Steam glitch is inflating user play times in games, see if you're affected

Steam users are reporting a glitch on the platform which is artificially inflating playtimes on certain games.

Although it doesn’t have any real significance, some Steam gamers put a serious number of hours into certain games, which are then tracked by the platform and shared on their profiles.

Gamers who have over 3000 hours in a game like Overwatch or Destiny 2 are going to take pride in the fact that they’re among some of the games’ top players. I myself have nearly that number in Payday 2, for example.

That can make it a little frustrating when these numbers are artificially inflated for no reason, as certain Steam glitches can sometimes do.

Posting on the Steam Reddit page, user erapapa shared that they have 363 hours in Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, even though they have never played it.

The shared image shows that they have no achievements earned in the game despite the huge number of logged hours, and that they last played it in 2020. They also state that the game is in their Steam Family library.

Steam playtime glitch could be due to a number of factors

Reddit users have shared theories and explanations in the comments section, with some suggesting it may be due to it not actually closing when the player selected quit in-game.

“Did you ever launch it? I had this issue with GTA IV once. It was running in the background for three days and I had 0 clue because Steam didn't say it was,” reads one comment.

“I had the same thing with Far Cry Primal, I had my computer on for 2 days and my computer due to some circumstances and clocked like 20+hours cuz it never closed properly due to some wackery with Ubisoft's launcher,” another comment reads.

Another user claims that it could be due to Remote Play, a feature on Steam which allows you to stream your Steam games to other devices, as well as play local co-op games online with your friends.

“It is because of Remote Play, sometimes it bugs out, when you connect to another user,” said user Syntax555, to which erapapa agreed could be the reason why.

Other users shared the glitch in the comments section as well, with one person having 327 hours in MultiVersus and saying: “I feel this guy’s pain.”

Another person also had 215 hours in a game called Armello, which they also attributed to the glitch.

We've had this glitch ourselves, too

I’ve noticed this glitch as well in my own experience. I’ve been playing the 2026 re-release of Final Fantasy 7 this month, and despite only having around 20 hours in my only playthrough in-game, Steam says I’ve played it for just over 55 hours.

I believe this happens when playing on Steam Deck and putting it into Sleep Mode while a game is active. Although your game is paused, Steam will continue tracking hours while it’s in Sleep Mode, meaning leaving it off for over a day will give you a massive amount of fake playtime.

If you want to check if you’re affected by this glitch, the first thing to do would be to check your Steam profile and see if there are any games on there which have a massive proportion of hours. If you have no achievements in these games, and don’t remember launching them, that’s a good indicator you might be affected.

You could also check the hours logged on your online Steam profile and compare them to the hours your Steam client says you actually have. If there’s a big contrast there, it’s another sign you’re affected.

In terms of what you can do about it, you could try reaching out to Valve to see if a support person can reset the time played for specific games. However, some users have reported that they had no luck with this.