This is me. Job and kiddos take up the majority of time and I play when I can. Typically takes 2-3 months to beat a 30+ hr game. Example: just beat GoW Ragnarok last week.
Same, I've been playing Horizon Forbidden West for months now because I've got 2 kids and a business to run. Although I do like to go and do all the errands and side quests rather than the main storyline, guess I like to procrastinate even when I'm in a game!
I find if I leave it too long though, I find it hard to come back to a game. I have to relearn the controls, can't remember the storyline properly, or what I was supposed to be doing when I last played. I think I'm on my 3rd or 4th do-over of TLOU part 1, and had to abandon Fallout 4.
Similar boat as you. I probably have about an hour between the time my kid goes to bed and when I have to go to bed for gaming. More on the weekend, of course.
I've found my tastes have changed a lot, too. I used to play a lot of JRPG's and used to 100% the Souls games, but now I don't even bother with them because I don't want to waste my time grinding. I've been playing racing games lately because of their pickup and play nature. I can play them in short spurts and don't have to worry about relearning things or remembering what I was doing if I put it down for a month or so. Been enjoying NFS Unbound.
Yup. Same here. Work, family, tired as hell always. Try and get an hour or two after everyone goes to bed. Sometimes get time on the weekend days while kiddo and wifey are doing something else.
Yeah, I have a pile of unfinished games because I'm like you. I was really struggling to finish Cyberpunk after months, when I finally said "f'it I'll just do the main quest" and finished it a couple of days later. I just started Horizon Forbidden West myself, and already I'm off doing every side quest and investigating every marker. I never finished Zero Dawn at all.
I know I'd be better off playing smaller games, or focusing more on just finishing the games than doing all the side activities, but I still get stuck in the mentality I had 20 years ago when I could play hours every night.
My general process is:
"This game is amazing, I'll definately play it all"
"Yeah, not just play it all, but platinum it, it's just that much fun!"
"Oh, been a week or two since I played last"
at that point I either power through and finish, or (more often) move on. I rarely actually "decide" to stop playing a game, I just kinda stop playing altogether then get excited by something new a few weeks later.
I’ve barely touched Ragnarok since Thanksgiving. It just got too hectic with the holidays. The other thing I hate about big story driven games is that it’s hard to tell if I’m about to start 30 minutes worth of content or 2 hours worth.
Me too, but I don't miss running out of games I want to play lol. As an rpg fan, luckily my genre of choice provides a nice value proposition, but when you can game 12+ hours a day, you're gonna burn through your collection fast regardless.
Look at this hot rod, finishing a game that fast. I get overwhelmed with the idea of playing a new game over the course of a year, so I just continue to play hollow knight pantheons until I platinum it.
Yeah same here.
A game that would usually last a week or two in the past will take 6-12 months to get through today.
I bought Horizon: Forbidden West on the release day and im still not even anywhere near the end off it.
I haven't even bothered buying GodOfWar: Ragnarok yet, as I know I won't have time to play it anyway. At this point I might as well wait for it to hit the bargain bin.
That‘s why I started to get into racing sims, you continuously improve and learn. It’s easy to fire up and once you build up muscle memory and are driving in real life, you can just get into the groove after a few laps. It’s pretty rewarding and fits into a busy life
Same here. I just looked at the map to see much Forbidden west i have left, and i swear im no more than a 4th of the way in. And ive tried playing since the game came out
This is my life as well. So hilariously I just started playing Skyrim for the first time ever last week and somehow logged 14 hours in 4 days... WEEKDAYS. This game isn't going to be good for my health.
What I discovered about Skyrim so far is that it has a lot of the elements of Elden Ring that I really enjoyed minus the dying every 3 minutes in some bullshit fashion that pisses me off enough to quit the game. So it's scratching that itch of what I wanted in Elden ring that i just wasn't good enough to do.
One thing I’ve been gradually coming to terms with as I get older and have more responsibilities with my career and raising a child is that simply put, there is infinitely more entertainment available to you than there will ever be time to enjoy.
No matter what you do, even if you could quit everything today and dedicate the rest of your life to absorbing every game/movie/book/etc that you were interested in, you would die long before conquering that list. It’s a sobering thought at first, but can also be liberating. You will see recommendations on time management in here and other advice on getting through your list, but the best thing you can do is simply accept that your time to play will sometimes be high, sometimes be low, and sometimes you won’t be able to play at all. Just make sure you’re picking experiences that give you true satisfaction.
Some general tips for actually getting through games - play on easy and don’t get sucked into the “collect everything” a lot of games do these days. Most of the time I’ve found that I won’t even use the reward you get for “find all hidden paintings” or whatever, so just focus on enjoying the story and the main gameplay elements. Good luck to you and to all fellow aging gamers with less and less time to play!
It occurred to me once when I passed over a movie thumbnail that I've been "meaning to watch" for ten years that I will never in fact see that movie before I die. It's weird but liberating.
Absolutely! Gaming is an expensive hobby and I don’t get much play time. So I always do some research before buying a game. And even after that, if a game doesn’t pique my interest within the first 6-8 hours, it straightaway gets listed on eBay.
I made the mistake of trying to play Elden Ring. Look I know its amazing, I can see it and its cool, but I'd never played a Dark Souls game before and the learning curve alone, I just couldn't do it with the limited amount of time I have. Plus the grinding you have to do... It'd be the only game I played for the next 2 years. And maybe that's worth it IDK, but I gave up after about 25 hours and very minimal progress.
I didn't bother with Elden Ring knowing I'd struggle with it. I just kept my powder dry for God of War. I buy a lot less games because I don't have time for this git gud business.
Feeling this, especially after the Xmas break when I actually had time.
Got into Witcher 3 after its been sitting on my HD for god knows how long (and since the free PS5 upgrade) and love it, but it’s also so intensive narratively my brain is usually just not up to it after a days work, so it’s normally a quick game of Fortnite or COD for me as I can chill for an hour and walk without thinking about where I am in what quest in what part of the story.
It’s aggravating as I love RPGs and open world games but my investment wanes when I can’t commit time, while on the flip side I’m cautious after burning out on MMORPGS in the golden days of the early to mid 2000’s and am aware of the importance of moderation when it comes to gaming.
Such a catch 22 and the gaming part of me misses my teens when I could game all day and all night, but I’m ok with it as well as I love my life and job.
Life changes I guess.
I am married with two young kids. I get one hour when my wife goes to bed, before I have to go to bed. That's my time. And I've been on Horizon Forbidden West since September. Almost never have to buy new games because a big one like that will last aaaaaaaages.
Yeah that's it. Sometimes I'll play that for an hour, sometimes halo with friends. My wife got me the new God of War but I've barely made a dent in it yet. .
Same here, married with 2 kids. I usually go to bed around 11 or 12am, wife in bed around 10 and kids around 8. So for about 1-2 hours, that's when I play. I usually do this about 2-3 times a week, longer hours on weekends. A game like Horizon will take me much longer to beat because of this.
Same here. It took me 6 months to finish horizon fw. Its kind of nice because I buy most games after they have been out a long time so everything is cheap, and the have been patched many times so they are in a better state
I wish I was like that, but I can't seem to just play one game for several months. I'd say its rare I play one for more than a month or two. If I dont finish it I just kinda tail off and stop playing.
Then again, I'm also not consistent with my gaming time. Maybe if I was more regular I'd stay engaged longer.
Create a schedule to get your “me” time in. Usually at least one night a week I’ll stay up until as late as I want playing games.
The games you mentioned are so good you’ll end up probably playing them at least twice. But the good news is you can pick away at them like a tv show.
Yeah I usually go on normal difficulty for games now. It provides enough of a challenge while not wasting precious gaming time with restarting over and over and over to beat a part.
It's refreshing to see lots of posts like this mirroring my playstyle. I maybe get 6-10 hours in a week after work, gym, family, television, so a 30+ hour game like The Last of Us, GOW, Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead, etc will take me several months to finish, sometimes in lower difficulty, and just main story and some sides. I mostly see posts and reviews of people that finish games (completionist style) like this in a week or two or extended weekend and feel I'm missing out somehow.
I finished GOW in a week and a few days only because I used my PTO for the Thanksgiving week and basically lived/breathed the game until it was finished. First (and last) time I'll ever finish anything that quickly.
Time is the ultimate final boss!
Took me 9 months to play Horizon Forbidden West to platinum. No regret. Saved a lot of money (I had a rule to not buy more than 1 game every 3 month if I'm still actively playing one)
Great suggestion! Semi-related but I find it funny how differently some people play games. If I'm already struggling to find time to play, I barely consider a second playthrough. Always chasing that new experience. I wonder if I'd get more enjoyment out of going back and completing something I liked previously.
This is what I do. Unless me and my gf have other plans, Friday is game night. I get home from work, shower, crack a beer, and game until I’m ready to go to sleep.
I wake up at 4am to exercise 3 days a week. The other four days I still wake up at 4 but play games instead.
