How often do you game?

[Dhruin]

A simple question for this poll - how often do you game?

[JemyM]

All the time or never, depending on other responsibilities. This means whenever I have free time I prefer to play. However, I have came to realize that I cannot break games midthrough. I tend to play until finished. So I am a bit reluctant to begin longer titles when I know I do not have enough time to finish them.

[ikbenrichard]

Every day. I am a junk :(
But, when i was in my 20s i played 5 hours minimum a day.
now it is 5 hours maximum a day.

[szokol]

Every day, but no more than 1 hour. After work, before sleep.

[rooroosta]

More so when Autumn and Winter arrive..i'm spending more time on older releases recently.

[SleepingDog]

Depends what is happening but my free time tends to be split between games (TBS or RPG), reading and my DVD (mainly TV series) collection. I can find myself going several days without playing (except the wake up session) but then playing something to death.

At the moment I am seeing what still works on my XP machine and what is worth playing. I feel a clear out coming.

[Maylander]

Every day.

[guenthar]

Usually every day for at least 6 hours unless I either get burned out or get behind on reading or watching anime.

PS Sometimes I get so interested in a game that I play it every available hour which is usually between 12 and 18 hours depending on the day of the week. (except when I first played VTMB when I went for 48 hours straight then slept a couple of hours and then finished the game)

[blatantninja]

less than a hour a week at this point (outside of the occasional chess game on my android when I am waiting for something). Baby on the way + Puppy + Still situating the place we moved into last October just doesn't leave much time.

I need a summer vacation to catch up!

[GhanBuriGhan]

Usually once a week for 1 to a few hours total, sometimes one or several weeks without gaming, if real life duties get in the way.

[azarhal]

At least 1 hour everyday, unless I really can't.

[rbtroj]

Usually every day - rarely get more than 30 min or an hour after kids asleep and before I go to sleep. Occasional Saturday I may get a couple of solid hours to play if kids out of house at friends or something. It's my "TV", I guess.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

Sometimes every day (but only for 1-2 hours, eeverything beyond that on weekends), sometimes less. I voted for "a few times a week", which should in my personal case be "several times a week".

[RampantCoyote]

It's sometimes only for a few minutes (unless you count making games as playing them... but I really don't), but rarely does a day go by that I don't at least get something in.

[Toff]

I'm a winter player now. I don't game at all during the Summer and little during the Spring/Fall. When the weather is nice, I'm either working on the house/yard or out in the nearby parks riding my mountain bike.

[Santos]

I guess it all depends on what's out. I hale a low burnout threshold. D3 will be the next test.

[HiddenX]

Every day.

[Dez]

Few times on a week describes my gaming habits best during most of the year. I'm a kind of person who doesn't want to play just for an hour or so. If I play, I play for the whole evening, no distractions allowed. I have to feel relaxed and know that I have no other obligations waiting to be fullfilled. Thus I happen to play mostly at saturdays and sundays. Sometimes I game on working days too, but its a rarity to find time for a long rpg session outside weekends.

I just don't feel like launching a rpg unless I know that I can really have time to enjoy it. If my timetable is limited, but I wish to game a bit, its mostly action oriented - like a few rounds of tf2 before going to sleep or couple of missions of assasin's creed 2 etc

[SveNitoR]

less than a hour a week at this point (outside of the occasional chess game on my android when I am waiting for something). Baby on the way + Puppy + Still situating the place we moved into last October just doesn't leave much time.

I need a summer vacation to catch up!

Same for me (except playing backgammon instead of chess...) for about the same reasons. Sucks in some ways, awesome in other ways.

[Jaz]

A few times a week would be my average as well. There are times - like right now - when I happen to play each and every day, somtimes for hours, at night, before going to work, playing from eve to morn when hubby is on field duty ... and then there are those times when there's no game around I really like.
I *might* play casual games then or replay Hexen, Heretic, Blake Stone, Doom or RotT, but there's the occasional week when I don't play computer or video games at all.
So yes, it's 'a few times a week'.

Now I must go back to play some DLC ^^.

