On September 26th Phaethon gained an account service of its own, and the launcher learned to sign in to it. Signing in is optional: every game plays the same signed out.
Signing in
Sign-in uses a device code. The launcher shows a short code, you confirm it in your browser on Phaethon's own sign-in page, and the launcher is signed in without ever seeing your password. The profile behind it is yours to edit.
Play time that follows you
While you play signed in, the launcher reports each finished session to the service once: which game, when it started and ended, and how long it ran. The service counts each session once and sums them into play time per game, so playing on a second PC adds to the same account. A report waits on disk if you are offline and goes out the next time you are online and signed in. Sessions played signed out are never reported, and since September 27th reporting also follows the launcher's switch for crash and usage reports.
Saves, almost
The service can already keep each game's saves under your account: the newest five versions of each, every one written in full and flushed to disk before it counts. What does not exist yet is the launcher's side. No released launcher uploads a save today, and the profile's saves column says so: not backed up. Syncing saves is the launcher's next piece of work.
Not yet
Friends, messages, a forum, achievements and online play all have pages in the launcher, and all of them are placeholders for now.
Alex (maintainer, and a mechanical engineer by trade)