I think this video showcases an interesting aspect of gaming that I never really thought about before. In their case, they play more games for a shorter amount of time vs spending a large portion of their time in few games.
Personally I’m on the side of spending more of my time in a select number of games. By far I have put no less then 3000-4000 hours in Minecraft. Logged by Steam, I got 1300+ hours in both GTA V and American Truck Simulator
More recently I’ve been really into Rocket League and Trackmania. These games are notable because I am constantly working to improve and get better at the game. As much replay-ability as much I find enjoyment in succeeding.
From time to time though, I do really enjoy getting into shorter, more story based games. Great examples being Portal 2, Road96, and Firewatch. What kind of gamer are you?
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Depends on your stage of life as well. I’m 41 now and a dad, so I have max 2 hours per day. When I was still studying I played wow for entire days.
Now I enjoy shorter games like Firewatch and Lake. Just finished Beacon Pine. Xbox Gamepass is excellent for this as it’s full of these games.
I did play longer games like Mass effect legendary edition, and The Witcher 3, but I only play such long games if I really like them.
Thousands of hours in a game is unfortunately out of the question.
I’m 50+ and while my kids are old though to manage without me, I still have plenty of other responsibilities.
I don’t really “track” my gaming and I think the focus on hours spent is a bit silly.I play when I have time to relax.
It’s mostly WoW, single-player RPGs, Paradox Grand Strategy games, online chess etc - stuff that doesn’t need twichy eye-hand coordination, too old and slow for that - games like that make me frustrated, because I used to be competitive in Quake back in the day. Just can’t keep up with the kids :)Mechabellum has been my latest addiction
I’m your age and I’m in a similar situation. I still play longer RPGs when I really like them but it’s definitely harder to do. My last forever game was warframe. I clocked in about 3300 hours.
There are 5 games on my Steam list over 100 hours, maxing out ~300 hours: Stardew Valley, Skyrim, No Mans Sky, Don’t Starve, Cyberpunk 2077
If we include Nintendo games it probably goes up to 8: BotW, TotK, Animal Crossing New Horizons.
So at the most, I’ll spend a couple months on a game before moving on - most other games I play are either quick weekend completions, or maybe take a couple of weeks to finish. Usually when I start putting months into a game I begin to seriously question whether I’m making the best use of my time and the “what am I doing with my life” itch makes me quit games for a bit. 😅
I think it comes down to whether a game’s mechanics are satisfying and whether the game is open enough to continue. Sandbox games like Stardew or NMS you can fire up, tend your machines or crops for an hour or so, and stop, like watching a rerun of your favorite show. Skyrim isn’t technically a sandbox, but similar, you can jump in, run a couple dungeons or repeating quests, and it’s just nice. No new controls or mechanics to learn, no wishing I had better gear. Like noodle soup on a cold day.
Skyrim’s been out for 12 years. 250 hours isn’t even a half hour a week. Not even 2 hours a month. Stardew Valley is 7 years old. 250 hours is barely 45 minutes a week. It really doesn’t take that much to rack up some serious hours.
When did people start tracking how many hours they play? I used to play games for hours a day. I loved getting lost in them, but I never kept track of hour many hours I spent. Now I’m a dad with a full time job, so I only get to play a little bit every once in a while. But when i get an hour to play I really enjoy it a lot!
The only reason I know how many hours I have is because steam & other stores track how many hours you have in games. Minecraft is one game that doesn’t global counter, however & I agree its nice to just get lost and enjoy playing with friends.
This is an interesting question. I never thought about it until platforms started showing it. I bet I have shockingly low hours on games from my childhood that I consider my “formative” or “beloved” games. I act like I spent years playing Ocarina of Time but was it actually like 20 hours?
It varies wildly. I’ve got about 2000 into Path of Exile, a couple hundred into fallout 4, 100 or so into each Souls game, but I had literal years of play time put into WoW before I quit playing in Wrath.
2 or 2000 with very little variation.
The hours I dump into games varies wildly. Certain games, mainly Splatoon 2/3, Final Fantasy 14, Factorio, Satisfactory, and anything with a level editor I’ll happily dump hundreds of hours into. According to Steam, the game I dumped the most hours into as of this post is Distance, with the majority of that being spent in its level editor.
I definitely play more shorter games. I tried playing spme longer ones but since the breaks can be months long it would take me hours to re-learn the interface!
Judging from my Elder Scrolls Online experience, it takes me about 175-200 days played to burn out on something I’m really into. But nothing else has really come close to that since I quit about a year ago. I’ve been kind of bouncing from game to game, got a couple hundred hours into Guild Wars 2, a hundred hours or so each on Grim Dawn and Diablo 3, a little less than a hundred on Vermintide 2. Basically, when I find a game that scratches an itch, I will play it until I’ve squeezed every drop of content from the bottle. And it looks like I’ll give a new game about a hundred hours to hook me, if I can get past the first hour or so.
