I honestly don’t see how the average working class adult find that time. I feel like gaming is a luxury for rich/middle-class teens.
Yeah and the only way I’ve been able to make it work is with the steam deck since it allows me to hang out in the TV room with everyone. Sequestering myself away in a dedicated room is over I’m afraid lol.
I shall always make time <3
I work from home and have no kids, so yeah I have plenty of time.
- Cook at home and eat healthy
- Sleep enough hours every night
- Cultivate and maintain healthy non-familial relationships
- spend meaningful amounts of quality time with family
- Work at a full-time job 40+ hrs a week
- Play video games or engage in other hobbies
Choose 3
You cannot effectively do the rest.
I do 4, 5, & 6.
I slept 3 hours last night and have an embarrassing number of Uber Eats deliveries each month… but on the bright side I count the video game time sometimes as “cultivating healthy relationships” when I can get ahold of my fellow gaming dads who don’t go to bed until after 1am… 🥱
1246
If you don’t get the full 40 a lot of stuff fits.
I’m my case my job is both creative and technical so I sometimes need to just let stuff marinate in my head. I can feed my chess hobby or cook during that time. I’ve got 2 kids under 5 so after 5p it’s parenting only until they go to bed.
Edit: notably there is still no time for video games
Barely anymore.
When I have free time, I spend it on my hobby projects, or I’ll watch YouTube because it’s less commitment (i mostly play multiplayer games where I don’t wanna quit on my teammates mid-match).Yes. It’s the only thing keeping me sane at this point
You also begin to realise how much of a waste of time gaming actually is.
Nearly everything enjoyable in life is a waste of time.
It’s almost like productivity isn’t our purpose in life.I don’t watch TV, I have two kids, I listen to audiobooks while I run, and I have an hour commute. You better believe that I’m playing video games on my way to and from work. Especially Stardew Valley. That beats any new TV show that anyone has tried to get me into.
Not really a waste if it’s the entertainment you enjoy the most. I’m not sure what you envision as gaming, but there are all types. Some are violence and conflict, but some are stories, some are just cooperative, some are puzzles.
Do you view tv, reading, radio, podcasts as all waste of time? Do you think all entertainment is a waste of time? If so you’re at least ideologically consistent, but I disagree and think humans need entertainment in their lives, for stress release etc. Different people will enjoy different entertainment, and with the caveat of it not harming other people, I don’t think it should be subject to gatekeeping.
There’s a difference between using it as entertainment and using it chronically. In answer to television/ films - everything in the last twenty five to thirty years is rubbish and a waste of time. I still like a blast on a cheap Chinese hand-held emulator to fill 10-20 mins or so then I put it down and forget about it.
When you adult, you have responsibilities. I’ve known children who come from successful families who have never played on a console because they’re busy doing positive things in life that will help them in future.
Average Andrew Tate viewer mindset:
“I’m 12 and I already ‘started a bussiness’”
-Gen Z “Social Media Influencers” 🤣
Sure.
Energy to play? Well that’s a tough one…
Yes. But I worry about your premises. Except for a few thing, gaming is not a 10 hour long experience every time; you can just easily slip-it in any free time. Not having the time to play video games sort of implies you never have free time, which would be concerning.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question and it is not about having time to play video games as much as will to play video games. Interests can shift over time; for some people, it’s playing different types of games, for other, it’s having different hobbies over time.
I think the same way people have to be a bit social, they need a bit of “me” time here and there. All things in balance and all that. But the material “time” needed to play video games? Yeah, it’s there.
I can’t speak for everyone but for me, I’m not going to sit down and play a game unless I can do it for at least an hour or two. Almost all of the games I have aren’t the type where I can just pick something up for 15-30 minutes and not leave completely unsatisfied because I couldn’t actually accomplish anything.
As far as actually having free 1-2 hour blocks? Ha. Yeah, right. I mean, maybe after work on the rare occasion that I can put off the things I need to do for a bit and the stress about them later, keeping me from playing anything for another 2 weeks… that’s the best-case scenario for working full-time and I don’t even have kids.
Depends what kind of adult. I’m in my 30s and I still game for hours on multiple days in the week. But I don’t have a family with kids to maintain.
in my experience, adults yes. adults with kids, not for a while.
you get to play some games again when your child starts sleeping longer hours at night. if your spouse is ok with it you might be able to go to sleep later and play a session. just make sure your spouse is ok with it. even better if your spouse also plays.
and hopefully when they’re old enough you’ll play together anyway.
if you have another child only a year or two apart however that’ll set you back a couple years probably. 2x children is like 4x time sink for some reason.
Yes, as I chose not to have kids and my wife also enjoys video games.
Edit: However, I do tend to hyperfixate on other interests for periods of time.
Me setting, trying to set up home assistant and immich with a new NAS so I can ditch Google photos/home/assistant/drive.
Lol I did that a few months ago too
Still working on replacing Gemini. Gotta make a custom integration, and I’ve never use python and the HA dev docs are a bit confusing to a beginner
No, most definitely not, and it… Sucks.
I just wanna sit down and play Minecraft or something again.
Adult here. I have now over 10 years of experience as an adult, although closer to 20 years of experience playing video games.
There are two realizations that are needed to understand the relation of someone in this life style who is also a fan of video games.
First, no I do not have as much time as I used to have to play video games. In school and university times I would easily play over one hour per day on a week day and much more on a weekend. But nowadays, I spend 8 hours per day on a weekdays working on my job, plus a few hours doing house work. So can’t play as much as I could.
But second, I also want to do other things. Nowadays I actually read much more then I used to. I also try to do other hobbies, and try to do social activities much more. I tend to spend more time with other people too. So out of my free time that I would use for video games in the past, I actually allocate that time for other activities.
I still absolutely love video games. They are a part of my life. But I probably play two to four hours per week only. These hours are few but highly meaningful anyway.
I think part of the journey for me to become an adult, to have a job, responsibilities, and such, has also been about broadening what I do, so it doesn’t upset me that I can’t spend so much time on video games, but rather it makes me happy that I have a fuller life.
This response resonates to me. I would also add that after working all day looking at a computer screen and my mind is tired I like to enjoy other activities away from a screen. If I do look at a screen in the evenings, many times I dont want to think about a game or have to make choices for a game character. The times I really enjoy games are on the weekends. I imagine one day being an old man and getting to play video games all day again like I did when I was a child.
OMG! This is exactly what I’m missing.
Thank you so much!
Yes. mid-40s, no kids, and I work from home.
Wife and I play RPGs on the weekends (currently enjoying Last Epoch and waiting for the next Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader DLC), and during the week I usually play single player games (right now in the middle of Lies of P and Fire Emblem: Awakening).
Are you halfway through the base game or the DLC? I am halfway through the base game, but this is my second run because I unfortunately started NG+ on my first save… The DLC is only accessible from the second-last chapter :(
