Steam API stopped reporting (un-played) free licenses

yep also noticed that my 23k games became 7k
perhaps some changes were made along with store update? or maybe Valve being Valve (shrug)

ruined steamladder too
madjoki website too

I noticed the same, both here and on gg.deals games got removed from my owned list

Great hope that it doesn't mess up free game dlc giveaways

Actually, that's not quite true!
In fact, it seems (i'm 100% sure) they corrected their API to fit the intended system and it was actually before that it didn't work as indicated in their documentation.

In their documentation it says since years:
By default, free games like Team Fortress 2 are excluded (as technically everyone owns them). If include_played_free_games is set, they will be returned if the player has played them at some point. This is the same behavior as the games list on the Steam Community

The API used to take free licenses into account, even if the game time was 0. This is no longer the case.

Firstly, for those like me who have by default their time to games hidden, no license free at will be counted from now on, even even if I do played it.

On steamgift, it's no longer possible to participate in DLC giveaways if you haven't played at least a few minutes of the free base game.

Free game DLC winners shouldn't be affected, even if they haven't played the base game.

edit: paid game become free can add suspension problem here by the way

Another scenario that is affected by this is when games move from free to paid, such as the recent Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks from Humble Choice. There may be winners of those giveaways now that technically already own the games (so would have to reroll or remove the free license before activating).

I noticed that guest/friend passes that I had (No Man's Sky, Party Animals, It Takes Two, ...) no longer show the base game as being owned in the API or in my game list. Still in the library.

Ditto with the Hitman Starter Pack and Call of Duty MWII DMZ.

Took me a moment to realize this was about that left panel that says "steam" at https://www.steamgifts.com/account/settings/profile. I was looking at my library and profile games section on steam and was like nope nothing changed, but I get it now. This is likely a good change, but when a game gets removed from free to get yet is still in someone's library, the count and display should be adjusted properly in the api imo to reflect that.

Also, why this instead of fixing the damn deluxe, complete, pack whatever editions that never work right?

Edit: Anyone knows of a list/filter which updates often of all F2P games that have paid dlc's?

Only 12 games less for me after sync.

Oh so thats why my ITAD sync suddenly flooded with "no game found during sync". 110 of them were demos tho.

on ITAD and Steamgifts list it doesnt count "unplayed only" tho

Examples that are lost during sync:
"Alabaster Dawn Demo" was on the list and I played 2 hours of it.
Ive also played; Pathologic 3: Quarantine, Octopath 2 demo, "nothing", Marvel Rivals, Wuthering Waves and bunch others

Unless this is due me hiding my hours...time to test

Edit: Yeah its due hiding playhours... Went from 683 to 755 and now it shows stuff like Wuthering Waves...good one

Hmm, now my BLAEO is listing 230 games missing from my library.

Notably this also hides games that have been played just very briefly (less than 7 minutes it seems).

For BLAEO I liked the old way better, but it's not a huge deal and I'll learn to live with it.

Bump, as it seems there have been suspensions because of this.

I am a bit confused. Some free games that I've played are reported as missing. (for example TF2 with 1:30 playtime and several titles with <10min playtime)
Is there a minimum playtime requirement? Or do I have to have played them recently?

Anyone know if removed free games count? Steam is just trying to steal more and more of our library away for no reason. The least they could do is have an endpoint for restricted games.

Also, I don't like polluting my stats with games I haven't actually played, so I don't use card idlers and the like. So anyone who does, is now at an advantage over regular users.

I won Iron Madness on here years ago. It's now a free game and sgtools says it's not activated. I see the game in my Steam client library but not when I search in the web browser steam profile's All Games. Do I have to install the game and run it for a few minutes?

Yep. I cannot enter anymore in giveaways for DLC's of free games I have in my library. Sucks :(