Playtime numbers are wrong because the game was left open overnight

If you measure how long people play from the earliest to the latest sign of life, one forgotten tab turns a ten minute visit into eight hours and wrecks every average. This entry shows how to cut the stream of events into real sessions and real play.

Why this works

A time stamp shows that something happened, not that someone was playing. Long silences are reading, waiting or walking away, so a long gap closes a visit, and inside a visit each pause counts only up to a sensible limit.

When not to use it

Skip it for games where players really do sit still, such as slow puzzle, idle or reading-heavy games, where long pauses are play. Set the limits per kind of action, or measure progress made instead of minutes passed.

In the full entry

• What to build, step by step
• Starting values and the reason for each
• 3 common mistakes and the fix
• 36 lines of example code with 4 checks that pass
• How your AI shows you that it works

Say this to your AI

Use the Spielerando entry "Playtime numbers are wrong because the game was left open overnight" (read_entry split-sessions-and-ignore-idle-time) in my game. Build it step by step, and show me how you checked that it works.

Or skip this and connect the MCP: your AI then finds all of this by itself.Connect the MCP