Next Day Update: Ironically (or maybe not), after posting about Steam Calculator not calculating correctly, today, I checked and it’s accurate again. Go figure (and thanks for fixing).

As some of you might know, I’ve taken an ongoing challenge in hopes to get my Steam backlog into a more manageable state. I’ve called this the Steam Challenge, something that I started back in 2014.

In order to track my progress, I’ve been using the Steam Calculator to tell me how much of my backlog I’ve played vs. not played. Up until now, it’s done me well, and I frequently check it to keep an eye on things.

Back in January, I was so, so happy that I’d reached a milestone of 66% played. My goal for the year was to get 65% played, so I was well over that. In fact, I pushed onward and eventually got to 69% played with a whopping 70% within sight!

But then, something happened, and I have no idea what it was. I feel like before I went on vacation, I was still at 69%. But when I came back, I saw this!

What the heck? How did I DROP to 64%?

I mean, yes, I’ve bought a few games since the beginning of the year, but I’ve played almost all of the games I bought.

What really puzzles me is this… Here’s the numbers I posted back in January.

I had 296 games at the time.

Based on the new calculator, it thinks I added 31 games between January and now. That’s just not correct!

Here’s what I activated – I left one in December so that you’d see the cut off for last year.

This is NOT 31 games. So where did that all come from?

Are they now counting things like soundtracks and software? If so, that still doesn’t compute because I only have 20 of those combined, and most of the software I own I have used at least for a little while.

Actually – in the middle of writing this, I did some quick “research.” Steam Calculator does now, indeed, include things like software and soundtracks. See image below where it counts game making software in my backlog now.

Not just that, but it’s also added all kinds of weird tools, drivers and stuff that don’t even count as games!

Not to mention a bunch of free games that I’ve never downloaded, have no connection to the kinds of games I play, and I have no interest in playing.

I am quite disappointed! How am I supposed to accurately track and measure my actual backlog of games when the calculator goes and shoves things in my backlog that I can’t do anything about? I don’t own Killing Floor, Red Orchestra 2, or Linux, for example. Why are those things now in my list of products?

Not to mention soundtracks. You can only download them – so you can never put any time into them on Steam, thus marking them as “played.”

I know it’s an insignificant thing to grouch about, but I really hope this is just a bug. It’s something I’ve been working on for many years, and to see my measurement tool all messed up is extremely frustrating. Especially since I was just getting to a point where I was happy with where I was at.

Is this the end of the Steam Challenge? Should I just let it go at this point, now that my backlog is in better shape than it was and I have no real way of measuring just the games I own?

Or should I push on knowing that the numbers are now bloated by things I can’t do anything about?

I haven’t decided yet.