achievement.

Most of us using the site though care about the data, not just for the site but our own personal investment into these games so it benefits no one to be generally dishonest about the completion time. And even in the case where everyone is unwaveringly honest, there is just general inaccuracy in times and timing methods that lead to loss of integrity but again, all that gets nullified by the averaging.

Something I have seen too, there are a few games I have played and not input times for because all I know is it took me over 8 hours a day and sometimes a month or more of play, then I see an absurd number for full completion. I think Uncharted 2 was one with an impossible 100% completion time. The main story only took me about 15 hours or so, I started playing in the morning and was so addicted I played straight through, one of the best stories I have ever played. Now though some I'd estimate 60 or 70 hours into it, I still have tons of things to unlock and achievements galore to unlock, I haven't even gotten into the hardest difficulty setting either, I'm just looking for artifacts and stuff still, it's backlogged for me to complete, but with all the other games I've gotten, it is unlikely I will ever 100% complete it, heck I can't even say Main+ because I haven't completed the + part qualifications. Yet the completionist time is between 11 to 38 and a half hours, the main plus 7 to 24 hours. I know I am better than decent at games and if I am at some 60 to 70 hours and only about 67% maybe 75% complete then either no one who has put a main+ or completionist time in has been honest or I'm being told I am horrible at the game. Something doesn't equate and I don't really think it is my playing ability. I predict it will take likely 20+ hours just to beat the hardest setting, then if online play is still featured there are achievements there I need to unlock, I would estimate another 15 or so hours to unlock the rest of the artifacts and achievements, if I am lucky. I know there are other games too with near impossible times for completion, oh well, I still love the site, and I always personally try to leave accurate times, the reason is because one factor when I buy a game is the length of the game, shorting the timer to gain praise for "How'd you do that? You're Awesome!" isn't going to help anyone want to buy the game or look into playing it, but it will possibly have someone say, "not worth it". Like I really wanted to try out Lollipop Chainsaw but for 50$ I am not buying a 5 hour long game, I'll go buy something with over 50 hours for under 10$ why? because the one promises to keep me occupy and leave me extra money, the other promises to drain my money, and leave me looking for something else in a day or two. Anyway that is just some of my thoughts.

Looking at the Main+ and the Completionist, it seems most of those who left comments even admit they didn't finish the Main+ or completionist qualifications for Uncharted 2. Ugh, if you didn't get all the achievements, medals, trophies, unlockables, and beat it on the hardest setting then you didn't get 100% of the game complete. You finished the Main story and that is all. Essentially Main+ and completion is the same thing, I can't see much difference so the times should be pretty equal, oh, and I forgot to mention my second playthrough on easy took me about 7 to 8 hours to beat, so first playthrough without aids like guides etc might be 13+ hours, but with guides a first playthrough could be in the 7 hour ballpark.

I see no point in faking times since it certainly adds nothings towards gamer's status and prestige here. So far I haven't came across some wild mismatch between my time and the average times that are posted here. The difference was no more than 2h on 40h+ games. Possible variations are most likely in main + extras section since someone does 20% of extras and some does 80% but they're all put togather. Still, as I said so far I found times to be quite accurate. I have grown to depend on this site a lot when it comes to game purchases. It stoped me from cashing out for Rage, 10h 30min main story... please... I would be pissed if i spent my money on a game that short.

There have been certain times I have wondered about the fastest times but generally I agree with everyone else that the averages tend to fix any irregularities. I recently completed Rescue Rangers for the NES and honestly I had the opposite question. I managed to beat the game (not 100% completion simply beat) the game in 20 minutes. Well the other time that I saw listed was 3 hours for completion. I really have no clue who took three hours to beat this game. I didn't know it was possible to drag it out that long. The only way that I could fathom that is there are a limited amount of continues and maybe by having to start over several times it took that long. I am really not sure but I still can't see 3 hours even at 100%.

Thanks for the answers guys.

Well, I wasn't really trying to imply that these sort of things happen frequently. Before I joined myself I took my sweet time on looking up completion times of various games here and they always were accurate, which in the end made the site and it's community look competent and trustworthy enough for me to start submitting content myself.

But if there's one thing that you can be certain about in life is that you can always find some ponce that will try to cock everything up, if only to get some attention. So yeah, I meant only those ponces who don't know what this site is all about.

Anyway, as for the diffrence between Main+ and Completionist, I suppose there is a major one. Maybe not when it comes to straightforward action games (like Uncharted) but for sandboxes and RPGs - most definately. Let's take Fallout 3 as a good example. You can complete it without stumbling upon any sidequest in which case you'd complete the game in only few hours. But if you'll explore the whole game world without squeezing everything out of it, I'd consider that a Main+. As for the Completionist, you said it yourself mate - if you didn't get all the achievements, medals, trophies, unlockables, and beat it on the hardest setting then you didn't get 100%. There has to be some middle ground, I suppose.

