"Extreme Gamers" Spend 48 Hours a Week Playing Videogames

[Badong]

I still remember the time when people say that two to four hours in front of a screen will break your eyes. Anyway, during summer break, especially when I'm with my cousins, we usually play for most of the day for around two weeks(which makes that around 105 hours of gaming). When there's no break, however, the amount of game time is reduced to around two hours. I actually have around 3.5 hours of entertainment time, so yeah I spend half of my time reading books, and if I'm really in to it, I would replace gaming time with writing time(you know, for stories and stuff).

 

[Keepitclean]

48.5 hours per week!?! Wow, surely they have better things to do with their time. Games are fun and all but 2 out of every 7 minutes of your life in front of a PC or console, that's insane (and probably really boring too).

 

[Max Huerta]

sorry i love gaming i have been gaming since 88' but if your spending this much time playing games... get a life. Go out meet some people make new friends, see what this world has to offer. Then come back down and get your game on.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Without context it's hard to really say much about the "extreme gamers" with 40+ hours. Frankly I think it'd be amusing to see how much people are bashing on them who are actually spending just as much time gaming (or have spent a duration of their own lives gaming that often without actually noticing it). Talk about putting your foot in your mouth.

But anyway, are these teenagers or adults? Unemployed? In school? Are the extreme gamers playing single-player or multiplayer games? I mean... if I goto a friend's house and we spend a few hours playing Gears, yeah sure that's 3 or 4 hours "on the clock", but it's 3 or 4 hours of having fun with friends... is that so bad?

I dunno, it's an interesting study over-all, I just don't find it as shocking (as the news post wants me to) that there are gamers out there spending a full-time job's duration playing games.

 

[SimuLord]

The Extreme Gamers are probably all unemployed or about to be. It's the only way that's realistically possible.

Not even close. In the words of Bill Nye the Science Guy, "consider the following".

- I am a full-time student, and therefore I'm off for the summer. Taking a summer class, but between class time and travel time to and fro, that's 20 hours a week, max.
- I run a little media-production company on the side, but since it's a very small company and we've only got one project right now, I don't need to devote more than 15 hours a week to it. (yes, I'd LOVE to work 80 hours a week on this, but the work just isn't there in this economy and with my mostly-volunteer team doing it for resume fodder or just because they love writing and acting.) So we're at 35 hours total.
- I'm one of those people who can run on very little sleep---I average 6 hours a night. That adds another 42 hours, bringing the total to 77.
- I watch sports. Still, how many Red Sox games do I get to watch living on the West Coast? One or two a week? Seven hours, max. Celtics in the playoffs adds another 3 games at 6 hrs total, and I never miss Friday Night Fights. That's about the only TV I watch. Total now = 90 hours.
- There are 168 hours in a week. 78 left. I probably spend two hours a day cooking my meals and/or shopping for groceries; since I have a lot of stores right in my urban neighborhood (everything from Target to Trader Joe's to Whole Foods), I like to buy my ingredients on the same day I prepare and eat them. Still, 64 hours left.
- Now let's say I spend 75% of my free time doing what I enjoy most for a hobby, which is gaming. Boom! 75% of 64 is 48.

Am I "extreme"...or do I just have a good sense of my life balance? Granted, I'm not dating anyone, but that's by choice. I don't want to get into a committed relationship when I know I'll just have to leave the girl in two years when I move home---I am not bringing any trace of the Wasteland with me back to Boston. And casual sex? Wouldn't take up more than a couple hours---so insignificant as to be meaningless. And that also assumes that at my age I have any interest in shallow slutty girls. No thanks. I'm too old for skirt-chasing and risking disease and child support.

Nothing in the world wrong with gaming for 50+ hours under those circumstances.

 

[Avashnea]

I'm a 40 year old female nurse. I work 3 12 hr shifts a week and still play over 40 hours a week. Mainly MMOs
I also read a lot.

 

[Pokedude1013]

GOOD THING HARDCORE GAMERS ARE NOT AS EXTREME AS EXTREME GAMERS.
Yep. Hardcore gamers are the perfect people. Casual gamers suck

 

[JIst00]

"The average age of gamers increased slightly over last year from 31 years of age in the 2009 study to 32 years in this year's study.

Lol, well done, we all got a year older. Who'd have thought.

 

[Ch@Z]

I'm a 40 year old female nurse. I work 3 12 hr shifts a week and still play over 40 hours a week. Mainly MMOs
I also read a lot.

So I guess you never sleep!

 

[King of the Sandbox]

The Extreme Gamers are probably all unemployed or about to be. It's the only way that's realistically possible.

Not even close. In the words of Bill Nye the Science Guy, "consider the following".

