OK, I keep seeing all these “How are you spending your gaming weekend? On Friday night I played UT2004 with my buds until 2 am; on Saturday I bought Riddick and Full Spectrum Warrior and got halfway through Riddick; on Sunday I played Riddick, Full Spectrum Warrior, Metroid Prime, the new Kohan beta, World of Warcraft, and leveled up my blaster 4 times in City of Heroes” type posts, and I just go, my God, how lame am I???
So I need a quantifiable answer to that question :-) These days I average about four hours per week. And my wife hasn’t even had our first baby yet (due in November)!
I split the poll category to isolate the issue of people who make their living reviewing (i.e. playing) games.
I voted 10-20 hours but I game in phases- I’ll spend several weeks where my predominant hobby is gaming and I’ll play most of the releases I’m interested in. This usually corresponds to the major release windows. After that I may not game for months at a time while I focus on reading or watching DVDs.
Works great and my wife tolerates my gaming binges because she knows they only last a limited time.
I don’t have consistent gaming time, it all depends on how good the current games are. When a Diablo 2 or Dom 2 or MissionForce Cyberstorm comes along, I can be a 40 hour/week gamer. Just recently, before I got Dom2, I was a 2 hour a week guy.
I generally play 2 nights during the workweek from “kids in bed time” untill 11:30pm. The weekends are completely iffy, allowing maybe 3 hours over the two days IF it is raining. Nice weather = work outside. During winter, the weekend play can kick up a notch.
I’m probably in the 5-10 hours a week. Granted, most of that can be attributed to Winning Eleven (4.5-9.5 hours a week)… If I find a game I totally love, though, that number can jump to 20 or so–as it did with Manhunt.
Wanna see your habit go from “four” to “zero” in a hurry? Just wait til little one comes along. My daughter turns two in August and my habit still isn’t back where it needs to be. Luckily, I haven’t yet found the methadone for CoH, so I’m getting it back. Sleep patterns are sure suffering though. I remember some years back Loyd Case writing about computer builders being willing to “shed some blood for their art” in referring to cases that came with raw, cut-metal edges on the interior support beams; I’ve never shed blood for it, but I’ve sure as shootin shed some hours of slumber.
Actually, I had some pretty good luck early on. My daughter was born right about when Warcraft 3 hit the shelves, so I could hold her while she was asleep in one arm and let the hand I use to rock the mike operate the mouse. It was great - wife got to rest, I got to play, and baby got to sleep to the soothing sounds of “Zug Zug” and “Ready to work”.
AMen brother. My girl is three and if it was not for nap time, I am not sure I would be able to play at all. Some days I do not even get that. You play, sure, but there are no more 5-6 hour total immersion sessions. I think about sitting to play for an hour or so and often decide “why, bother” it’ll just start getting good when I have to quit. That’s where online poker comes in. :wink:
I play 6-10 hours of multiplayer Halo a week, then another 5-10 of single player.
I watch 2 hours of non-sports, non-news TV a week: The Shield and Deadwood. I generally have CNN or ESPN(or the local teams, if they are on) on my second monitor through my TV-in card.
Depends. If Steve has sent me the latest bugfest out of Eastern Europe, I usually waste on average about twenty hours a week cracking my skull against it. My own personal gaming time fluctuates: some weeks, I use as much free time as my wife, career, and life will let me have to play; other weeks, I don’t even want to THINK about playing a game. The net average (including playing games for review) is about 10-30 hours a week, I’d guess.
I have a little daughter due to spring forth from my wife’s loins next month, so I imagine my time will be drastically reduced in this area.
I game in cycles too but since I have become a Responsible Adult™ my time never goes over 20 hours a week now. There was a time not so long ago when I was into MMORPGs and would spend 4-8 hours a night on them, those days are gone now. If lots of good games are out I can get 20 hours a week or so but it usually is falls somewhere more in the 10-20 range on average.
Heh… I’m like Doug, but I usually get the auto racing games instead of the Eastern European bugfests, although I’ve had a couple of those too and some MMOGs you never played.
Lately I’ve spent as much time writing as I have playing though. Lots of GamerDad articles and something for a book.
I think the real question though, is not how much time do we spend actually gaming, but how much time do we spend doing gaming-related things like reading reviews, posting on messageboards, and so on. I’d say I pull another 10 hours there. :oops:
