I suppose I don’t see it as bloating as long as I have a way of distinguishing and searching, which is why I have the additional shelves. I don’t look at my Played shelf and think “look at how many games I have played” but more “look at how many games I’ve been in contact with”. Also have “Played: 2020” and so on so I can at the end of the year see what I played that year. Whether or not I finished them isn’t too me all that interesting at a glance (but I can always find that info in other ways), but I suppose that’s because I play fewer games than I used to so the lists aren’t that long. I also log my time with things with “journal entries” (Feature suggestion: Gaming diary) that I can read.
I have always been a bit of a data hoarder; I would rather have too much than too little and find ways to organise and search. It would be a shame to me if I tried something out, spent an hour of my life on something, and didn’t in any way log that I did so, and Played seems like the natural choice there. But there are lots of different ways of using a service like this, you just have to find a way that gives you something of value 