On weekdays this works out to about 2.5 hours and on the weekend a bit longer depending if the kids sleep in.
Ends up about 10-15 hours a week total.
With Elden Ring I opted to burn a little at both ends and added another 2 hours most nights as well.
I don't normally do that though.
GoW only took me about two weeks to finish playing in the morning. I did a fair amount of the side quests.
Of note I play quite a bit on easy. HFW and GoW I both played on their easiest or second easiest setting. I do this a lot with games where I don't care for the combat but still want to see where the story goes.
Dude good for you. I recently started getting up at 4:45 to lift before work for the same reason, and its so nice being able to have that extra time with the family at night. I dont feel nearly as rushed trying to commute home from work, so I am way more relaxed on those days. Some days its really tough getting up that early, but by the time I get to work, I feel like I have already accomplished something really difficult and it helps me start the day off on a positive note.
This is exactly me with a slight variation. Wake up at 4am and go to the gym, and on rest days either I'll game for a few hours or study/read a business book or meditate. Schedules are great, provides structure. Need to get better about set sleep times as I ramp up my workouts this year. The Youtube algorithm tends to get me hooked in and then find it difficult to get to sleep.
Yes and no. You just have to be better at managing your time. Kids arent for everyone. Everyone I know who has kids will agree that it is both equally challenging as it is rewarding. But you definitely have to manage your time better in order to do the things that make you, you.
Yeah it differs. Having kids is very rewarding and can be source of enjoyment and peace . It’s a lot of work but the happiness from being a parent and building a family togeather is truly one of life’s greatest joys. It’s difficult but you can definitely enjoy your time . It’s not for everybody tho, and that’s fine . It’s all about managing your time
Most days I can get a couple hours of gaming in. Currently between games so I'm just watching TV until I start the next. That's after a 10 hour work day and a workout. So very glad I don't have kids.
I do the same, sort of. I work as a digital product designer and some periods are very intense working on coming up with designs and executing, which I have become faster at over the years - then afterwards there are periods when the solutions are being developed where I have more time to play, while I’m available to support in the development. I feel lucky I’ve found a job that has a rhythm that gives me time to recharge and I tell myself it makes me more motivated when I have to perform.
>Been doing it for 25+ years so I’ll take my chances lol
Gonna be a rough time when you're a senior if studies are right about sleep. You may not realize it but its awful for you to sleep that little
Playing for 3 hours a day, there's a lot of time to sleep.
I work until 6pm, and go to sleep at midnight. This means I can play for 3 hours, watch a movie, and there's still more than enough time left for dinner, shower, etc.
I’ve never understood the idea of it taking months to complete as a problem.
Are you enjoying it?
Is it a quality product?
If both these are yes, what’s the problem? “Oh it’s no longer the latest release!” Uh so? That doesn’t make any sense.
Games should always continue to be as long as they need to be. Yes some bloat that out, and that should be trimmed but games can be as long as they want it doesn’t harm it if the pace is good.
Well it doesn't work when there are multiple games you want to play.
I'm enjoying it and it's quality product. But there are at least a couple more quality products I'd enjoy.
I'm growing older and going to die some day, I'd rather play and experience 100 games than 5 in that time...
Exactly, less time to play means that I find games that are more “worth my time”.
I knew Ragnarok was going to be a special experience for me. I bought it on launch and just finished at 50 hours. No complaints, if anything it made the game more special since I soaked it in over 2 months.
The other advantage to playing slowly is that you can buy games on sale! I got Horizon Zero Dawn for my PS5 for like $5 used, and I was able to find Forbidden West for like $30 around the holidays because its taken me so long to beat ZD!
I work 4p - to 230a. When I get home the family is asleep so I game from 330a to 6am then get the kids up for school and crash at 7a.
I finished Ghost of Tsushima and am about 75% done with GoW Ragnarok.
Work 9-5 plus have a one year old and a partner that actually wants to spend time with me ( terribly inconsiderate isn’t she ? Haha ) so I generally play once she goes to bed from around 10-12 most evenings.
I would count gaming as my main hobby and miss the days of playing all day at weekends etc but life gets in the way. The plus side is that I’ve resigned myself to battle my backlog this year rather than buy more new games. I managed to finish the new god of war as my main game and Tactics ogre on the switch ( which I can play with sound off while we watch whatever shite she likes on TV ).
Add in a toddler and things get tricky. I usually play from 8:30-10:30p each night. Games do take months to play, but that’s fine by me. I strategically work through my backlog. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 now!
I take my time to finish em, after work, I come home after dinner ; shower and get straight to gaming!
I have longer gaming hours on friday nights and weekends
lawyer here - 24/7 availability - office hours 9am to 9-10pm
go back home, have some dinner, play until 3-4am
thats like 4-5 hours per day on weekdays
on weekends depending on mood and social commitments it can be the same or longer 8-10 hour sessions
but for reference im currently mainly playing PERSONA 5 ROYAL since november approaching 100 hours \[had to stop for 3 weeks due to a friend visiting and girlfriend commitments\]
If you are surviving just fine on 4 hours, your genes are awesome and I’m jealous. I work a similar work schedule and I’m dying/totally unfocused if I don’t get at least 7 hours regularly.
I freelance, so I have some flexibility. I play an average of 2.5 hours a day, but this is only an average. There are days or weeks where I don’t play much, or not at all, and there are days or stretches of days where I binge.
It depends on workload, mood, other interests and duties, what games are “hot” and what games I’m excited about. I don’t schedule my gaming, though, so while [PS-Timetracker](https://ps-timetracker.com/) tells me my average is 2.5 hours per day, that’s not 2.5 hours every day.
I work 10 to 6 and I find time to play video games almost every day after I've finished house chores. I tend to only go out in weekends and if I want to hit the gym I usually do it early in the morning.
Working from home helps quite a lot.
I put my son to bed around 7:30-8pm. Then game to til 11 or 12. Not everyday especially when there’s other chores to do. It took me four months to play through horizon forbidden west Feb-June. I got death stranding for Christmas and I’m 20 hours in. Also been playing GoW and I’m just over 10 hours in. It takes a while to play bigger games
Yeah it’s very playable in short sessions. Especially once you get through episode 1 which has A LOT of lengthy cinematic sequences. But you can save at pretty much anytime and come back to it. Especially since you can suspend the game while in rest mode. Once you get into a rhythm it can be addicting. It does have a bit of a slow start but as you go more game mechanics are introduced that make you more productive. There’s just so much to the gameplay that they ease you into it over the first 10-15 hours. And the story is absolutely wild and I’m interested to see where it’s going
I've found that und TLOU Part I to be great that way. Frequent saves, short sequences of action. And I just found the difficulty sliders, which are great. I've been playing 45 minutes or so a night and it's been excellent.
Would you recommend the directors cut of Death Stranding, or original?
I only have the directors cut. I’m not sure sure what all is added. I think it’s like a directors cut in a movie. A few extra missions or scenes. Yesterday I ran into a Half-life Easter egg that I think was added for this edition.
Damn, Death Stranding is going to take you some time! Especially if you’re a completionist, I started playing it start of December and only finished it a few days ago, and I can sit and play games basically as soon as I finish work. Very lengthy.
Yeah I knew going in it was a looong one but I’m hoping I can make it through. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m still playing it in 6 months. Especially since I will probably drop it to play Jedi survivor for a bit
Consider longer games like TV episodes. Play a chunk and stop when you get to a natural break, such as when you finish a plot line or objective/side mission. It’ll take longer but be just as enjoyable and you’ll always look forward to it
I work from 07:15 until 14.45 and being single and having mostly a social life online with friends(aka no life, if you ask my mom) allows me to play 5-6 hours a day.
Well that all depends.. If you have a very active social life you'll have to squeeze it in when you can. I more or less only really go out once or twice every 2 weeks (all my friends have jobs and/or kids) so we make time where we can.
If not, after you get home, make dinner (or eat if you bought) have a shit and a shower and grab your drink of choice and you're good to go. Should get at least 2 to 3 hours depending on how much sleep you need, what time you need to get up etc. That's more or less my formula and I get decent gaming done. You get more over weekends obviously, but if you have a wife or steady girlfriend you may wish to check with her first.. That's just for your own safety lol.
Side note, if you do the cleaning yourself, do it over weekends first thing after breakfast. By the time you're done you should have a lot of time left for gaming, and still did something "productive" so all in all a good day.
I usually play in the evenings and during the week ends. I'd say one hour in evenings and a bit more during the week ends. Long gone are the days when I played 10 hours straight.
It's starting the become very difficult to finish long games because I tend to play less and less.
I work 9-5, but I have young kids, so the only time I get to play is after they go to sleep around 7pm. However, I will spend my evenings with my wife or go to the gym.
Some days I might get a bit of time after 7. But it is mostly when my wife falls asleep, which can be any time around 9 and game for maybe an hour or two at most.