[crpgnut]

If there is a new crpg out, I'll game every day. I play in phases though. I have book-reading phases, along with crpg phases. I don't have any other hobbies, other than hitting the penny slots a couple times a month. The rest of the time I'm working.

[GothicGothicness]

Depends sometimes every day, sometimes not at all for an entire month.... gaming is something I do when I want to relax.

[khaight]

It all depends on how engaged I am. If I'm into a game I'll play it almost every day. Sometimes I'll 'burn out' on gaming for a bit and will go engage in other hobbies instead. It averages out to a few days a week.

[TheMadGamer]

All the time or never, depending on other responsibilities. This means whenever I have free time I prefer to play. However, I have came to realize that I cannot break games midthrough. I tend to play until finished. So I am a bit reluctant to begin longer titles when I know I do not have enough time to finish them.

That's me too. Had to restart Gothic 3 three times because the first two times I stopped playing (not because I wanted to) for a long time and when I tried to resume, I couldn't remember a lot of important things.

[Thrasher]

Every day for at least 2 hours, except on holidays away from home.

[aries100]

Sometimes I play every day, other times such as now a week can go by without me playing a game. That depends on the game I'm playing or will be playing.

[Xian]

I usually play something every day, though the number of hours per day varies depending on what else I have to do. I just finished Divinity 2 DKS. According to Steam I had 83 hours in the game. I started it on June 29th and finished August 29th, so it looks like I averaged about 40 hours per month.

[Philistine]

I have a rule : I never game after 7pm. So it dependson what time I get home after work how long I get. If I'm lucky it could be a couple of hours, or it could be nothing. Weekends I get maybe 4 hours each day. So some weeks I do game every day, but most of the time I'm in the 'few times a week' category.

[Tragos]

1-4 hours every day

[JDR13]

I have a rule : I never game after 7pm.

That's a shitty rule if you ask me. ;)

For me, it really depends on the game and how well it manages to keep me immersed. I was playing The Witcher 2 for 8-10 hours a day until I finished it, but it's rare for a game to hold my attention like that nowadays. I'd say 2-3 hours is probably average for most games.

[bjon045]

7-8 hours a day, after work and in the weekends.

[Fnord]

I play most days, close to every day. Some days I can live in front of the computers, and some days I just spend less than ½h in front of it, but usually I spend quite a lot of time playing games/reading forums/wikipedia. I don't want TV though (I find it, for the most part, to be incredibly boring, so all I use my TV for is to play console games), so the time most people send in front of the telly I spend in front of the computer.

[Dajjer]

The real answer for me is between a few days a week and every day. Some days after I get home from work, I get caught up in forum posting, YouTube watching and emailing and there is no time left in the day to game. (and I'm not even going into family, friends, food & working out). However, since I typically game every day, that is my final answer. Word . . .

Now if I'm between games (RPGs) and working on an adventure or casual game then it is definitely a few times a week.

[Rowland]

When Skyrim comes out I'll be playing every second.

[Tanno]

Since my youth(8-years old once, now 27-years-old) I play every day. :)

[Ball_Breaker]

Since my youth(8-years old once, now 27-years-old) I play every day. :)

I'm just like you; I started when I was 6, and I still play every day, and now I'm 25-years-old: oh, don't worry, I got too a social life, and usually I don't play at night, 'cause I'm too tired, or I just to read a book (huge fantasy lovere here btw), and just now and then I play guitar ;)

[xSamhainx]

i usually like to play at least an hour or two a day sometimes more, w/ marathons on the weekend. Kinda screwd tho right now - my latest rts binge has me suffering the dreaded "gamers wrist" thing, carpal tunnel syndrome..

Been off an on for a couple months, now major pain for like a solid week. Hand & wrist hurts, shoots up into elbow and fingertips. Wonderful!

Watch your posture as you get older, it didnt affect me until recently (im 39) and I used to stay up all night playing FPS & MMOs and stuff. Trying to use a Logitech M570 trackball (i like it for general computing and surfing, but it kinda sucks for gaming) and a wrist brace (which is cumbersome as all hell).