Main+ is an intentionally broad category. It lists Quests/Medals/ Unlockables as examples but it literally just means "if you did extra stuff that extended the play time of the game, it goes here". You don't have to hit every single example for it to qualify under main+.

I'll bring up Bioshock Infinite again, I explored that game fairly in depth, did some achievement hunting but I didn't get all the voxophones. The exploration etc. pushed my time above what someone who did no exploration would be expected to get but I obviously did not 100% the game, hence I did the main game + a few extras.

In Uncharted 2, someone might jump back into easy mode just to kill a few extra people with a specific weapon to get another achievement to pop up, they might simply search for all the treasures on a single playthrough making it take longer than someone playing the game purely for the story, they might even replay the game on a higher difficulty and just not get all the achievements, I would consider all of these to be Main+ since they are going out of their way to do something that is not necessarily required but gets them closer to true 100%.

Again though, I don't see anyone really "causing problems" by submitting a slightly suspicious time. No one is really gaining any "fame" from their times unless you specifically go looking for them which I don't think many people do. One or two people have to try very hard to screw up an average of many entries.

Originally Posted by: Chronoja

Main+ is an intentionally broad category. It lists Quests/Medals/ Unlockables as examples but it literally just means "if you did extra stuff that extended the play time of the game, it goes here". You don't have to hit every single example for it to qualify under main+.

I'll bring up Bioshock Infinite again, I explored that game fairly in depth, did some achievement hunting but I didn't get all the voxophones. The exploration etc. pushed my time above what someone who did no exploration would be expected to get but I obviously did not 100% the game, hence I did the main game + a few extras.

That makes a lot of sense for the Main+ glad to know it, since it seemed vague as to if it was completed those Quests/Medals/Unlockables or partial completion of them. I also agree most the times here are very close to accurate.

I played through Bioshock Infinite on Normal and took my time doing things like playing games at the fair and checking every single container obsessively and I don't think I took nearly 16 hours. I didn't time it, but I think it was closer to 10 hours. I only had one death from combat (and one from falling off the edge) and I just have a very fast play style. To me, I feel like I'm taking my time, but if I watch other people play, they are going soooo slow. Also you have to consider people playing through on easy.

But overall, I find that if I look at the times of a game I can expect to be at least an hour faster or more (depending on how long it is) than the shortest time because I am almost always one of the fastest for whatever reason, even though I'm not trying to be. That is why I'm hesitant to ever assume anyone else is faking, people just have different speeds.

I'll give you a few examples of games that I've beaten with extra restrictions and still beaten it much much faster than someone just playing through the main game on an easier difficulty:

Diablo III, playing through Hell difficulty with a Hardcore character (ie, if I die once I lose the character so I have to be careful) and did some re-running for extra EXP to level up before the boss and I beat it in 15h 18m. Meanwhile the average speed for Main Story, which going by the notes is almost all just going through the easiest difficulty, is 18h 46m.

Starcraft II, All 29 missions, many of which are optional, (including the secret one) done on Brutal difficulty. Time 13h 37m 47s. The average for "Main Game" only is 17h 33m and one of the slower times than me in main game only is listed as "normal" difficulty.

Mass Effect 2 On insanity difficulty, all DLC done (7 of them and all of them average at least an hour, most two hours), all planets visited, all possible missions completed. Time 38h 06m. Faster than some listed as normal difficulty.

My point is, I never assume someone has a fake time because some people just play way faster or way slower than others, we all have our own play speed. I've only flagged one time so far and if I remember correctly it was something like 9999 hours.

I have a question. Does everyone count all the time they spend playing a game, including deaths, restarts, and continues, or do you only account for the time you're making progress? I mean if your party died and you needed to start from scratch, you're basically starting a new game. What should we be timing?

Personally I time everything once I've dedicated to finishing the game.

Originally Posted by: zenicreverie

I have a question. Does everyone count all the time they spend playing a game, including deaths, restarts, and continues, or do you only account for the time you're making progress? I mean if your party died and you needed to start from scratch, you're basically starting a new game. What should we be timing?

Personally I time everything once I've dedicated to finishing the game.

If the game has a timer, I use that because I assume that is what everyone else does (and it is convenient). If I have to time it myself, I include the time for everything, I don't stop/start it for reloads or anything. Even rouge-like games like Binding of Isaac or FTL I include the time for all playthroughs totaled up until I beat it.