I kind of want to go back to ESO, but it’s 75% less fun for me without the subscription (the Craft Bag is BAE, and the DLCs are where I’d be spending my time), but I’m hesitating on the question of “Is it responsible of me to be spending $15/mo on a game I’ve already quit playing once?” And yet, nothing else has come close to hitting that mark for me. GW2 is really amazing, it’s got a lot of things I’d definitely miss if I went back to ESO, but… it’s not the same, somehow.
I normally play single player games. I prefer story focused games and games like factorio, banished. Typically I spend 50h per game if I enjoy it.
For my favourites I have spent close to 400h on the Witcher 3, 200h on cyberpunk 2077, probably just as much on Skyrim and dishonered and Satisfactory.
However many it takes to beat them. I typically don’t replay games, and I don’t play into those insane multiplayer games that require hundreds if not thousands of hours. I beat one, I move on. The only exceptions are NHL and MLB, I play those on Friday nights with some beers to decompress from the week so I have a disproportionate amount of hours in those, but I also don’t buy new ones every year; maybe every 4-5 years. I really bounce off of games that are too long or too big, though. No game needs to be 100 hours long. The last time I did one of those was Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and that’s the last time I’ll ever do that.
I’ve been playing Runescape since grade school. I’m approaching a bit shy of 25,000 hours played (a little under 3 years). As an AFK’able “second monitor game” a good half of that is just “I’m at my computer anyway” but the other half is actual investment/more active playing.
I don’t bother playing a game if I’m not going to invest a significant amount of time into it. I aim for 100% completion or reaching the top 0.1% of players if there is a competitive ranking system. It’s extremely rare for me to play a game that I don’t dump a minimum of 500 hours into.
My play time is less now than it was when I was a teen but it’s still skewed towards the higher end due to me being fortunate enough to work from home with a FIFO queue of work. If my work is done - I can game during work hours if I want to. As long as I keep close tabs on my queue and handle anything as it comes in. This gives me 8~ hours of potential game time that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Since I need to be near my computer in case any work comes in - I’m pretty limited with activities I can do. I can some weights, browse the internet, cook a quick meal, or play video games. But I can’t really leave the house, go swim in the pool, etc.
RuneScape is a great second monitor game, the game allows you to be very active when you want to and have time for that, chill semi-afk content when you also want to watch videos’ on the side, and even ‘click once every five minute’ style gameplay. I have a bit over 9000 hours on my ironman.
After Runescape, my second most played game is definitely Minecraft, then Skyrim with about 550 hours, Fallout 4 with 300 hours and everything else is 115 hours or less.
I prefer a nice contained 25-30 hour game most of the time.
That doesn’t stop me from having 700 hours in Total War: Warhammer II. But it takes a really special game to grab me for more than 60 or so hours.
@Thebazilly @Mister_Bald I agree, 20 hours is fine, 30 hours is max. Unless the game is really good and sandboxy, then I might get trapped in there for hundreds of hours.
Definitely more time in less games. It makes me seem like I don’t like them but I get burned out yknow
Racing games and multiplayer I can put hundreds of hours into, but it feels like single player games are too long these days. I prefer 20-30 hours for the main story although I do enjoy playing 60+ hour jrpgs occasionally.
I feel like it’s the opposite. It’s rare to find single player games longer than 20h.
AC Odyssey took me like 80+ hours, Valhalla apparently takes even longer. I feel like open world SP games take longer (and usually overstay their welcome)
Which for the price they ask i would say its the minimum. Recently i played “resident evil village” 10 hours, good game but very short.
Breath of the Wild can be done in under 30 minutes or take hundreds of hours. I’m about 120 hours in and have yet to finish. I could do the final battle now but there’s way more going on in this stunning world for me to enjoy.
The most hours I’ve ever put into a game (that wasn’t WoW pre-Cata) is 99 (Persona 5). My brain just can’t (or won’t) comprehend playing something for x-hundred/thousand hours even if I really enjoy it.
Same here, with the only exception of games I keep getting back to (basically my all-time favorites that I replay every few years) and games I drop and then decide to restart (and then drop, and restart, and drop, and restart).
Recently I’ve been avoiding games that are more than 20-40 hours (doing main+some side quests) because I came to the conclusion that there’s no game longer than that that doesn’t have a bloated-to-deatb story or gameplay mechanics that feel more like a treadmill than a game.