Work is one thing, I shudder to think of life w/ no gaming. Hell, I just bought the Commando games from GOG today!

[JDR13]

Kinda screwd tho right now - my latest rts binge has me suffering the dreaded "gamers wrist" thing, carpal tunnel syndrome..

Been off an on for a couple months, now major pain for like a solid week. Hand & wrist hurts, shoots up into elbow and fingertips. Wonderful!

I sympathize with you Sammy. I had a mild case of CTS, along with shoulder tendinitis, from my days as a casino dealer. Luckily for me, my symptoms reduced significantly after I lost my job there. (good riddance!)

[Tanno]

It was the best choice you did. Casino is an illegal gambling. Only the games are the rightful ones. :)

[xSamhainx]

You know, this 'carpal tunnel' has come on very strong, like within the last two weeks I can barely type a post or two before my hands and wrist ache. Gaming is next to impossible, and that's a dagger right in my heart i'm sure you can imagine. I wake up w/ stiff and painful fingers. I think this may not be carpal tunnel tho, but a bodily reaction to a drug that I've been prescribed and have been taking for a couple weeks. Joint pain / inflammation is listed in the rare side effects, but hey I'm that 1% type of person anyway. If that's the case it's really messing me up badly here, lately in the last couple days I am really feeling weak, even breathing at times takes effort. But it's one of those "taper" type drugs that you work up your dosage, 1mg one week, 2mg the next, all the way up to 5mg. So i dont feel like I can just stop taking it, since it's a blood pressure medication. But it's the Labor Day weekend, and I cant get ahold of my DR for advice…

I'm at 2 doses, I think if anything I'm not going to stop but drop back down to one tonight. Like I said, this is a dagger in my heart to not be able to game on a 4 day weekend. Operating a mouse, even a trackball, destroys my hand and arm. Going to try the 360 next. I'm BORED as HELL!

[skavenhorde]

Ever think of going training your left hand to use the mouse? That way you have a whole new wrist to mess up ;)

Seriously, I switch to my left hand every now and then if my wrist starts to hurt. Also finger excerises and stopping every hour or so (more like every 3 hours) for a ten minute break really helps. I know it's pretty much general knowledge, but ever since I started doing the finger exercises and stopping to watch a show on TV for a bit my wrist doesn't act up much at all.

I saw this guy on the Tonight show (http://www.handhealth.com/) way before I left for Taiwan and have been doing the simple exercises he showed on the show (never bought his book….guess I should since those exercises he demonstrated helped so much :P).

Here are the few exercises he demonstrated on the show. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05h1BoAVvg)

I forgot to mention that switching to the left hand only works for turnbased games.

[holeraw]

Depends on what games I have, my mood, how much time I have etc.
I often game every day… But I haven't really touched a game all summer this year.

[xSamhainx]

Since I stopped taking the blood pressure medication, my "carpal tunnel" symptoms have gotten slowly better. I may even get some gaming in tonight, yayy!!!!!

[Thrasher]

Just don't play anything that stresses you!

I was diagnosed with heart disease after playing Starcraft. Seriously need to stop smoking.

[xSamhainx]

definitely. Probably something on the 360 w/ a gamepad.

smoking? cigarettes? I didnt think anyone still did that.

[Jaz]

Ever think of going training your left hand to use the mouse? (...) I forgot to mention that switching to the left hand only works for turnbased games.Oh my, this reminds me ... (watch out, another Granny story ahead ...)
Long after I had my gamer's wrist (after playing Doom for weeks on end - with a joystick! - and finding out that I couldn't play Doom with the cast, but was able to win using Baraka in MK 2 in the arcades) .. well, it must have been around the time of Half-Life, because I remember playing in a tournament where everyody was hacking away at each other with a crowbar. Anyway, during that tournament a girl - her nick was Killing Lilly - approached me and asked me if I was lefthanded. I'm not, and I told her so - I really had no idea what she was getting at until she told me:"Well, then you should be using the mouse with your right hand, dear." I always played shooters with the keyboard on my right and the mouse on my left., and only after she had said that I started to wonder ... and retrained. Unfortunately, I never became as efficient with mouse/right than I had been with mouse/left - and when I tried to re-re-train, it wouldn't work anymore!
Sheesh *shakes head*. That's what you get for listening to others.

