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Minimum Playtime Threshold for Counting Playtime and Playcount

šŸ“‹ Summary

Add an option in LaunchBox to define a minimum playtime threshold that must be reached before a session contributes to either a game’s Play Count or Playtime total. This prevents inaccurate tracking caused by quick emulator restarts, testing, or accidental launches.


šŸŽÆ Feature Overview

  • Introduce a configurable setting (e.g., under Options > Game Data):

    • ā€œMinimum playtime (in seconds or minutes) required before counting toward Play Count or Playtime.ā€

  • Both Play Count and Playtime tracking would only be updated if the session exceeds the user-defined duration.

  • Default value could be 0 (to maintain current behavior).

  • Optional per-platform overrides to customize thresholds for different systems (e.g., 1 min for arcade games, 5 min for RPGs).


šŸ›  Example Use Case

A user frequently launches games to test emulator settings or controller configurations.

  • Currently, these short sessions inflate both Play Count and total Playtime.

  • By setting a minimum playtime of 3 minutes, only genuine play sessions are logged.

  • Any session shorter than that duration is ignored for tracking purposes.


šŸ“¦ Benefits

  • šŸŽ® More accurate and meaningful Play Count and Playtime statistics.

  • 🧹 Cleaner, more reliable data for users who frequently test or configure emulators.

  • āš™ļø Highly customizable for both casual and power users.

  • šŸ”§ Prevents misleading ā€œPlayed onceā€ entries from sub-minute launches.


šŸ’” Notes

This system could later support:

  • šŸ•¹ Per-game exceptions for shorter titles (e.g., arcade or puzzle games).

  • šŸ“Š Analytics improvements, filtering out noise from short sessions when viewing total playtime or average session length.

Status: Open To Community3 comments

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Comments3

  • AstroBob changed status to Open To Community
    Team•

    Oct 13, 2025

    Pinned

    Hi there!

    Thanks so much for submitting this request and for taking the time to explain your use case — that context is always super helpful.

    I’ve gone ahead and fleshed out the main idea using the info you provided, and I’m opening it up to the community for further discussion and feedback. Please let me know if this fleshed-out version doesn’t match your original intended request.

    Feel free to let me know if you have any extra thoughts, examples, or edge cases you think might be relevant!

    Cheers,
    The LaunchBox team

  • dukdukgoos

    •

    Mar 15

    This would be very useful. I’ve often wished I could just disable play time/count entirely when doing config/testing. This would allow for that (by setting a very high threshold).

    This should not apply to storefronts that do their own time tracking (Steam, GOG, etc). LaunchBox should always just accurately reflect whatever those platforms are reporting.

  • OmiLaunchbox

    •

    Oct 13, 2025

    Minimum playtime per session to count up playcount

    With how finicky and customizable emulation is my playcounts often unnecessarily count up from many restarts or testing of settings. I would love an option to set up a timer for how long i need to play a game before a new playcount is added.