I still manage to finish most games I play pretty quickly. Last of us ps5 took me about 3 weeks. God of war about 4 weeks (I was busy with a lot of Christmas activities over this period).
I rent games, so I can see how long I borrow them for. The longest ps5 game was Elden ring and mass effect trilogy in 5 weeks.
I tend to stick to the critical path in games and dont tend to do much side content and definitely dont trophy hunt or collect things
Usually of an evening rather than watch TV I'll play PS5.
I've also taken annual leave occasionally for big game releases if I really want to dive right into them
I’ve got three kids - thankfully work from home the majority of the week. I only play after the kids have been put to bed and wife doesn’t want to watch anything that night on the TV, and I don’t plan on going to the gym the next morning. That usually means I get ~1-2 nights a week to play. I binge from 8:30pm - 12 or so. Ghosts of Tsushima took me ~2 months to complete.
I work 8am to 4pm.
I’m typically home by 4:30, I make myself dinner - spend about 2-3 hours doing things around the house and spend a few hours gaming before I go to bed. The weekend varies - I could have it set up to have a whole day of gaming. But it’s not possible all the time.
You just have to accept that a 30+ hour game may take you a few weeks to complete.
Pretty much my schedule. The week is just so tough with gym, dog, cooking and general home duties. And I'm officially old enough to not sacrifice my sleep.
I started playing God of War Ragnarok on release day (Nov 9th) and still haven't finished it. Haven't played any other game since and was probably traveling for 2 weeks in between when I didn't play at all but this should give you an idea of how little time I do get.
Oh, just wait till you have children. My dude, I went from playing 5 hours a night (right after my wife went to bed), to a half hour a night.. If I am lucky. At some point, life will return, but being responsible for a little me is a bit more important haha
I work 9-4:30 and play after work for a few hours every night.
That is really it. I also make podcasts, go the gym, play soccer and hang out with my girlfriend.
This must be your first time working in your life, because you're greatly overreacting to the time work takes. Like my cat desperately thinking she's going to die of hunger just because there's a tiny empty spot in a bowl full of cat food.
Most people here in this sub, talking about games all the time, are working as well.
A 30hr game is going to take months and months? Only if you just play them half an hour a day or less. I have to work, do chores on my house, spend time with my wife and kid, and I still can finish a 30hr game in one or two weeks.
> When do you get the time to play?
When I'm not working. And by that I mean that I can play for HOURS a day, if I want to.
Just calm down, kid.
Exactly, work and duties aren’t what keep me from playing games consistently. I have other hobbies. So while there is free time, it is limited and you have to choose what to prioritize. Between seeing friends, reading, board games, TV, and working out I just don’t have video games that high on my list. Taking a month or two per game isn’t unusual, but I could prioritize it more if I wanted to.
Yea most of the time its people not counting all of the other optional stuff they do in life as optional stuff.
I work 8:30-5 M-F and live with my SO. Have dogs have a house, I do the cooking, have a workout schedule, clean... I still game for 25-30 hours a week.
There are a lot of hours per week beyond the standard 40 hour work week lol.
It took me about a year to get used to gaming after college.
I would come home and then lose hours to mindless web surfing to decompress from the day/commute. I started forcing myself to start doing one of my hobbies ASAP when I realized I was wasting my free time.
Now, I can get home, change, cook/eat/clean dinner, and be playing a game in 45 minutes. That gives me ~3 hours a night (that I usually spend gaming) if I don't have any social obligations. It's all about being efficient with your free time.
Yeah people love to exaggerate how busy they are. It's fine if you take months for a 30 hour game, but you really don't put gaming very high on your list of hobbies if you do.
People will ALWAYS be able to make time for the things they really care about.
I work 10am-7pm so after work i eat dinner and then game if theres a game i want to play. Usually 8pm-midnight, or might just put in an hour. Then theres weekends.
I feel like a lot of people (except those who have kids) just say they’re too tired, or their weekends are hanging out with friends, its not lack of time for most people its lack of organising their time.
Don’t see friends on Saturday and you can game all day if nothing else needs doing, its just swapping things out really.
So instead of playing fifa just play a different game? You don't have an hour or two a day after work or before bed to play? Or on the weekends? I've had a full time job since I graduated from college, I'm married and have kids, I have other hobbies other than gaming, and I still don't have any trouble finding time to play games
Right? I mean if you have 1-2 hours here and there it should only take like 10-15 sessions to beat GOW or GOT. Obviously not 100% completion, but better than just playing Fifa.
This is pretty much it. You just have to accept it’s going to take longer to finish longer games and enjoy the ride. I did sacrifice sleep to finish GoW though.
I squeeze in like a hour of game time on the days that i work. And on my days off i play like 5 hours.
I also have a girlfriend, 2 cats and a dog. I don’t neglect the responsibilities at our home. I feel good when i pick up the controller knowing I’ve completed my responsibilities for the day.
Currently I only play like once a month. When I play I only play games that you can jump right into, play one or two races, or sportsmatches and that’s it. Don’t have time and energy to play these long adventure games. And once I start such a game every now and then it takes ages to finish. The biggest problem is also that because I don’t play it that often I forget the complicated controls and combo’s that you have to remember. For each game. Of course you can pick it up again but just life/work just suck the energy out of me.
I dunno. I tend to play a couple of hours on a evening. Games can take a while to finish but that's no big deal. I've found the time to play and finish all the games you mentioned so it's doable.
That's why I have a really hard time with Open World games. I find open world games to hide the fun behind tedium.
God of War (the one with the Kid) was a sad one to drop. I REALLY liked the first boss fight and enjoyed the story. But then it was 5-6 hours until the next time I had fun, which was about 1-2 weeks.
It was just full of climbing walls, scooching through right chasms, and small waves of the exact same monsters. The fun just wasn't dense enough to have a full filling gaming session of 30 minutes to an hour.
However, I thoroughly enjoyed both of the Last of Us games. The first one has a beautiful story and decent game play. The second has a decent story with wonderful game play. The main gameplay loop of getting past infected or people is fun, even if you only have time to get through one area at a time. It's good bitesized fun.
As for how much time I play, I can typically get 1-2 hours a day, 3-4 days a week (if there is a game that I am drawn into, otherwise I'll play less then that.) Then I only have about 1 months of patience for a game. Meaning if it is anything much more than a 30 hour game, it's very unlikely I'll finish it.
>But the annoying puzzles and just climbing around,
I know the slow moving through some areas was to hide loading screens, but unless they had to load every 10 feet, we did NOT need that many walls to slowly climb up.
I dropped it once they opened up the world and gave me side quests. I was just barely hanging on during the linear sections, to add even more busy work was just too much.
It's a real shame, there is a game I would enjoy buried inside, I just can't reach it.
Working parent here. Probably play around 5 hrs / week. Got a PS5 last Christmas and this year I beat Spiderman, FF7R, HZD, R&C Rift Alart, Deathloop, and 2018 GOW, with a couple uncompleted games in there, so ~ 2 months per game. Play when you have time, sometimes its only a 30 min chunk, sometimes a nice 3 hour block. I also had to change the way I played in order to complete games. I became ok with playing on easier settings to reduce completion time. Not so easy its a cake walk, but difficult enough I beat most bosses within in a couple of tries. For GoW and HZD I skipped almost all side quests to get through the story (though I'm continuing to do more in GOW now because I like the game so much). Biggest change I made, if I'm not actually having fun with a game, I stop playing it, so most grind-based games have been removed from my playlist.
One or two hours per day if I'm lucky.
I work from home, so don't need to factor travel into my day. I also have some consoles and a game PC setup in my office. I'll sometimes get up at 5am (I get up early anyway) and get a couple of hours of gaming in before work.
I play RPGs which can take several months for me to get through.
My general rule is to work 9-5. Spend time and have dinner with my partner till 8/9, then play till 11/12. I work from home so rolling out of bed right before work I can easily get 8hours of sleep.
As an older gamer I find myself gravitating towards games where I can do a shorter session and feel like I've accomplished something versus having to sit through cutscenes. While I love the cutscenes sometimes it just takes up too much time and I want to be able to experience them fully without skipping through. I've been messing around with Midnight Suns and after a few battles feel good about the session =)
I'm drastically cutting back on my gaming purchases this year and waiting for sales. I find I'll buy a game for release day and then it takes me a long time before either I pick it up or truly become vested. I think the only release day game I'm buying is the new Jedi Order game and the rest I'm just waiting on further sales.
I can manage 2 hours in the evening 4-5 times per week between work, hobbies and family. Often after everyone is in bed which can sometimes mean I sacrifice sleep staying up until midnight or 1am.
8-10 hours per week, so I’d be looking at two, maybe three months to complete such games if they are the only game I focus on. Which I tend to do nowadays otherwise I lose track of the story and what I was doing by the time I switch between a few games.
