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.
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… 🥱
Yes. It’s the only thing keeping me sane at this point
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).I dom’t have kids so yeah.
Very seldomly.
Gaming for me at this point is playing Rimworld on my work computer while I am waiting for something / someone.
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.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” 🤣
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.
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!
Oh yes definitely. We get way to much screen time. And I also feel the same when I sometimes don’t really want to think too much in the evening. I’ve come to not play certain games I deem a bit too much. Elden Ring comes to mind. I like souls like, and I did play Lies of P recently which I enjoyed. But Elden Ring looks way to long and might be a hard game.
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.
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.
When my child was a baby I played tons of games, because they napped so much.
My wife and I would each take an 8 hour shift alone while the other person napped, and an 8 hour shift together. While I was alone and my child was napping for a couple hours at a time, I could get in a few games.
This, of course, relies on you living somewhere that gives reason amounts of parental leave to both parents.
Once my child got older, and started sleeping through the night, and we had to go back to work, then the shift system didn’t work anymore, and my gaming took a precipitous decline
Yes, just dont have kids
Sure.
Energy to play? Well that’s a tough one…
Only on the weekends, between chores.
I drive a truck for work, and it’s my home during the week. Theoretically, I’ve got some gaming time while waiting on loading docks, but in terms of providing time for gaming, I can’t count on it. Some of my customers are annoyingly efficient. I prefer to nap anyway.
I could always play once I’m parked at the end of my trip, but after 11 hours of driving, I’m often too mentally fried to even watch TV.
Plus, my truck’s power inverter can’t handle running my gaming PC anyway. So it waits for me at home.
I drove for Schneider for about a year and the standard equipment inverter was more than enough for my computer at the time (i9-12900k, 2070 super). I could run the microwave at the same time too… it was probably at least 2kw.
But yeah, it kinda sucked not knowing if I was going to be docked for 30 minutes or 4 hours… it was always best to be able to get paid to play video games or take a nap.
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.
People watch about 3 hours of television a day. Yes, you have time to play video games.
Maybe? I can watch tv while I fold laundry or exercise. I can’t play games and fold laundry at the same time.
Skill issue! Train harder!
