Gameplay.Science vs PS Playtime

Gameplay.Science is an open-source web platform for independent research on video games using behavior data donated by players. It is designed to support studies without requiring direct participation from game platforms. Players can contribute digital trace data through Steam or Discord connections, account integrations such as Steam or Xbox, or GDPR requests. Account linking lets a participant sign in and authorize automatic access to gameplay data. UK and EU players can request data held by a gaming company under GDPR and share it with researchers. The project aims to cover how long people play, what they do in games, and who they interact with. A study using the platform describes Steam authentication through OpenID, public Steam gameplay details, and hourly collection of each game’s incremental playtime. That study says data was stored on encrypted servers accessible only to the research team. Steam and Xbox are listed as supported ecosystems.

PS Playtime is a free web tool for checking time played on PlayStation games. It retrieves public data from PlayStation Network for PS4 and PS5 titles. To run a lookup, enter a PlayStation Network online ID or display name; the search is case-sensitive. No registration is required, and PS Playtime says it never asks for a PlayStation password, email, or login credentials. The library view shows each game’s hours played, first played date, and last played date, with sorting by playtime or most recently played. The game library and playtime must be publicly visible for access. Every lookup fetches current information from PlayStation Network, and gaming lookup data is not permanently stored on PS Playtime’s servers. Older PS3-era games and games played offline for long periods may have incomplete data. The terms allow access to be limited or blocked to protect the service from excessive requests or harmful scraping. PS Playtime describes itself as an independent fan-made tool, not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or PlayStation.