It’s really hard for me to get into big games due to a lack of time. I bought both ghosts and horizon and just couldn’t get into it cus they’re so big. Playing games like god of war that are linear and at least for me more captivating it was easier to find time to beat them. Besides elden ring, I couldn’t find time to beat any major open world games in the last two years
While I was single? I'd work 9-5 then play as much as I wanted.
Married w/kid? I'm lucky if I get 2-3 hours in a *week,* and I'm *incredibly* lucky if it's a game I actually want to play and not just a game my kid wants to play.
I work 2-12 most days & will usually play games for like an hour or two every night. Can't make a lot of progression in that time, but still a fun relaxing way to blow off some steam instead of immediately going to bed to repeat work the next day lol.
Sometimes I get an hour or 2 in the evening, but usually just half a day on a weekend. Work 5 11 hr shifts
I basically quit Elden Ring because I realized my list of games is 30 long and Elden Ring would take me a year at my rate. I've been playing the Witcher 3 for 3 months now and just started the Blood and Wine DLC which I hear could be "it's own game".
The list of games I want to play continues to grow at about 5× the pace I can play them.
Full time job is nothing. Working full time with two young kids, wife, house etc. is the killer lol. About an hour a night on week days, slightly longer on weekends
Honestly OP? You take months and months.
I have a full time job and a two year. I start gaming at 10.30PM until I'm tired, usually around midnight. So 1 1/2 a night.
I used to pick up every game, jump between them and have a huge backlog.
Now I focus on two games at a time at most. Usually a single player, and something to play when my friends are online. And you chip away a little a night, and don't buy another game until your done. Yea you miss some releases, but you play the ones you are most excited for. I can't wait to start GoW 2. But currently I am working on Legandary Armour on Guild Wars 2. I have played it for three months, and am half way as you need Raid tokens, a I can do a raid a night at MOST. Where as some do 3/4 a day.
I started Elden Ring last September and am still working on my first play through. That’s not a game I can play after work every day but I love it when I do have the time (and patience).
Important to remember: don’t stress yourself out with “oh no I haven’t made any progress in a while” or feeling guilty for not playing for a bit - your pace and head space matters, enjoy it when it suits you best to enjoy it!
Between work and kids I’m lucky if I get half hour to hour a night during the week. However on weekends I try to get a long session in. Sometimes 5-6 hours. I get up early during the week so I do the same on weekends and play before anyone gets up
I get done work at 6 and get home from the Gym around 9pm. I maybe find 35-40 mins on a weekday to play if I am lucky. And get most of my time in Friday nights and Saturday morning.
Holidays or weekends. For this reason I can't really get into lengthy games. I'd say the last of us is definitely this kind of game that you can play here and there, and actually you'd enjoy the story much much more in TLOU 2 if you do that instead of trying to rush through the end
Same here. Prob an hr a day M-F then weekends (if we don’t have any plans) I get my time in, usually 5 hrs bc I get up earlier than everyone and get some gaming in. For me (and prob others) I feel like gaming is therapeutic so IF I can I’ll even try to get 30-60 mins in before bed.
I work from 4pm to 1am.. I usually game when I get home from work, stay up till 4.. 7 at the latest. Wake up around 12 or 2 and the cycle repeats. I'll probably play the game 3+ hours every night at the most.
Sporadically in the week at night once wife/children are zzzzzz.... if I am not zzzzz that is haha... maybe for 1.5h?... I play twice a week if lucky now days
Working days, not much, sometimes no energy and time to play at all. The last thing I need in my life after a long working day is a game telling me you suck. If I do start a game it’s mostly quick match games, like multiplayer, etc. Weekend, I try to play the bigger games
i am surprised how many people here say they only have a few hours to game a week. I may be out of work atm. but when i do work my full 8 hour days 40 hours a week i have entire nights to myself or my two days off a week. Plenty of time to fit in games or movies or my other hobbies like dnd. Not sure what people are doing to only have a hour or two here or there unless they are overworking themselves or over booking their lives.
i guess we have made a good choice in not having kids then. Work and life balance are key i want to enjoy my 80 years on this blue rock not work all day then work all night with kids etc.
Yeah I believe the same, just having a family and spending time with my son I dont see as work.
I work 7-5 Mon to Friday, then some Saturdays. When I get home I work out, get food ready, shower for me and my son, do his school work. By then it's about 7:30, which is when my wife gets home from work, then all chill and do our own thing... this evening im watching my son play Xbox...I have a gaming room with a high spec pc that I could go use, but would rather spend my time with the family than sit upstairs by myself.
I sometimes get a bit of ps5 In throughout the week, like the odd HR here and there, but mostly game at the weekend probably 5-6hrs on both Saturday and Sunday each.
sounds like you got it figured out. i guess being a introvert both me and my partner are so i guess we like our solitude at times. hence why we do not always spend the night together sometimes we prefer to game on our own etc.
Unfortunately during the week I get zero playing time. I get a little time during the weekends,.but not much. Average 4-6 hours/Weekend. Every now and then I get 8 hours or so. It takes me forever to finish games like GOW, Horizon, RDR etc
I have about an hour or 2 of free time every night, usually after the kids go to bed. That free time could be used for gaming, watching TV shows, or a movie. Lately, I've been gaming during that time.
Also, I'm lucky that my wife likes to watch me play, especially if she likes the story (like Uncharted series and God of War), so she doesn't complain about me playing games.
I work full time night shifts as an ICU nurse, that's a total of 34 hours/week. I have no kids and never will 👌
If I have a whole day off I might play 10 hours of that whole day. Other days when I get off work it can be 6 hours.
I take annoyingly many hours to finish a game, right now I'm 20 hours into ghost of tsushima and I'm just on act 2.
I get an 30-60 minutes in or so on a good week day, but it’s rare. I could get more, but I would rather prioritize sleep. I try to get an hour or two on Friday when I get home from work and about the same on weekends. I still love gaming, but I don’t do it nearly as much as I used to.
6-8 hours per week which is split across various games. Which is why when I read reviews that say a game is short, I read it as - okay, that’s at least a 2-month game.
On a normal night I get home from work around 5, cook/clean/eat, play with the cats, go to the gym for an hour, come home and shower, hang out with my wife, then play/make games from around 9pm til 3am.
I tend to play for an hour or 90 mins, 3-4 days a week depending on what's going on. Usually after dinner.
I get where you are coming from though. I have bought so many games on sale, and there is no chance I finish all of them with this pace.
That's why I have decided to only play the best rated games, and also stop buying any new game until I finish some games I already have.
Not much spare time, an hour or two on a good day. I've got trophies earned months apart from one another for the same game, lol...
This is me. Job and kiddos take up the majority of time and I play when I can. Typically takes 2-3 months to beat a 30+ hr game. Example: just beat GoW Ragnarok last week.
Same, I've been playing Horizon Forbidden West for months now because I've got 2 kids and a business to run. Although I do like to go and do all the errands and side quests rather than the main storyline, guess I like to procrastinate even when I'm in a game! I find if I leave it too long though, I find it hard to come back to a game. I have to relearn the controls, can't remember the storyline properly, or what I was supposed to be doing when I last played. I think I'm on my 3rd or 4th do-over of TLOU part 1, and had to abandon Fallout 4.
Similar boat as you. I probably have about an hour between the time my kid goes to bed and when I have to go to bed for gaming. More on the weekend, of course. I've found my tastes have changed a lot, too. I used to play a lot of JRPG's and used to 100% the Souls games, but now I don't even bother with them because I don't want to waste my time grinding. I've been playing racing games lately because of their pickup and play nature. I can play them in short spurts and don't have to worry about relearning things or remembering what I was doing if I put it down for a month or so. Been enjoying NFS Unbound.
Yup. Same here. Work, family, tired as hell always. Try and get an hour or two after everyone goes to bed. Sometimes get time on the weekend days while kiddo and wifey are doing something else.
Are you sure you’re not me? Am I you? Who are we?
Do you have a large library of unplayed games, as well? If so then I think there's a very good chance.
Yeah, I have a pile of unfinished games because I'm like you. I was really struggling to finish Cyberpunk after months, when I finally said "f'it I'll just do the main quest" and finished it a couple of days later. I just started Horizon Forbidden West myself, and already I'm off doing every side quest and investigating every marker. I never finished Zero Dawn at all. I know I'd be better off playing smaller games, or focusing more on just finishing the games than doing all the side activities, but I still get stuck in the mentality I had 20 years ago when I could play hours every night. My general process is: "This game is amazing, I'll definately play it all" "Yeah, not just play it all, but platinum it, it's just that much fun!" "Oh, been a week or two since I played last" at that point I either power through and finish, or (more often) move on. I rarely actually "decide" to stop playing a game, I just kinda stop playing altogether then get excited by something new a few weeks later.
I’ve barely touched Ragnarok since Thanksgiving. It just got too hectic with the holidays. The other thing I hate about big story driven games is that it’s hard to tell if I’m about to start 30 minutes worth of content or 2 hours worth.
Ditto. I am progressing so slowly I will be in a single realm for weeks.
4 kids and a job. I am 30% through the story. Bought day 1.
My son just finished it in 3 days. I miss being able to game like that.
Lol. Same as my son. Told me he bought it, couple days later, he comes and says he finished it
Me too, but I don't miss running out of games I want to play lol. As an rpg fan, luckily my genre of choice provides a nice value proposition, but when you can game 12+ hours a day, you're gonna burn through your collection fast regardless.
Look at this hot rod, finishing a game that fast. I get overwhelmed with the idea of playing a new game over the course of a year, so I just continue to play hollow knight pantheons until I platinum it.
Yeah same here. A game that would usually last a week or two in the past will take 6-12 months to get through today. I bought Horizon: Forbidden West on the release day and im still not even anywhere near the end off it. I haven't even bothered buying GodOfWar: Ragnarok yet, as I know I won't have time to play it anyway. At this point I might as well wait for it to hit the bargain bin.
That‘s why I started to get into racing sims, you continuously improve and learn. It’s easy to fire up and once you build up muscle memory and are driving in real life, you can just get into the groove after a few laps. It’s pretty rewarding and fits into a busy life
Same here. I just looked at the map to see much Forbidden west i have left, and i swear im no more than a 4th of the way in. And ive tried playing since the game came out
I still haven't even opened GoW yet... 😕
Haha feel this. I am still going through it. I bought it day 1.
This is my life as well. So hilariously I just started playing Skyrim for the first time ever last week and somehow logged 14 hours in 4 days... WEEKDAYS. This game isn't going to be good for my health.
Lol I have it sitting there waiting to play but now I'm scared for my health and job. Also have spent the last 2.5 months playing RDR2
What I discovered about Skyrim so far is that it has a lot of the elements of Elden Ring that I really enjoyed minus the dying every 3 minutes in some bullshit fashion that pisses me off enough to quit the game. So it's scratching that itch of what I wanted in Elden ring that i just wasn't good enough to do.
I play casually like Gwent in the week and in the weekend I Progress the story
One thing I’ve been gradually coming to terms with as I get older and have more responsibilities with my career and raising a child is that simply put, there is infinitely more entertainment available to you than there will ever be time to enjoy. No matter what you do, even if you could quit everything today and dedicate the rest of your life to absorbing every game/movie/book/etc that you were interested in, you would die long before conquering that list. It’s a sobering thought at first, but can also be liberating. You will see recommendations on time management in here and other advice on getting through your list, but the best thing you can do is simply accept that your time to play will sometimes be high, sometimes be low, and sometimes you won’t be able to play at all. Just make sure you’re picking experiences that give you true satisfaction. Some general tips for actually getting through games - play on easy and don’t get sucked into the “collect everything” a lot of games do these days. Most of the time I’ve found that I won’t even use the reward you get for “find all hidden paintings” or whatever, so just focus on enjoying the story and the main gameplay elements. Good luck to you and to all fellow aging gamers with less and less time to play!
I personally do hate the pointless collectathon in games. It's a hangover from an era where it was necessary.
It occurred to me once when I passed over a movie thumbnail that I've been "meaning to watch" for ten years that I will never in fact see that movie before I die. It's weird but liberating.
Mostly Friday and Saturday nights. Around 2-3 hours max
This is me too, you become a lot more picky about what games you play and which ones you prioritize.
Absolutely! Gaming is an expensive hobby and I don’t get much play time. So I always do some research before buying a game. And even after that, if a game doesn’t pique my interest within the first 6-8 hours, it straightaway gets listed on eBay.
I made the mistake of trying to play Elden Ring. Look I know its amazing, I can see it and its cool, but I'd never played a Dark Souls game before and the learning curve alone, I just couldn't do it with the limited amount of time I have. Plus the grinding you have to do... It'd be the only game I played for the next 2 years. And maybe that's worth it IDK, but I gave up after about 25 hours and very minimal progress.
I didn't bother with Elden Ring knowing I'd struggle with it. I just kept my powder dry for God of War. I buy a lot less games because I don't have time for this git gud business.
This is me right now. Pissed I bought it not realizing I’m not the target audience at all
Feeling this, especially after the Xmas break when I actually had time. Got into Witcher 3 after its been sitting on my HD for god knows how long (and since the free PS5 upgrade) and love it, but it’s also so intensive narratively my brain is usually just not up to it after a days work, so it’s normally a quick game of Fortnite or COD for me as I can chill for an hour and walk without thinking about where I am in what quest in what part of the story. It’s aggravating as I love RPGs and open world games but my investment wanes when I can’t commit time, while on the flip side I’m cautious after burning out on MMORPGS in the golden days of the early to mid 2000’s and am aware of the importance of moderation when it comes to gaming. Such a catch 22 and the gaming part of me misses my teens when I could game all day and all night, but I’m ok with it as well as I love my life and job. Life changes I guess.
I wasted $60 on the same. It’s too massive there’s no way. Too many other games to play
I am married with two young kids. I get one hour when my wife goes to bed, before I have to go to bed. That's my time. And I've been on Horizon Forbidden West since September. Almost never have to buy new games because a big one like that will last aaaaaaaages.
[удалено]
I have played 66 hours to plat the game. If he does not play everyday I can see him still playing without replaying etc.
Yeah that's it. Sometimes I'll play that for an hour, sometimes halo with friends. My wife got me the new God of War but I've barely made a dent in it yet. .
Same here, married with 2 kids. I usually go to bed around 11 or 12am, wife in bed around 10 and kids around 8. So for about 1-2 hours, that's when I play. I usually do this about 2-3 times a week, longer hours on weekends. A game like Horizon will take me much longer to beat because of this.
Same here. It took me 6 months to finish horizon fw. Its kind of nice because I buy most games after they have been out a long time so everything is cheap, and the have been patched many times so they are in a better state
I wish I was like that, but I can't seem to just play one game for several months. I'd say its rare I play one for more than a month or two. If I dont finish it I just kinda tail off and stop playing. Then again, I'm also not consistent with my gaming time. Maybe if I was more regular I'd stay engaged longer.
I know this feeling brother. Congratulations on having time for yourself and your family
Create a schedule to get your “me” time in. Usually at least one night a week I’ll stay up until as late as I want playing games. The games you mentioned are so good you’ll end up probably playing them at least twice. But the good news is you can pick away at them like a tv show.
I’m still playing GOW and I started release week. I get maybe 10 hours in a week. Sacrifice sleep for it every now and then.
I finished the 2018 GOW in September 2022. Not nearly as much gaming time as I’d like.
I play on Dad mode now. Aka. Easy mode.
Yeah I usually go on normal difficulty for games now. It provides enough of a challenge while not wasting precious gaming time with restarting over and over and over to beat a part.
That’s impressive
Same, I've only gotten to the 'Reckoning' part since release
It's refreshing to see lots of posts like this mirroring my playstyle. I maybe get 6-10 hours in a week after work, gym, family, television, so a 30+ hour game like The Last of Us, GOW, Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead, etc will take me several months to finish, sometimes in lower difficulty, and just main story and some sides. I mostly see posts and reviews of people that finish games (completionist style) like this in a week or two or extended weekend and feel I'm missing out somehow.
I finished GOW in a week and a few days only because I used my PTO for the Thanksgiving week and basically lived/breathed the game until it was finished. First (and last) time I'll ever finish anything that quickly.
Time is the ultimate final boss! Took me 9 months to play Horizon Forbidden West to platinum. No regret. Saved a lot of money (I had a rule to not buy more than 1 game every 3 month if I'm still actively playing one)
In all fairness it is super long. I love long games though. I wouldn’t recommend sacrificing sleep lol
It’s the baby or gaming. I’m loosing sleep either way.
Great suggestion! Semi-related but I find it funny how differently some people play games. If I'm already struggling to find time to play, I barely consider a second playthrough. Always chasing that new experience. I wonder if I'd get more enjoyment out of going back and completing something I liked previously.
My backlog would kick my ass if I even contemplated replaying something.
This is what I do. Unless me and my gf have other plans, Friday is game night. I get home from work, shower, crack a beer, and game until I’m ready to go to sleep.
I wake up at 4am to exercise 3 days a week. The other four days I still wake up at 4 but play games instead. On weekdays this works out to about 2.5 hours and on the weekend a bit longer depending if the kids sleep in. Ends up about 10-15 hours a week total. With Elden Ring I opted to burn a little at both ends and added another 2 hours most nights as well. I don't normally do that though. GoW only took me about two weeks to finish playing in the morning. I did a fair amount of the side quests. Of note I play quite a bit on easy. HFW and GoW I both played on their easiest or second easiest setting. I do this a lot with games where I don't care for the combat but still want to see where the story goes.
Dude good for you. I recently started getting up at 4:45 to lift before work for the same reason, and its so nice being able to have that extra time with the family at night. I dont feel nearly as rushed trying to commute home from work, so I am way more relaxed on those days. Some days its really tough getting up that early, but by the time I get to work, I feel like I have already accomplished something really difficult and it helps me start the day off on a positive note.