[skavenhorde]

Jaz, you might be naturally left handed and they just trained you in the wrong hand when you were a girl. :)

Seriously I think back to when they asked me in I think 1st grade or kindergarte.....which hand felt easier to write with. I looked at everyone else and said the right because everyone else were using their right hand. I now look at my handwriting and think DAMN!!! It was the left!!! :P

[CelticFrost]

Hmmmmmmmm, I guess everyday or almost some sort of game. Even if it is just a freeroll on pokerstars.
When the witcher2 or a game like that maybe 2-5 hours a day until completed. Silly free games on my iphone if having lunch by myself on the road...

[Motoki]

I'm kind of late to the party on this but just noticed it (wow the poll changes from time to time? Who knew? :lol:)

It used to be I would get a game, and then play through it and then not play anything really for months at a time. However now with digital downloads and all the sales and various ways to track the sales I've accumlated quite the backlog and would feel too guilty if I don't at least play a little bit of something every day.

It's usually about an hour or less though unless I am really engrossed, then maybe I'll get up to 4 hours a day. But gone for sure are the days of my youth and 18 hour gaming sessions. :p

[ZzzZombi]

Every day, but no more than 1 hour. After work, before sleep.

I'm like this too, sometimes I don't even have any energy left to play, I immediately go to bed. That really makes me sad nowadays, I'm getting old. I'm crying right now. Help me out here.

[Turjan]

I'm a casual gamer nowadays. I sometimes go a month or several without gaming, and then I immerse myself in another RPG, or sometimes a strategy game. That's much less than years ago, but even then I did excessive gaming only in stretches, interrupted by times without games.

Ever think of going training your left hand to use the mouse? That way you have a whole new wrist to mess up ;)
Heh, you are so right. I have that problem now. After getting into a mix of ailments with my right hand (carpal syndrome, "tennis" arm, etc.), I switched to using the mouse mostly with my left hand. Now that arm starts hurting.

I had already trained using the left hand for the mouse many years ago, when I was using a workstation that also needed a joystick with the right hand at the same time as the mouse. My boss' computer also has the mouse on the left, but she switched left and right keys (grrrr!).

Anyway, I had some physical therapy done with my right arm and now know what to do if it starts to hurt, so it's manageable.

[Zloth]

Pretty much every day. Sometimes I'll end up chatting about games on the forums so much that I won't get any playtime in. I make up for it on the weekends, though.

[evasia_nl]

Every day for past 14 years and still going strong, mainly RPGs and MMOs.

[DoctorNarrative]

I don't play EVERY day, but I do play more than a few times a week. I would guess my normal gaming week would be about 5 days a week for an hour or two a day.

When something like Skyrim or Risen 2 comes out though I will play 40 hours a week for a couple weeks... it all kind of depends.

[Cm]

A few times a week would be my average. Like most, if I have a new shinny you can't get me off the pc for however long it takes to save the world one more time. ;)

[human_male]

Pretty much all day every day. I have a part time job, no other hobbies or interests and no social commitments... so it's pretty much all I've got. So I play A LOT.

[Khor1255]

Hardly ever anymore. I'll get back into it sooner or later.

Any good games for someone who loves Ja2 but has no patience for Doom or Tomb Raider etc?

[bkrueger]

Good that you necroed this thread because I forgot to ask a question all the time:

Why can't you choose multiple options? For Example "I play every day" and "I have no time for gaming"? That would be my choice.

[Dajjer]

Good that you necroed this thread because I forgot to ask a question all the time:

Why can't you choose multiple options? For Example "I play every day" and "I have no time for gaming"? That would be my choice.

you forgot to add the guilt factor option when you also have a family.

[Khor1255]

Thaat would e m y excuse. It requires quite a bit of concentration to really enjoy an rpg. When you have small kids it's not easy to give anything your undivided attention.

But that's maye a lame excuse, my real reason might be that newer rpgs are banal.shit.boring.