Originally Posted by: zenicreverie

I have a question. Does everyone count all the time they spend playing a game, including deaths, restarts, and continues, or do you only account for the time you're making progress? I mean if your party died and you needed to start from scratch, you're basically starting a new game. What should we be timing?

That example's a tough one. Personally, I'd restart my recording if I had to start all the way over from the beginning. Conversely, I count deaths and checkpoint reloads in my overall time. For me, it boils down to how long it takes to beat a game from beginning to end. Two examples:

The Kid levels from Super Meat Boy. When done correctly, they can take less than 3 minutes altogether. More realistically, it took me about 3 hours to get all the patterns down. The difference is vast.

Then there's Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. By my own record-keeping, the game took me 9 or so hours to beat. But the in-game clock told me it was closer to 4 and a half hours. Thing is... neither was necessarily "wrong." I timed the sitting during which I beat the game, including checkpoint restarts, cutscenes, and codec conversations. But I'm pretty sure the game pared it down to only the time that was spent actively progressing to the end goal. So MGR has about 4 and a half hours of playable content in the main story, but it took me 9 hours to pace myself through it.

I prefer my method of record-keeping, because when I look at a game with an average of 4 hours on the site, I expect that if I start it at 2pm I should be able to finish it by 6ish. The "objective" method cuts out a lot of trial and error.

When I sit down to play, I run my timer from soon as I begin playing to when I stop. Deaths, cutscenes, reloads are all counted.

I also do the same with the rogue games and count my timer through all the play throughs until I clear it.

I tend to have a faster play through a lot of times too depending on the games.

I tend to fall 2-3 hours below the average and I try to do all the side quests and such I can find. I like to explore all the little side areas and try to have checked out the entire map before I move on.

I am looking forward to the time seperation features in hl2b 2.0 in this regard simply because it allows us to more easily address that question

A game like the binding of isaac. A main run from start menu to credits might only take about 1 hour if you are skilled. Main+ might take you 100 hours before you get bored and stop playing. 100% might take you longer. and then even if you reach 100% you might keep playing just for fun increasing your own personal total time that exceeds any of the categories. So here are 3/4 sets of times that all exist to be input, but you can only input 1 in the sites current form.

I record everything I do with the game though. I usually pull my times from steam/raptr and they effectively just monitor how long the program has been open on my computer, which I think is fairly reasonable. For example if a game has unskippable intro movies someone will have to deal with that every time they open the game so I'd expect that time to be rolled into the data. If there are any milestones or things that I feel need explained about the time I will add that info in the comments.

Generally people are honest, no real reasons to put dishonest submissions unless you wanted to get into the top 100 in Most Games Completed. So although there may be a time hidden throughout the submissions that was never really achieved, it doesn't hurt so long as the other submissions either equal it out or are majority truthful. From what I've seen most of the games are close to accurate.

Originally Posted by: zenicreverie

I have a question. Does everyone count all the time they spend playing a game, including deaths, restarts, and continues, or do you only account for the time you're making progress? I mean if your party died and you needed to start from scratch, you're basically starting a new game. What should we be timing?

Personally I time everything once I've dedicated to finishing the game.

If I fail at something, or something occurs that makes me restart the entire game, for instance in Morrowind you can really screw up the game if you kill off some important people. To make matters worst the game doesn't always tell you that you've killed an important person, though it will do a good job in telling you a few of them. If you kill someone and it turns out they were important later in the story line, you get to that point in the story and can no longer continue, so in turn you now have to restart the game from scratch. If it's an occasion like this then I simply restart my timings as well as the game. However if it is like The Binding of Isaac where you have to complete the game something like 9 times to actually beat it, then when I restart the game I'd continue adding up the times.

Deaths that don't cause an entire restart of the game are counted in with many of my times. Crysis does a great job at boosting it's game length with those.

I think that the most logical thing to do is to record all the time you spend with the game. No one will actually beat a portion of Super Meat Boy in 3 minutes on their first try. I include everything I do within a game as a time I needed to finish it.

Originally Posted by: pongsifu

I find that if I look at the times of a game I can expect to be at least an hour faster or more (depending on how long it is) than the shortest time because I am almost always one of the fastest for whatever reason, even though I'm not trying to be.

Apparently unlike everyone else in this thread, I'm significantly slower than the average times on the site for most games. I tend to come in somewhere in the range of 100-150% of the average time, depending on the game and how invested I get in doing various things in it. I think it's partly because I tend to have a cautious approach toward things and partly because I have ADD. I'm also the kind of person who'll just wander off and go look at the pretty scenery for ten minutes for no reason and then spend another ten micromanaging my inventory or something. Heh.

Originally Posted by: pongsifu

Even rouge-like games like Binding of Isaac or FTL I include the time for all playthroughs totaled up until I beat it.

I've been doing exactly that with roguelikes and was kind of wondering how other people approached timing them. I'm currently playing TOME on and off pretty much completely un-spoiled, and if I ever do manage to finish it, I fully expect it to be well into the three digits at this rate. It doesn't seem nearly as bad as trying to pull that off with NetHack or something though, so maybe I'll eventually even do it.

I think it all comes down to honesty, as was said previously.

Someone knows if there are moderators who go over the stats every once in a while? Especially for games that only a few users have posted their times?

Originally Posted by: Bowser

I think it all comes down to honesty, as was said previously.

Someone knows if there are moderators who go over the stats every once in a while? Especially for games that only a few users have posted their times?

The admin is the only "mod" on the site right now, but he manually approves all pending submissions. Any game that gets a time submitted with no or very few other times becomes a pending submission and he has to manually approve it. Though that will only really weed out times like 10 seconds or 9999 hours because he has no way of knowing how long it really should take.

EDIT: Eh, pongsifu beat me to the first point xD

On the original subject (the thread kind of drifted), I like explaining it like this:

Everyone has a different skill level when playing games, and different genres their better at than others. I, for one, am good at RPGs, so for the most part my playtime tends to be on the lower end than other users. For example I recently put in a time for Generations of Chaos: Pandora's Reflection for 17h 55m. It's the only time of the site right now... and do I think it's good for an average? No, not at all. I never once grinded, nor did I spend a lot of time upgrading equipment. I think most people would spend about 20-25 hours playing through the first time... in fact, another person I knew was playing the game took quite a long time playing it, saying she 'had to grind constantly on the same map'. I don't know her gametime, but I assume it was probably inching towards the 30 hour mark when she beat it.

But, on the other hand, I'm terrible at most platfomers and action games. I recently submitted a time for Pocky & Rocky with Becky for about an hour and a half... over double the time it took for the other user to beat it. Do I think his time is wrong? No, I just think that he's better at those games than me.

It's all about the average. It can be hard to see with games with only one or two times, but the more popular games have a wide varience of times, showing multiple skill levels in both the genre and games in general. Some people will get it done faster, others slower, but as long as there's no crazy tiems (like 2secs or 1000hrs), it all tends to make sense in the end. :)

Last two answers pretty much answered what I was looking for, much appreciate it!

Everyone has a different skill level when playing games, and different genres their better at than others

Yes, these are very valid points. I believe someone already said something similar earlier. I for one am terrible at RTS games so I usually tend to spend long hours over a single mission. It would be rather impossible for me to finish Starcraft 2 in, say, 15 hours for example.

Originally Posted by: gaiages

But, on the other hand, I'm terrible at most platfomers and action games. I recently submitted a time for Pocky & Rocky with Becky for about an hour and a half... over double the time it took for the other user to beat it. Do I think his time is wrong? No, I just think that he's better at those games than me.

I'm not sure if I'm "better" :P But I definitely played that game on emulator with quicksaves. That means no deaths and probably no getting hit at all. I don't really consider it a speedrun since I had never played it before and had no planned strategy to move quickly.

I recently finished Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus on my PS Vita, and spent almost double the amount of time than the other players. That game was hard!!! I never played the Ninja Gaiden reboot before, but perhaps the other players had and were already familiar with the game.

I only look at the average times I don't really go deep enough to see who posted what time. I like using this site to give me a general idea on how long a game will take so I can knock out the shorter games first.

My main thing on this site is just to track how long I spent on each game. I love keeping track of that stuff.

One of my friends is doing a FF playthrough with me. Well it's turned into just playing a ton of RPGs. He usually has a time of 10-20 hours under me just because our playstyles are so different. This site isn't really about being fastest or having the most play time it's about just keeping track of info so I don't see any reason to call someone out on their playtime.

What about MMOs? How do people count progress for them?

For some MMOs with a clear progression line, I'll count myself as having "beat" them if I hit max level and then unsubscribe. If I really like the game I'll keep it in my backlog and then say I've beaten it once I also max crafting skill, max PVP rank, and/or clear the PVE content with my guild.

I'm struggling with EVE though. I've put thousands of hours into that game and am still subscribed. Does that mean I haven't beat it? I've jokingly set myself a goal of acquiring a titan then losing it in PVP as the point at which I will have "won EVE". Considering I'm not actively training for titans, that may never happen, so EVE might stay on my backlog until CCP shut the servers down.