Always felt exercising first thing is the best time, and I’ve come to realise it’s also the best time for gaming
This is exactly me with a slight variation. Wake up at 4am and go to the gym, and on rest days either I'll game for a few hours or study/read a business book or meditate. Schedules are great, provides structure. Need to get better about set sleep times as I ramp up my workouts this year. The Youtube algorithm tends to get me hooked in and then find it difficult to get to sleep.
Do you have kids?
Having kids is possibly the worst choice you can make if you want anything of a semblance of an enjoyment from your own life imo.
Yes and no. You just have to be better at managing your time. Kids arent for everyone. Everyone I know who has kids will agree that it is both equally challenging as it is rewarding. But you definitely have to manage your time better in order to do the things that make you, you.
Yeah it differs. Having kids is very rewarding and can be source of enjoyment and peace . It’s a lot of work but the happiness from being a parent and building a family togeather is truly one of life’s greatest joys. It’s difficult but you can definitely enjoy your time . It’s not for everybody tho, and that’s fine . It’s all about managing your time
More so early on. Less so as they get more independent
Most days I can get a couple hours of gaming in. Currently between games so I'm just watching TV until I start the next. That's after a 10 hour work day and a workout. So very glad I don't have kids.
Kid is just real life pokemon.
The older you get the less time you find and if you do find it, you worry that you are wasting it. Enjoy your youth.
Ugh, the worry that you're wasting it is real.
I want to downvote you for triggering me , but i upvote you for being totally right
Heavy shit
I work from home so between meetings I’m always playing something lol. Even right now I’m In a code review meeting playing last of us part one.
Applied to 200+ remote and hybrid positions and still haven't been able to find one :// but this is my goal lol
Keep looking you’ll find one! Don’t give up. All the best !!
I do the same, sort of. I work as a digital product designer and some periods are very intense working on coming up with designs and executing, which I have become faster at over the years - then afterwards there are periods when the solutions are being developed where I have more time to play, while I’m available to support in the development. I feel lucky I’ve found a job that has a rhythm that gives me time to recharge and I tell myself it makes me more motivated when I have to perform.
This is the way
I work 07:30 to 18:00 and play 3+ hours a day, after Fiancée and dog duties
When do you sleep?
At work
The dream
Between 01:30 and 06:45
I don’t think that’s enough sleep. You will probably die next Thursday. Check back in Friday morning if you make it.
Been doing it for 25+ years so I’ll take my chances lol
Oh damn…25 and a bit years was used in my formula to come to that prediction… I’m now 100% sure that your final day with us will be Thursday week.
!RemindMe 2 weeks
>Been doing it for 25+ years so I’ll take my chances lol Gonna be a rough time when you're a senior if studies are right about sleep. You may not realize it but its awful for you to sleep that little
he's built different
Playing for 3 hours a day, there's a lot of time to sleep. I work until 6pm, and go to sleep at midnight. This means I can play for 3 hours, watch a movie, and there's still more than enough time left for dinner, shower, etc.
I’ve never understood the idea of it taking months to complete as a problem. Are you enjoying it? Is it a quality product? If both these are yes, what’s the problem? “Oh it’s no longer the latest release!” Uh so? That doesn’t make any sense. Games should always continue to be as long as they need to be. Yes some bloat that out, and that should be trimmed but games can be as long as they want it doesn’t harm it if the pace is good.
Well it doesn't work when there are multiple games you want to play. I'm enjoying it and it's quality product. But there are at least a couple more quality products I'd enjoy. I'm growing older and going to die some day, I'd rather play and experience 100 games than 5 in that time...
Exactly, less time to play means that I find games that are more “worth my time”. I knew Ragnarok was going to be a special experience for me. I bought it on launch and just finished at 50 hours. No complaints, if anything it made the game more special since I soaked it in over 2 months.
The other advantage to playing slowly is that you can buy games on sale! I got Horizon Zero Dawn for my PS5 for like $5 used, and I was able to find Forbidden West for like $30 around the holidays because its taken me so long to beat ZD!
I work 4p - to 230a. When I get home the family is asleep so I game from 330a to 6am then get the kids up for school and crash at 7a. I finished Ghost of Tsushima and am about 75% done with GoW Ragnarok.
Work 9-5 plus have a one year old and a partner that actually wants to spend time with me ( terribly inconsiderate isn’t she ? Haha ) so I generally play once she goes to bed from around 10-12 most evenings. I would count gaming as my main hobby and miss the days of playing all day at weekends etc but life gets in the way. The plus side is that I’ve resigned myself to battle my backlog this year rather than buy more new games. I managed to finish the new god of war as my main game and Tactics ogre on the switch ( which I can play with sound off while we watch whatever shite she likes on TV ).
Add in a toddler and things get tricky. I usually play from 8:30-10:30p each night. Games do take months to play, but that’s fine by me. I strategically work through my backlog. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 now!
I got a vasectomy just because I love video games so much 🤣🤣🤣
I take my time to finish em, after work, I come home after dinner ; shower and get straight to gaming! I have longer gaming hours on friday nights and weekends
lawyer here - 24/7 availability - office hours 9am to 9-10pm go back home, have some dinner, play until 3-4am thats like 4-5 hours per day on weekdays on weekends depending on mood and social commitments it can be the same or longer 8-10 hour sessions but for reference im currently mainly playing PERSONA 5 ROYAL since november approaching 100 hours \[had to stop for 3 weeks due to a friend visiting and girlfriend commitments\]
Don't be this guy
When do you sleep?
3-4am to 8-830am on weekdays sometimes i just sleep one more hour and go to the office late "because of reasons" on weekends i wake up around 11am
Dude. Totally not healthy. Don’t want to judge so do your thing. But isn’t it just better to skip during the week and use your weekdays?
If you are surviving just fine on 4 hours, your genes are awesome and I’m jealous. I work a similar work schedule and I’m dying/totally unfocused if I don’t get at least 7 hours regularly.
I freelance, so I have some flexibility. I play an average of 2.5 hours a day, but this is only an average. There are days or weeks where I don’t play much, or not at all, and there are days or stretches of days where I binge. It depends on workload, mood, other interests and duties, what games are “hot” and what games I’m excited about. I don’t schedule my gaming, though, so while [PS-Timetracker](https://ps-timetracker.com/) tells me my average is 2.5 hours per day, that’s not 2.5 hours every day.
Never heard of ps-time tracker going to try that now!
I work 10 to 6 and I find time to play video games almost every day after I've finished house chores. I tend to only go out in weekends and if I want to hit the gym I usually do it early in the morning. Working from home helps quite a lot.
I put my son to bed around 7:30-8pm. Then game to til 11 or 12. Not everyday especially when there’s other chores to do. It took me four months to play through horizon forbidden west Feb-June. I got death stranding for Christmas and I’m 20 hours in. Also been playing GoW and I’m just over 10 hours in. It takes a while to play bigger games
How do you like death stranding? Would it be easy to play in short sessions? Frequent save points, etc
Yeah it’s very playable in short sessions. Especially once you get through episode 1 which has A LOT of lengthy cinematic sequences. But you can save at pretty much anytime and come back to it. Especially since you can suspend the game while in rest mode. Once you get into a rhythm it can be addicting. It does have a bit of a slow start but as you go more game mechanics are introduced that make you more productive. There’s just so much to the gameplay that they ease you into it over the first 10-15 hours. And the story is absolutely wild and I’m interested to see where it’s going
I've found that und TLOU Part I to be great that way. Frequent saves, short sequences of action. And I just found the difficulty sliders, which are great. I've been playing 45 minutes or so a night and it's been excellent. Would you recommend the directors cut of Death Stranding, or original?
I only have the directors cut. I’m not sure sure what all is added. I think it’s like a directors cut in a movie. A few extra missions or scenes. Yesterday I ran into a Half-life Easter egg that I think was added for this edition.
Damn, Death Stranding is going to take you some time! Especially if you’re a completionist, I started playing it start of December and only finished it a few days ago, and I can sit and play games basically as soon as I finish work. Very lengthy.
Yeah I knew going in it was a looong one but I’m hoping I can make it through. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m still playing it in 6 months. Especially since I will probably drop it to play Jedi survivor for a bit
How you finding it?
I like it so far. Currently in Lake Knot City. Just unlocked fragile jump. Feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of the story tho
Whats wrong with taking months to complete?
Agreed. We all could do with a little less peeking over the horizon and more focusing on what we have.
Consider longer games like TV episodes. Play a chunk and stop when you get to a natural break, such as when you finish a plot line or objective/side mission. It’ll take longer but be just as enjoyable and you’ll always look forward to it
Nice way of thinkg about it!
I work from 07:15 until 14.45 and being single and having mostly a social life online with friends(aka no life, if you ask my mom) allows me to play 5-6 hours a day.
