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Work Around for Tracking Steam SourceMod Playtime - Printable Version

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Work Around for Tracking Steam SourceMod Playtime - sofmarch - 01-05-2021

As you may be aware due to the fact that steam doesn't track playtime for SourceMods this means that Playnite is incapable of tracking them as well, but I have figured out a workaround for tracking playtime for these kind of games.

**DISCLAIMER: USING THIS METHOD YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE THE NORMAL STEAM IN GAME OVERLAY USING SHIFT-TAB. IF YOU WISH TO USE SOMETHING SIMILAR WITH THIS METHOD YOU CAN USE THE XBOX GAME BAR ON WINDOWS 10**

Step 1: After installing the SourceMod and making sure it's listed in your Playnite Library, open up the game page in your Steam library. Click the gear icon and select "Manage -> Add Desktop Shortcut."
[attachment=1243]
Step 2: Navigate to the desktop and select the shortcut you've just created. Move this shortcut to a folder in any location on your computer and paste it there.
[attachment=1244]
Step 3: Rename the shortcut you just created to one word. In this folder, create a new text document and rename it to whatever you please as long as the file name ends in .bat make sure your say yes when Windows warns you about changing file types.
[attachment=1245]
Step 4: Open up this .bat file in a text editor and add the following lines:
start {shortcutname}.url
cmd /k
[attachment=1246]
Save and close the text editor. After closing the text editor, double click the bat file and make sure that the game boots.

Step 5: Open up the game settings in Playnite. On the Actions tab, uncheck "Managed by Library Plugin" and instead select Executable and navigate and select the .bat file you just created.
[attachment=1247]

If setup correctly, when running the game from Playnite, the command prompt should remain open while running the game as well as after closing out. When finished playing, close out of the Command Prompt and this in turn will return the game status to normal in Playnite.

Note: If you wish to move the shortcut to a different location than the one you set up in, make sure you also move the .bat file as well. THE SHORTCUT AND .BAT MUST BE IN THE SAME FOLDER.


RE: Work Around for Tracking Steam SourceMod Playtime - Crow - 01-05-2021

Steam's time tracking has nothing to do with Playnite's time tracking. If Playnite doesn't track play time for some source mods, please open new github issue for it and we'll fix it.