One of the features I really like on Steam is that it tracks your current and total time played for any given game. However, I've not come across any applications that let you do this outside of Steam, apart from XFire.
The problem with XFire though is that it does not seem to let you add your own games, and it doesn't automatically detect GoG games.
I would like some way of tracking playtime with GoG games (and other non-steam games) relatively easily, and I'm too lazy to just note down the times and keep adding up. Automation is key here.

That's true. And Xfire looks like ass, hasn't been updated in years layout-wise.

I absolutely DESPISE programmes that track play time across videogaming, I mean I feel guilty enough as it is sat on my ass for hours playing the darned things, I don't need to actually know how long I've been playing thanks very much >_<
Quite put off when I realized that STEAM implemented the system, is there any way to turn it off?

Sadly no. And it gets even worse with this new Steam beta UI. Whatever game you select to play, right next to the play button it says in nice big letters how much you've played. o_o

Steam doesn't let you turn it off. Even if you set your Community thing to offline it will still track it. The only way to not track it is play the game in offline mode which is broken anyway.
Can you imagine people playing MMOs bought via Steam? I don't want to know I've spent 500 hours in Everquest or something.

Yeah, it gets depressing. And I think the overlay in game will convert it to days, hours, and minutes... (shudders)

If you're playing so much you have a problem with seeing the numbers, well, maybe you should be seeing the numbers.
Michaelleung: I count 24.8 hours of MW2 for you the past week!

And counting!
Oh wait.

The Steam timings appear to be broken though, I have some games that I've played quite a lot but it only says I've played for a couple of hours. I might give Raptr a try, looks interesting.