A lot of games are passionate creations and the creators would happily put a few hours in to report info to Steam servers if they thought it would double multip

A lot of games are passionate creations and the creators would happily put a few hours in to report info to Steam servers if they thought it would double multiplayer use for another year or so at the end of a game's life. It's the franchises which consider games dead after dropping the sequel, ie Call of Duty, FIFA etc. They want people to buy the next version every year regardless of whether the game is actually better enough to justify the cost.