Steam now lets you see how much you've spent on games. Here are CNET's totals
We've spent an embarrassing amount on Steam games. How about you?
When it comes to parting fools from their money, there are few places on the internet quite as glorious as Steam , particularly during a Steam Sale.
So you can imagine our surprise, delight and quaking horror to learn Steam now lets you see exactly how much you've spent on games!
For instance, one CNET editor spent $2,809.31, and is now slightly genuinely afraid that number might somehow reach the missus.
To find your total, just click this handy link and log into Steam's website. (Or you can navigate a crazy menu tree in the Steam desktop app like so: Help > Steam Support > My Account > Data Related to your Steam Account > External Funds Used.)
Just know it won't count codes you're received, so no Humble Bundle purchases or Kickstarters.
Here's how much some of CNET's other gamers have spent, high or low -- and what they have to say for themselves. Note that some names have been withheld to protect the innocent/guilty.
Anonymous CNET editor
- Total spent: $3,503.04
- Most hours on a game: TrackMania United (786 hours)
- Joined Steam: March 2004
"Throughout my life, video games have been the safe way to do things I never would have otherwise done (race cars, fly fighters, kill demons, etc). I'm never going to jump off a cliff wearing a wing suit in real life, but I can do it from the safety of my couch with a video game... and IT'S FUN."
Nick Hide, global copy chief
- Total spent: $699.27
- Most hours on a game:
Civilization VI
(572 hours)
- Joined Steam: January 2010
"I'm shocked I've spent so much, I had no idea -- I thought all I used it for was a bit of Civ every few years. (Admittedly 572 hours is more than a bit.) Apparently there's 10 games I've put at least 40 hours into. In my defense I would say that I sometimes leave my PC on pause and go out, so that's not 100 percent play time."
Anonymous CNET editor
- Total spent: $1,790.36
- Most hours on a game:
Fallout 4
(147 hours)
- Joined Steam: May 2006
"I could always justify buying new games to 'test' for work on new gaming laptops, so my trigger finger was a little itchy."
Lexy Savvides, senior editor
- Total spent: $17.96
- Most hours on a game: Age of Empires II: HD Edition (47 hours)
- Joined Steam: December 2010
"I'm glad both numbers are low, because it hides the hundreds of hours I used to spend playing the original Age of Empires II on PC before Steam was even a thing. I was so dedicated I'd even play with an Ethernet crossover cable hooked into to another PC so we could play multiplayer."
Kelsey Adams, senior copy editor
- Total spent: $206.84
- Most hours on a game: Surviving Mars (399 hours)
- Joined Steam: May 2014
"A STAGGERINGLY low $206.84! Wow! If this doesn't include outside codes, it should be at least 50 percent higher, but still. Considering the, for example, 135 hours of enjoyment I've gotten out of Sunless Sea, I barely feel guilty at all. And as for the 97 hours playing Fallout Shelter, um... I was multitasking!"
Anonymous CNET editor
- Total spent: $1,602.11
- Most hours on a game:
Grand Theft Auto V
(277 hours)
- Joined Steam: 2004
"That's only what I've actually spent. I get a lot of codes for consideration, feedback and review so if I were to total my actual Steam account value that'd be $10,273.82."
David Katzmaier, section editor, TVs and Home Theater
- Total spent: $864.83
- Most hours on a game: Fallout 4 (487 hours)
- Joined Steam: July 2013
"I chalk a lot of those Fallout 4 hours up to bases I've constructed, but between that game and Skyrim I've logged exactly 768 hours (32 days) of Steam play time -- what can I say, replaying with different characters and styles is so much damn fun. If Skyrim counted PS3 and Switch, I wonder if I'd be close to 1,000 hours between the two?"
Morgan Little, social media manager
- Total spent: $698.06
- Most hours on a game: Team Fortress 2 (183 hours)
- Joined Steam: March 2010
"BUT the caveat being that I handed off an account to my little brother that had been around since about 2005 that easily had a few hundred additional bucks and an ungodly amount of TF2 time put into it. If they make a TF3, I'll likely never be seen again."
Anonymous CNET editor
- Total spent: $418.14
- Most hours on a game:
BioShock Infinite
(87 hours)
- Joined Steam: July 3, 2017 ("Now I know how I spent my July 4")
"It's such a short time because I only joined when I finally got fed up using a shared account and constantly losing my progress (technically, I've spent most of my time ripping demons apart in Doom, just not all under my account). I don't have a lot of hours on any particular game because I have the attention span and frustration threshold of a 3-year-old, and jump from game to game when I get stuck. I also have the financial skills of a 3-year-old, which is why I limit myself to games under $20."