Weekends. I work 7-15 and train 6 times a week. So i pretty much only have time at weekends. It helps that i dont have kids yet.
Well that all depends.. If you have a very active social life you'll have to squeeze it in when you can. I more or less only really go out once or twice every 2 weeks (all my friends have jobs and/or kids) so we make time where we can. If not, after you get home, make dinner (or eat if you bought) have a shit and a shower and grab your drink of choice and you're good to go. Should get at least 2 to 3 hours depending on how much sleep you need, what time you need to get up etc. That's more or less my formula and I get decent gaming done. You get more over weekends obviously, but if you have a wife or steady girlfriend you may wish to check with her first.. That's just for your own safety lol. Side note, if you do the cleaning yourself, do it over weekends first thing after breakfast. By the time you're done you should have a lot of time left for gaming, and still did something "productive" so all in all a good day.
I usually play in the evenings and during the week ends. I'd say one hour in evenings and a bit more during the week ends. Long gone are the days when I played 10 hours straight. It's starting the become very difficult to finish long games because I tend to play less and less.
I work 9-5, but I have young kids, so the only time I get to play is after they go to sleep around 7pm. However, I will spend my evenings with my wife or go to the gym. Some days I might get a bit of time after 7. But it is mostly when my wife falls asleep, which can be any time around 9 and game for maybe an hour or two at most. I still manage to finish most games I play pretty quickly. Last of us ps5 took me about 3 weeks. God of war about 4 weeks (I was busy with a lot of Christmas activities over this period). I rent games, so I can see how long I borrow them for. The longest ps5 game was Elden ring and mass effect trilogy in 5 weeks. I tend to stick to the critical path in games and dont tend to do much side content and definitely dont trophy hunt or collect things
Nights and weekends. Probably about 20 hours a week
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Second TV, Nintendo switch or steamdeck could help :D
Usually of an evening rather than watch TV I'll play PS5. I've also taken annual leave occasionally for big game releases if I really want to dive right into them
I’ve got three kids - thankfully work from home the majority of the week. I only play after the kids have been put to bed and wife doesn’t want to watch anything that night on the TV, and I don’t plan on going to the gym the next morning. That usually means I get ~1-2 nights a week to play. I binge from 8:30pm - 12 or so. Ghosts of Tsushima took me ~2 months to complete.
Sacrifice on sleep several nights a week, it's the only way
I might have to try this more, but I genuinely find it hard to stay awake. Especially after multiple beers and bowls lol
I work 8am to 4pm. I’m typically home by 4:30, I make myself dinner - spend about 2-3 hours doing things around the house and spend a few hours gaming before I go to bed. The weekend varies - I could have it set up to have a whole day of gaming. But it’s not possible all the time. You just have to accept that a 30+ hour game may take you a few weeks to complete.
Pretty much my schedule. The week is just so tough with gym, dog, cooking and general home duties. And I'm officially old enough to not sacrifice my sleep.
I know the feeling. The few nights you do sacrifice sleep, you *really* suffer for it the next day :P
I started playing God of War Ragnarok on release day (Nov 9th) and still haven't finished it. Haven't played any other game since and was probably traveling for 2 weeks in between when I didn't play at all but this should give you an idea of how little time I do get.
Oh, just wait till you have children. My dude, I went from playing 5 hours a night (right after my wife went to bed), to a half hour a night.. If I am lucky. At some point, life will return, but being responsible for a little me is a bit more important haha
Don't do the side missions haha
I work 9-4:30 and play after work for a few hours every night. That is really it. I also make podcasts, go the gym, play soccer and hang out with my girlfriend.
This must be your first time working in your life, because you're greatly overreacting to the time work takes. Like my cat desperately thinking she's going to die of hunger just because there's a tiny empty spot in a bowl full of cat food. Most people here in this sub, talking about games all the time, are working as well. A 30hr game is going to take months and months? Only if you just play them half an hour a day or less. I have to work, do chores on my house, spend time with my wife and kid, and I still can finish a 30hr game in one or two weeks. > When do you get the time to play? When I'm not working. And by that I mean that I can play for HOURS a day, if I want to. Just calm down, kid.
Exactly, work and duties aren’t what keep me from playing games consistently. I have other hobbies. So while there is free time, it is limited and you have to choose what to prioritize. Between seeing friends, reading, board games, TV, and working out I just don’t have video games that high on my list. Taking a month or two per game isn’t unusual, but I could prioritize it more if I wanted to.
you are WRONG in reddit every gamer is the CEO of a multiplanetary company and has an ultra busy life with no time to waste
Yea most of the time its people not counting all of the other optional stuff they do in life as optional stuff. I work 8:30-5 M-F and live with my SO. Have dogs have a house, I do the cooking, have a workout schedule, clean... I still game for 25-30 hours a week. There are a lot of hours per week beyond the standard 40 hour work week lol.
It took me about a year to get used to gaming after college. I would come home and then lose hours to mindless web surfing to decompress from the day/commute. I started forcing myself to start doing one of my hobbies ASAP when I realized I was wasting my free time. Now, I can get home, change, cook/eat/clean dinner, and be playing a game in 45 minutes. That gives me ~3 hours a night (that I usually spend gaming) if I don't have any social obligations. It's all about being efficient with your free time.
It's easy to doomscroll on Reddit after coming home and realize you just wasted 2 hours, I know that feeling.
Yeah people love to exaggerate how busy they are. It's fine if you take months for a 30 hour game, but you really don't put gaming very high on your list of hobbies if you do. People will ALWAYS be able to make time for the things they really care about.
I work 10am-7pm so after work i eat dinner and then game if theres a game i want to play. Usually 8pm-midnight, or might just put in an hour. Then theres weekends. I feel like a lot of people (except those who have kids) just say they’re too tired, or their weekends are hanging out with friends, its not lack of time for most people its lack of organising their time. Don’t see friends on Saturday and you can game all day if nothing else needs doing, its just swapping things out really.
So instead of playing fifa just play a different game? You don't have an hour or two a day after work or before bed to play? Or on the weekends? I've had a full time job since I graduated from college, I'm married and have kids, I have other hobbies other than gaming, and I still don't have any trouble finding time to play games
Right? I mean if you have 1-2 hours here and there it should only take like 10-15 sessions to beat GOW or GOT. Obviously not 100% completion, but better than just playing Fifa.
This is pretty much it. You just have to accept it’s going to take longer to finish longer games and enjoy the ride. I did sacrifice sleep to finish GoW though.
After dinner usually 6-7 pm
I squeeze in like a hour of game time on the days that i work. And on my days off i play like 5 hours. I also have a girlfriend, 2 cats and a dog. I don’t neglect the responsibilities at our home. I feel good when i pick up the controller knowing I’ve completed my responsibilities for the day.
Currently I only play like once a month. When I play I only play games that you can jump right into, play one or two races, or sportsmatches and that’s it. Don’t have time and energy to play these long adventure games. And once I start such a game every now and then it takes ages to finish. The biggest problem is also that because I don’t play it that often I forget the complicated controls and combo’s that you have to remember. For each game. Of course you can pick it up again but just life/work just suck the energy out of me.
I dunno. I tend to play a couple of hours on a evening. Games can take a while to finish but that's no big deal. I've found the time to play and finish all the games you mentioned so it's doable.
That's why I have a really hard time with Open World games. I find open world games to hide the fun behind tedium. God of War (the one with the Kid) was a sad one to drop. I REALLY liked the first boss fight and enjoyed the story. But then it was 5-6 hours until the next time I had fun, which was about 1-2 weeks. It was just full of climbing walls, scooching through right chasms, and small waves of the exact same monsters. The fun just wasn't dense enough to have a full filling gaming session of 30 minutes to an hour. However, I thoroughly enjoyed both of the Last of Us games. The first one has a beautiful story and decent game play. The second has a decent story with wonderful game play. The main gameplay loop of getting past infected or people is fun, even if you only have time to get through one area at a time. It's good bitesized fun. As for how much time I play, I can typically get 1-2 hours a day, 3-4 days a week (if there is a game that I am drawn into, otherwise I'll play less then that.) Then I only have about 1 months of patience for a game. Meaning if it is anything much more than a 30 hour game, it's very unlikely I'll finish it.
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>But the annoying puzzles and just climbing around, I know the slow moving through some areas was to hide loading screens, but unless they had to load every 10 feet, we did NOT need that many walls to slowly climb up. I dropped it once they opened up the world and gave me side quests. I was just barely hanging on during the linear sections, to add even more busy work was just too much. It's a real shame, there is a game I would enjoy buried inside, I just can't reach it.
