Anyone using Raptr?

I know that there was a thread about this at some time in the past, but for the life of me I can't find it via search. I installed Raptr quite a while ago but forgot about it. I recently starting poking around on it and it seems like they have done a ton of new integration. Xbox live, PSN, Steam, Xfire, AIM, MSN, etc all in one client. I'm digging it so far.

Anyone else using it or have any opinions? I'm always a junkie for having all my achievments and such tracked in a single area and being able to look at my gaming trends.

http://www.raptr.com

http://raptr.com/GWJ_Stryker

I use it. I've found that it gets confused between XBL and Windows Live (it has me playing Fallout 3 on the 360; I don't even own the 360 version) and there are a number of games I have that it doesn't recognize but it does do a relatively good job of keeping track of the things it can find.

http://raptr.com/tanstaafl

I don't use it but I am getting ready to stop following a few people on Twitter because of all the Raptr spam :).

Gameraotaku wrote:

I don't use it but I am getting ready to stop following a few people on Twitter because of all the Raptr spam :).

Good point. I forgot about the Twitter and Facebook integration. That can get annoying if you don't tighten it down.

I generally let Raptr spew all over my Facebook profile, because I know that people generally only read their Newsfeed anyway and that only puts a handful of your updates on it.

I like Raptr well enough, but it seems to lack the group functionality that would make it truly useful. Steam will let me join the GWJ community, but raptr requires a huge friend-list to see what all my GWJers are up to. There's tons and tons of us, and that's so much work.

Gameraotaku wrote:

I don't use it but I am getting ready to stop following a few people on Twitter because of all the Raptr spam :).

My raptr updates don't go to my Twitter stream. And I only leave it on Facebook because it annoys my sister-in-law.

And yeah, it really needs some sort of group functionality.

how many IM/Social Networking tools do you need running at the same time? I mean yeah, not everyone loves Steam, but do you really need to broadcast what you're playing AND get facebook updates at the same time?

Sorry for grouch-ness. I'll go back to my corner and mumble to myself.

I've never seen the point of Raptr. I signed up with it when it first came out and aside from a few additional tracking features no one uses, it's primary purpose just seems to be to constantly spam people about what you're playing or what you've done in some games. I don't know if it's changed much since then (I know they have a multi-IM client but Xfire and Digsby do a much better job for me) but I didn't see the point of what it purported to do and why it couldn't just be done with something that plugs into Facebook rather than needing it's own site.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

I've never seen the point of Raptr. I signed up with it when it first came out and aside from a few additional tracking features no one uses, it's primary purpose just seems to be to constantly spam people about what you're playing or what you've done in some games. I don't know if it's changed much since then (I know they have a multi-IM client but Xfire and Digsby do a much better job for me) but I didn't see the point of what it purported to do and why it couldn't just be done with something that plugs into Facebook rather than needing it's own site.

This.

I get the popularity of Facebook and twitter, but rather than creating your own vertical, why not just align with an existing (and successful) network like facebook, xbox live, PSN, Steam, etc.

Ok, back to my corner.

it's primary purpose just seems to be to constantly spam people about what you're playing

That's actually kind of what it is supposed to do. The theory (as I understand it) is that if you start playing a game then all of your friends (no matter what network they happened to be on at the time) will see you are on-line and gaming and so know they can hop on and join you.

The advantage I see it has over Steam/Live/PSN/whatever is that it is platform agnostic. It monitors all of them. So Xbox games show up with Steam games and so on. Steam knows when I'm playing a Steam game but doesn't know when I'm playing Eve but my corpmates with Raptr can see that I am online and hop in. That's just one example.

tanstaafl wrote:

That's actually kind of what it is supposed to do. The theory (as I understand it) is that if you start playing a game then all of your friends (no matter what network they happened to be on at the time) will see you are on-line and gaming and so know they can hop on and join you.

I get their intention but I wonder how many people actually use it for this purpose. Given the complaints about how spammy it seems, it certainly doesn't appear to be encouraging more gaming with your friends, at least not with the people from here. If people are about to play something and want me to join, they usually message me or just invite me and that always seemed to work just fine.

When I first signed up to Raptr, I wasn't on Twitter but I did give it permission to change my Facebook status. Within a few days, I had several people message me asking to stop because it was clogging up their feeds, especially when it would post the same warning multiple times for things like 360 games getting titles updates or restarting the same PC game multiple times because I was troubleshooting it. Yeah, I could tell them to just hide my updates but that kind of defeats the purpose and is a good way to have people unfriend you in a hurry. Turning that feature off was a huge pain in the ass and required me to go into a very buried section of my account settings. It was even harder to delete the Facebook application. Eventually, I decided I wanted to close my account and guess what? Just like Facebook, you can't delete a Raptr account, you can only remove all your data from it manually and have it "deactivated".

With things like Xfire, Steam Community and Live in general, this is just another layer of unnecessary.

tanstaafl wrote:
it's primary purpose just seems to be to constantly spam people about what you're playing

That's actually kind of what it is supposed to do. The theory (as I understand it) is that if you start playing a game then all of your friends (no matter what network they happened to be on at the time) will see you are on-line and gaming and so know they can hop on and join you.

The advantage I see it has over Steam/Live/PSN/whatever is that it is platform agnostic. It monitors all of them. So Xbox games show up with Steam games and so on. Steam knows when I'm playing a Steam game but doesn't know when I'm playing Eve but my corpmates with Raptr can see that I am online and hop in. That's just one example.

This is what I use it for. I don't even use the facebook / twitter options. I just like to have one central area for all of my gaming consoles / achievements. I like being able to take a look at what I've been playing, how it compares to my friends, and be able to track time as well. I guess if I tried the social options I may have run into the same problems as some of the rest of you.

I use Raptr. I have no problem with it and I have no problem with others using it.

I would expect the gamers on my list to post about the games they're playing. Raptr tweets are nothing compared to the daily stream of "I woke up this morning!", "I'm eating breakfast/lunch/dinner!", "I'm on my way to work/school!", "I'm going to bed now!" and even those do not bother me. If Raptr didn't exist, I'd just post what I was playing manually. I don't see the difference between "So and so is playing Batman: AA." and someone posting "Alright! Time for more Batman: AA!" I have tons of people on my friend's list who do one or the other every day.

There is an option that will only allow Raptr to post a summary of daily activity instead of a constant stream of each game played. You'd have to click on the Raptr profile link to see what they played and their achievements. People who play dozens of different games everyday should definitely use this feature.

I don't feel sorry for those who follow me on FaceBook. All I have are family members who constantly update their feeds with absolutely nothing but quizzes. Reading results from quizzes like "What kind of sex are you into?" from my younger cousins is highly disturbing. Raptr gives me the ability to counter that level of madness.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Within a few days, I had several people message me asking to stop because it was clogging up their feeds, especially when it would post the same warning multiple times for things like 360 games getting titles updates or restarting the same PC game multiple times because I was troubleshooting it.

I can't stand this either. I'd highly prefer Raptr not updating with the same game multiple times in a 24 hour period.

I really like Raptr I use it for my chat client. So I can chat in AIM, Gtalk, Steam, etc while playing games without alt-tabbing. Plus I like comparing game achievements with my friends. When I get bored I click around the game reviews, etc on the site too. It just ties all my games together into one box. I also have it set to just do a summary tweet once a day. The spammy problem is really just a problem with people setting their preferences to spammy.

I've used it for a couple years now, and the quality of service now is really good. I can only find one game that it doesn't support (minecraft because it's just a java exe), and it is seamless with my various chat services. I hope they add more cool features and really make it shine, because they've got a good product/service so far.

I really wish they would add chat history, the only feature I'm missing (seems like a pretty basic one for an IM tbh).

Arise, thread!

Are the rest of you folks still using Raptr? I don't use the chatting functionality but I like tracking the gaming activity for my time and my friend list. I'm still on there as fyedaddy.

Fyedaddy wrote:

Arise, thread!

Are the rest of you folks still using Raptr? I don't use the chatting functionality but I like tracking the gaming activity for my time and my friend list. I'm still on there as fyedaddy.

We've almost got a pulse... We were discussing multi platform feed sites in the TA thread, Garden Ninja was looking for examples and I suggested this.

Garden Ninja wrote:
m0nk3yboy wrote:
Garden Ninja wrote:
Infyrnos wrote:

They really need a site like this to track and rank my Steam Achievements, it doesn't feel as fun getting them ><

Ditto. I'd like a site that tracks 360 achievements, steam achievements and PSN trophies together actually.

That's actually one of the features for the site I'm working on, but it is probably a long ways off. I need to get basic functionality working and actually launch the thing first.

Oh Hai, I can has raptr?

http://raptr.com/m0nk3yboy/games

I tried Raptr and didn't really like it. Seems like too much information that isn't presented usefully. I also don't know how they are tracking playtime for 360 games, but it is completely wrong.

Maybe I should try it out again though.

Infrynos was concerned about password compromise using the desktop client (for the additional functionality).

I'll point them this way, but in the meantime, anyone have any issues with what Infyrnos was worried about?

I played a bit more with it over the last couple of days, and I like it even less.

It has some badly unintuitive UI issues. Some I suppose are not necessarily UI issues in general, but due to a mismatch between what I want it to do (backloggery + TA, essentially) and what it was designed to do (be Gamer Facebook).

For instance, on your profile, it lists Systems I play on. I had assumed clicking on the link labeled "Steam" would show me the list of my Steam Games. Instead it takes you the Steam info page. This makes sense for a Facebook clone, I suppose, but isn't useful to me.