Tim Stevens, editor-in-chief of Roadshow
- Total spent: $146.49
- Most hours on a game: BioShock Infinite (106 hours)
- Joined Steam: February 2005
"Oof, I guess I'm cheap. Shows my console preference. Also, a lot of my Steam 'purchases' lately have been Kickstarters. Anyhow! I joined in February of 2005 and I've spent 106 hours in wedded, co-op bliss wandering around lost in Divinity: Original Sin 2 with my wife. (Battletech is my biggest solo game, at 94 hours.)"
Jeff Sparkman, senior copy editor
- Total spent: $1,104.72
- Most hours on a game: DC Universe Online (227 hours)
- Joined Steam: January 2010
"That's not counting all the stuff I've bought over the years via game bundle deals, which are always my downfall. My top game is DC Universe Online, with 227 hours on record, and sadly all of that time was playing without having a character actually named Sparkman (I did manage to snag the name when the game hit the Xbox)."
Sean Buckley, social media producer
- Total spent: $696.81
- Most hours on a game:
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
(80 hours)
- Joined Steam: January 2008
"I try not to look at my Steam stats -- they both make me feel relieved that, in a decade, I haven't spent more than a month's rent on games (well, as long as you don't look at my GOG, Battle.net or Origin profiles), and also ashamed that I haven't spent enough time playing those games. How are PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Star Trek Online my most played Steam games?! Am I even a 'real gamer'? I mean, yes. Just don't count by the numbers."
Sarah McDermott, associate editor
- Total spent: $80.14
- Most hours on a game: Civilization V
- Joined Steam: January 2016
"Well, I have no idea how this has happened because I feel like I've only bought the tiniest handful of games on Steam, but apparently I've still somehow managed to spend $80.14.
"I guess this makes it look like I have a fulfilling life, unencumbered by time-sucking video games. But all it really means is that I prefer to waste my time on my phone. If Steam factored in the hours I spent completing Tiny Tower back in 2014, it would paint a different picture altogether."
Anonymous CNET editor
- Total spent: $1,312.04
- Most hours on a game: DOTA 2 (1,676 hours)
- Joined Steam: July 2005
"I'm shocked by those numbers. I don't play half of the games on my Steam account and I should probably be better at DOTA if I've sunk that much time into it."
Eric Franklin, managing editor, Reviews
- Total spent: $2,582.01
- Most hours on a game:
Far Cry 3
(1,228 hours -- I left it running in the background a lot)
- Actual most hours on a game: XCOM: Enemy Unknown (167 hours)
- Joined Steam: October 2004
"There's nothing like the thrill of buying a new game, so if I can buy 15 games over the course of a sale and spend less than $300, I see that as a win. Priorities..."
John Falcone, executive editor
- Total spent: $76.80
- Most hours on a game: The Stanley Parable (0.8 hours -- yes, truly)
"I only buy 'classic' games on sale for $5 or less, on both Steam and GOG. In my head, I see myself getting that new laptop with dedicated graphics someday, the one that'll finally be able to play through Half-Life: Black Mesa and the like. In the meantime, any title that costs less than a caramel macchiato is fair game."
Sean Keane, staff reporter
- Total spent: $392.87
- Most hours on a game: Deus Ex (40 hours)
- Joined Steam: October 2010
"I'm more of a console gamer than a PC guy, but I've been bewitched by many a sale and regularly buy gifts for friends. I've spent a total of $392.87 since I joined in October 2010 and played 40 hours of the incredible Deus Ex (which I'm pretty sure were my fourth and fifth playthroughs). It doesn't reveal that I've spent 200 hours on Breath of the Wild! I can't decide if I'm proud or ashamed of that."
Stephen Shankland, senior reporter
- Total spent: $181.73
- Most hours on a game: Trackmania 2 Stadium (107 hours)
- Joined Steam: September 2011
"I have kids and my spare screen time, already saddled with an abundance of guilt, goes mostly to photography. 107 hours playing TrackMania 2 Stadium, because my son loved creating courses for me, but I haven't played for years. I should try it again."
Logan Moy, video producer
- Total spent: $702.42
- Most hours on a game: Ghost Recon: Wildlands (55 hours)
- Joined Steam: October 2014
"Wish my 400+ hours on Overwatch was accounted for."
Sean Hollister, senior editor
- Total spent: $2,809.31
- Most hours on a game: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (395 hours)
- Joined Steam: October 2004 (for Half-Life 2, of course)
"I've bought a lot of gifts for my friends on Steam over the years. But who am I kidding: I'm a Steam Sale-aholic, or at least I was until I started wasting my life exclusively on PUBG. Nothing else has grabbed me that tight... though I may have put 120 hours into Dark Souls 2 and a couple hundred into XCOM: Enemy Unknown and XCOM 2 combined."
So there you have it: CNET staffers have spent nearly $20,000 on Steam. ($19,885.95, if our math's right.) How about you?
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