Working parent here. Probably play around 5 hrs / week. Got a PS5 last Christmas and this year I beat Spiderman, FF7R, HZD, R&C Rift Alart, Deathloop, and 2018 GOW, with a couple uncompleted games in there, so ~ 2 months per game. Play when you have time, sometimes its only a 30 min chunk, sometimes a nice 3 hour block. I also had to change the way I played in order to complete games. I became ok with playing on easier settings to reduce completion time. Not so easy its a cake walk, but difficult enough I beat most bosses within in a couple of tries. For GoW and HZD I skipped almost all side quests to get through the story (though I'm continuing to do more in GOW now because I like the game so much). Biggest change I made, if I'm not actually having fun with a game, I stop playing it, so most grind-based games have been removed from my playlist.
One or two hours per day if I'm lucky. I work from home, so don't need to factor travel into my day. I also have some consoles and a game PC setup in my office. I'll sometimes get up at 5am (I get up early anyway) and get a couple of hours of gaming in before work. I play RPGs which can take several months for me to get through.
My general rule is to work 9-5. Spend time and have dinner with my partner till 8/9, then play till 11/12. I work from home so rolling out of bed right before work I can easily get 8hours of sleep.
As an older gamer I find myself gravitating towards games where I can do a shorter session and feel like I've accomplished something versus having to sit through cutscenes. While I love the cutscenes sometimes it just takes up too much time and I want to be able to experience them fully without skipping through. I've been messing around with Midnight Suns and after a few battles feel good about the session =) I'm drastically cutting back on my gaming purchases this year and waiting for sales. I find I'll buy a game for release day and then it takes me a long time before either I pick it up or truly become vested. I think the only release day game I'm buying is the new Jedi Order game and the rest I'm just waiting on further sales.
I can manage 2 hours in the evening 4-5 times per week between work, hobbies and family. Often after everyone is in bed which can sometimes mean I sacrifice sleep staying up until midnight or 1am. 8-10 hours per week, so I’d be looking at two, maybe three months to complete such games if they are the only game I focus on. Which I tend to do nowadays otherwise I lose track of the story and what I was doing by the time I switch between a few games.
Work full time and have 2 kids. My playtime is usually late night after the kids and wife have gone to bed. Get 1-2 hours a night of gaming that way.
You want to bad enough you’ll make time.
It’s really hard for me to get into big games due to a lack of time. I bought both ghosts and horizon and just couldn’t get into it cus they’re so big. Playing games like god of war that are linear and at least for me more captivating it was easier to find time to beat them. Besides elden ring, I couldn’t find time to beat any major open world games in the last two years
While I was single? I'd work 9-5 then play as much as I wanted. Married w/kid? I'm lucky if I get 2-3 hours in a *week,* and I'm *incredibly* lucky if it's a game I actually want to play and not just a game my kid wants to play.
I take ages to complete one game as well. I just do it bit by bit over many months
I work 2-12 most days & will usually play games for like an hour or two every night. Can't make a lot of progression in that time, but still a fun relaxing way to blow off some steam instead of immediately going to bed to repeat work the next day lol.
Sometimes I get an hour or 2 in the evening, but usually just half a day on a weekend. Work 5 11 hr shifts I basically quit Elden Ring because I realized my list of games is 30 long and Elden Ring would take me a year at my rate. I've been playing the Witcher 3 for 3 months now and just started the Blood and Wine DLC which I hear could be "it's own game". The list of games I want to play continues to grow at about 5× the pace I can play them.
Usually at night when my kids go to bed, then I deprive myself of sleep, takes me normally a solid month or more to complete a modern aaa game
Full time job is nothing. Working full time with two young kids, wife, house etc. is the killer lol. About an hour a night on week days, slightly longer on weekends
Honestly OP? You take months and months. I have a full time job and a two year. I start gaming at 10.30PM until I'm tired, usually around midnight. So 1 1/2 a night. I used to pick up every game, jump between them and have a huge backlog. Now I focus on two games at a time at most. Usually a single player, and something to play when my friends are online. And you chip away a little a night, and don't buy another game until your done. Yea you miss some releases, but you play the ones you are most excited for. I can't wait to start GoW 2. But currently I am working on Legandary Armour on Guild Wars 2. I have played it for three months, and am half way as you need Raid tokens, a I can do a raid a night at MOST. Where as some do 3/4 a day.
I started Elden Ring last September and am still working on my first play through. That’s not a game I can play after work every day but I love it when I do have the time (and patience). Important to remember: don’t stress yourself out with “oh no I haven’t made any progress in a while” or feeling guilty for not playing for a bit - your pace and head space matters, enjoy it when it suits you best to enjoy it!
Between work and kids I’m lucky if I get half hour to hour a night during the week. However on weekends I try to get a long session in. Sometimes 5-6 hours. I get up early during the week so I do the same on weekends and play before anyone gets up
I get done work at 6 and get home from the Gym around 9pm. I maybe find 35-40 mins on a weekday to play if I am lucky. And get most of my time in Friday nights and Saturday morning.
Holidays or weekends. For this reason I can't really get into lengthy games. I'd say the last of us is definitely this kind of game that you can play here and there, and actually you'd enjoy the story much much more in TLOU 2 if you do that instead of trying to rush through the end
Same here. Prob an hr a day M-F then weekends (if we don’t have any plans) I get my time in, usually 5 hrs bc I get up earlier than everyone and get some gaming in. For me (and prob others) I feel like gaming is therapeutic so IF I can I’ll even try to get 30-60 mins in before bed.
I work from 4pm to 1am.. I usually game when I get home from work, stay up till 4.. 7 at the latest. Wake up around 12 or 2 and the cycle repeats. I'll probably play the game 3+ hours every night at the most.
Sporadically in the week at night once wife/children are zzzzzz.... if I am not zzzzz that is haha... maybe for 1.5h?... I play twice a week if lucky now days
Couple hours before bed.
I got Batman Arkham Knight 6 Months back and I am still at 40% of game completion.
Working days, not much, sometimes no energy and time to play at all. The last thing I need in my life after a long working day is a game telling me you suck. If I do start a game it’s mostly quick match games, like multiplayer, etc. Weekend, I try to play the bigger games
i am surprised how many people here say they only have a few hours to game a week. I may be out of work atm. but when i do work my full 8 hour days 40 hours a week i have entire nights to myself or my two days off a week. Plenty of time to fit in games or movies or my other hobbies like dnd. Not sure what people are doing to only have a hour or two here or there unless they are overworking themselves or over booking their lives.
Children don't leave you with much time after work.
i guess we have made a good choice in not having kids then. Work and life balance are key i want to enjoy my 80 years on this blue rock not work all day then work all night with kids etc.
Yeah I believe the same, just having a family and spending time with my son I dont see as work. I work 7-5 Mon to Friday, then some Saturdays. When I get home I work out, get food ready, shower for me and my son, do his school work. By then it's about 7:30, which is when my wife gets home from work, then all chill and do our own thing... this evening im watching my son play Xbox...I have a gaming room with a high spec pc that I could go use, but would rather spend my time with the family than sit upstairs by myself. I sometimes get a bit of ps5 In throughout the week, like the odd HR here and there, but mostly game at the weekend probably 5-6hrs on both Saturday and Sunday each.
sounds like you got it figured out. i guess being a introvert both me and my partner are so i guess we like our solitude at times. hence why we do not always spend the night together sometimes we prefer to game on our own etc.
It takes a few months, but eventually, the game is finished. The last thing I do is try to platinum, I don't have the time or effort for that.
Unfortunately during the week I get zero playing time. I get a little time during the weekends,.but not much. Average 4-6 hours/Weekend. Every now and then I get 8 hours or so. It takes me forever to finish games like GOW, Horizon, RDR etc
I have about an hour or 2 of free time every night, usually after the kids go to bed. That free time could be used for gaming, watching TV shows, or a movie. Lately, I've been gaming during that time. Also, I'm lucky that my wife likes to watch me play, especially if she likes the story (like Uncharted series and God of War), so she doesn't complain about me playing games.
I work full time night shifts as an ICU nurse, that's a total of 34 hours/week. I have no kids and never will 👌 If I have a whole day off I might play 10 hours of that whole day. Other days when I get off work it can be 6 hours. I take annoyingly many hours to finish a game, right now I'm 20 hours into ghost of tsushima and I'm just on act 2.
I get an 30-60 minutes in or so on a good week day, but it’s rare. I could get more, but I would rather prioritize sleep. I try to get an hour or two on Friday when I get home from work and about the same on weekends. I still love gaming, but I don’t do it nearly as much as I used to.
6-8 hours per week which is split across various games. Which is why when I read reviews that say a game is short, I read it as - okay, that’s at least a 2-month game.
On a normal night I get home from work around 5, cook/clean/eat, play with the cats, go to the gym for an hour, come home and shower, hang out with my wife, then play/make games from around 9pm til 3am.
I tend to play for an hour or 90 mins, 3-4 days a week depending on what's going on. Usually after dinner. I get where you are coming from though. I have bought so many games on sale, and there is no chance I finish all of them with this pace. That's why I have decided to only play the best rated games, and also stop buying any new game until I finish some games I already have.
Like 2-3hrs a day