Regarding my time played, m0nk3yboy responded in the TA thread, but I'll avoid cluttering that further.

m0nk3yboy wrote:

Time played for 360 is calculated from the time started, after registering. They used to scrape Playfire for that info, but they've since changed that. It also doesn't include the secret achievements unless you've installed the desktop client. That doesn't help me as it's not Mac compatible.

I understand that Time Played is since signup, given all the games with no playtime listed. My issue is that those that do list playtime have drastically inflated numbers. For example, I played Chime for about 5 minutes last night. I know it was about 5 minutes because I started a 9 minute game and quite about half way through. My activity feed said I played 26 minutes. I did not spend over 20 minutes in the menus.

I also really don't like that they lock so much functionality out of the web client. For some features, like Chatting or Screenshots, it make sense to require the desktop app. But there is no reason to hide PSN trophy support or secret XBL achievements behind the desktop app, since that stuff would have to be done at least partially at the server level and should hook into existing data structures (e.g. Achievements and Trophies should be the same thing). If the app cost anything, it might make sense (though I would still have a problem with it), but it's free, and frankly it makes me worry about what is in the app, regardless of their "Free, No Adware / Spyware" disclaimer.

I've deleted my account there. It's just not what I'm looking for. Way too much of a cluttered mess and the fact that it cannot even get what achievements I have correct didn't help its case at all. Will just have to keep track of my steam cheevos in steam I guess.

Infyrnos wrote:

I've deleted my account there. It's just not what I'm looking for. Way too much of a cluttered mess and the fact that it cannot even get what achievements I have correct didn't help its case at all. Will just have to keep track of my steam cheevos in steam I guess.

That is pretty much where I fell on raptr as well, it was way too flaky and way too cluttered

I use it for the free stuff. Lol.

I've gotten some decent rewards for Blacklight Retribution and Stronghold Kingdoms.

I just use it to remember what I owned and how long I been playing I disable twitter and FB.

garion333 wrote:

I use it for the free stuff. Lol.

I've gotten some decent rewards for Blacklight Retribution and Stronghold Kingdoms.

This is me, too. I just use it for the rewards program.

soonerjudd wrote:
garion333 wrote:

I use it for the free stuff. Lol.

I've gotten some decent rewards for Blacklight Retribution and Stronghold Kingdoms.

This is me, too. I just use it for the rewards program.

Interesting. I don't use the rewards stuff and found the emails I got from them to be annoying.

I kinda like it. It does a pretty good job of keeping track of my game time and ranks me against others on my friends list....which is small so friend me up!

I wondered why I'd been getting some friend requests lately.

agree it does a pretty good job of tracking my game activity. took some fiddling with steam, mainly due to requiring a public steam community profile.

Raptr is okay, but mostly it serves as a constant reminder of just how little time I get to spent gaming these days.

So, I've complained about Raptr's time tracking stuff before, but here is a concrete example of its issues.

I understand why it has to estimate XBL playing time, as the 360 doesn't track that info. Personally, Raptr does such a crappy job there that I don't think they should try. However, steam does track playtime, so Raptr should be able to just grab the info from the API. Apparently they use the same busted algorithm for steam as they do for XBL.

Per steam:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/4LpxH3N.png)

And per Raptr:
IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/WyrF4MT.png)
Raptr doesn't even agree with itself. My last play session was 23 hours, but I've only played 19 hours total? How does that work?

Looks like Raptr is still trying to figure out its purpose in life. They just rolled out a big recording/streaming update.

Introducing GVR and Instant Replays -- capture and share gameplay video with nearly no performance impact!

I guess they figured all the cool kids are streaming these days and wanted to get on the bandwagon? They aren't doing it very well if they are. I have a GeForce GTX 760, which is a relatively up-to-date card, and it claims it isn't supported. I'm seeing other people making similar comments.

I'm not short of recording/streaming options. I already have Fraps, OBS, Faststone Capture and Nvidia's Shadowplay. It isn't like I need a 5th one. Sounds like they're still desperately trying to find a niche.

I'd basically forgotten about this, but I just got this email.

We are sad to announce that we will be closing Raptr on September 30th, 2017. We want to start by thanking you for your support over the past 10 years.

The world is different today than when we first launched Raptr. Many companies offer game optimization tools. Having an independent platform to do this is no longer necessary.

On September 30, we will start the process of shutting off access to your Raptr account and disabling features. If you'd like to export your tracked game play history, you can do so immediately using the instructions below:

Go to Raptr.com
Sign in to your Raptr account
Click here to get your gameplay data
If you have any other questions, please send us feedback.

We are proud of the service we built and the community who helped grow Raptr. Thank you, once again, for your support.

Dennis “Thresh” Fong
Co-founder and CEO

Note: If you are a Plays.tv user, we want you to know Plays.tv launched as an independent company in January 2017 and is not affected by Raptr's shutting down.