If I were to add a completion for all the games I've beaten at least once before joining this website, I would have so many challenges completed, but as always, it feels a bit like cheating because I wouldn't be able to say when I beat them or how long it took.

I realize it's possible to log a completion without either of this information, but it feels like a cheap victory. Another part of me says that I should log the completion, but also add those games to my mission list so I can replay them and replace that blank completion with a more current one.

Effectively, I'm struggling with whether I need to beat the games I own AGAIN before I can mark that I've completed them properly, or if a placeholder completion until I can provide a real clear time would be fine.

I was just thinking about this myself, because looking at my profile and seeing less games completed than was accurate was really bugging me. I do wish I knew when I beat them and how long I played for, but realistically I'm not going to beat all of them all over again just to put something in those boxes. I ended up entering the completions anyway and just clearing the dates and unchecking the boxes for "do you know how long you played?" They aren't included in the community stats and don't mess those up, but they still count for your own profile. I don't think it's cheating (especially because clearing those boxes is an option at all), and as for whether or not you should do that for yourself? I guess it comes down to what you value more: how many games have you actually completed, or how long did you spend on said games?

I guess it's been weird that I have so many games marked as finished (27%, 537/1957) but only have about 20ish completions logged.

I do wanna contribute to community stats, this isn't me trying to get around that; that's why I wanted to add those games to my mission list (where applicable) so I can get a real clear time logged.

It would, however, allow me to focus on my genuine backlog rather than worrying about beating the Sly trilogy again just so I can log completions for them - I'm fine replaying games as a mission, but I'd prefer to play games from my backlog if it's by my own volition, you know?

Yeah, that totally makes sense. My suggestion is to go ahead and log empty completions for now (it bugs me too to have less completions than I have games finished) and to focus on your backlog and adding times for old games if you tackle them as missions or just feel in the mood for revisiting them.

I've done so, and luckily some of my Steam games did have reliable times I could add.

Which yes, assumes I only played them a single time, which is true for some games. No pressing need to replay Minecraft Story Mode, you know?

At one point, I went through all of my old memory cards to find saves that were either at the end of the game or after completing it. If it was before, I tacked on a little extra time for a somewhat accurate guess-timate. I also used the time that Steam tracked for certain games as a ballpark number. The only completion I have with no time entered at all is StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and if I remember correctly, it was for completing the challenge

Completionator is definitely not meant to create additional work / stress, so by all means use it how you see fit!

Yeah, at this point that's pretty much the last viable option I have, checking old memory cards, but I think I have a lot of it down as I'd like it. Be nice to know how long all of them took, but I don't even own some of those games anymore, let alone have saves from them on the few cards I have.

I'm content with not knowing for sure on a lot of these games - it's been so long since I last played them that it wouldn't be too much of a hassle to replay them for a more concrete time!