- I am a full-time student, and therefore I'm off for the summer. Taking a summer class, but between class time and travel time to and fro, that's 20 hours a week, max.
- I run a little media-production company on the side, but since it's a very small company and we've only got one project right now, I don't need to devote more than 15 hours a week to it. (yes, I'd LOVE to work 80 hours a week on this, but the work just isn't there in this economy and with my mostly-volunteer team doing it for resume fodder or just because they love writing and acting.) So we're at 35 hours total.
- I'm one of those people who can run on very little sleep---I average 6 hours a night. That adds another 42 hours, bringing the total to 77.
- I watch sports. Still, how many Red Sox games do I get to watch living on the West Coast? One or two a week? Seven hours, max. Celtics in the playoffs adds another 3 games at 6 hrs total, and I never miss Friday Night Fights. That's about the only TV I watch. Total now = 90 hours.
- There are 168 hours in a week. 78 left. I probably spend two hours a day cooking my meals and/or shopping for groceries; since I have a lot of stores right in my urban neighborhood (everything from Target to Trader Joe's to Whole Foods), I like to buy my ingredients on the same day I prepare and eat them. Still, 64 hours left.
- Now let's say I spend 75% of my free time doing what I enjoy most for a hobby, which is gaming. Boom! 75% of 64 is 48.

Am I "extreme"...or do I just have a good sense of my life balance? Granted, I'm not dating anyone, but that's by choice. I don't want to get into a committed relationship when I know I'll just have to leave the girl in two years when I move home---I am not bringing any trace of the Wasteland with me back to Boston. And casual sex? Wouldn't take up more than a couple hours---so insignificant as to be meaningless. And that also assumes that at my age I have any interest in shallow slutty girls. No thanks. I'm too old for skirt-chasing and risking disease and child support.

Nothing in the world wrong with gaming for 50+ hours under those circumstances.

Similar thing with me. I have a full time job (which I can also game at), a wife, a house, friends and an active social life, and I still pull in about 48 hours of gaming a week, if not more.

Games are just my 'me' time. Where others are reading a book or watching TV or organizing their comics or surfing the web, I game.

Actually, I do all those other things too. So yeah, time management, ftw. ^_^

 

[veloper]

Shugs I'm not an extreme gamer then.

If only I spent less time on other leisure activities. 48 hrs is doable.

 

[Aleate]

Pssh, I can play 48 hours in less than a day. And STILL have time for sleep .

 

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I think the longest I ever gamed in a single non-stop(ish) session was when I played Dragon Quest/Warrior VII for the PSX back in the late 90's. Every waking moment was spent playing it and I logged about 100 hours within 5-6 days. I've never been able to get into something that grabbed me by the balls and dragged me into it so much as that game did.

Sadly, I don't think I've ever had the overwhelming urge to replay it with such a ferocity, and most games made THESE days barely grab my attention for more than a few days. Less depending on the game. I may play them for a few weeks tops, if only because I am not playing them NON STOP like I used to when RPGs were good and not full of fetch quests and grinding...

Oh, and adventure games haven't really captured my interest these days either.. I miss the point and clicky games of yesteryear. Once I get some money I plan to get a few of the games made by TellTale though. Those guys know adventure/comedy point and click.

 

[Low Key]

That makes me feel a lot better about the 10 or so hours I play a week.

I suspect the "extreme" gamer tends to be younger, while the average gamer is older. I used to play way more often when I was in high school.

 

[Avashnea]

I suspect the "extreme" gamer tends to be younger, while the average gamer is older. I used to play way more often when I was in high school.

You'd be wrong. Like I said before, I play 45+ hours a week and I'm 40.

 

[AWAR]

I've seen people playing 170 hours per 2 weeks.. On steam games...

That could be talking about practically anything though, after all, the big name titles are on Steam too.

They would also play Age of Conan at that specific time period.

 

[King of the Sandbox]

I suspect the "extreme" gamer tends to be younger, while the average gamer is older. I used to play way more often when I was in high school.

You'd be wrong. Like I said before, I play 45+ hours a week and I'm 40.

I'm in the middle, at 30, with an average of 48 hours a week. ^_^

 

[pepitko]

Causal gamer here, with roughly 16 hours a week, 2 hours on workdays and 3 on weekends. I work 50-55 hours a week and need to get an average 8 hours of sleep.. but I could easily get into the extreme zone if there's an addictive game and no job.

Although I can't believe the average gamer age is 32, I played the most from 14-21, although I'll probably never stop playing games.

 

[ShadowsofHope]

Well apparently I am an "Extreme Gamer", now.

.. This is a bad thing because?

 

[Ranooth]

I play a lot more then 48 hours (and lead a successful social life and relationship with an actual girl before you say anything) and i really don't see myself as an "Extreme Gamer".