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.
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.
Most story games I play once, however long they take. Only a few get the “privilege” of a re-play.
Multiplayer games or games that don’t really have an ending I might put in more, like 200h in PUBG, 420h in Satisfactory (so far), 400h+ in Monster Hunter World, different roguelikes with 100h+, etc.
On Steam, the two games I’ve put in more time than almost all others are Nioh 1 and 2, with a combined 1200h. That’s not even multiple characters.
Only looking at Steam, it’s probably pretty even between story games and these “forever games.”
Then there are Blizzard games, which I’ve played more than basically anything else. I have probably over 25k hours in WoW, thousands in Diablo 2 and 3, hundreds in Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. Their games pretty much always do it for me, which is a shame, since it was revealed how much of a shitshow the company is, so I currently don’t play their games.
I don’t have much to add except RIP Heroes of the Storm 🥲
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.
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.
some games also track it in game, like in Elden Ring loading a character you will time spent.
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?
I’ve got 2000 hours in Warframe spread across nearly a decade, most other games that I like clock in at about 100-200 hours, with most story focused games getting about 8-12. It really depends on routine updates and replayability
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.
Generally I’m a boomer shooter kinda guy, but I have recently been into more “chill in the world and ‘work’ on stuff” games like Satisfactory, Stardew Valley, Slime Rancher, Minecraft, etc
But like you I also occasionally pick up a shorter, story driven game. Fire watch is one of the best games I have ever played.
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’ve put it down and picked it back up 2 or 3 times; looking forward to starting Necrom tomorrow, but once that’s done I’ll it it down again I think.
I think it’s generally an amazing game, but I don’t do much of the multiplayer content, so each time I’m away for 1.5 to 2 years to let content build up and get myself out of the grind.
I tend to prefer indie games, cult classic series like armored core, and a few big mainstream titles like Mario kart and breath of the wild. How much time I put into games depends not on what “kind” of gamer I am so much as whether I need more out of it. I’ve only played Undertale twice through, but it had a big impact on me and at the end I had enough to take with me. If I feel like I’ve lost those impressions I might go back to that well after a long while. Right now I’m going back to a few of my old PS2 games to see if there’s more for me to draw from them. They’re like old books you reread with new eyes.
On the other hand I’ve put hundreds of hours into darkest dungeon and slay the spire, and I’ll probably continue until I’ve gotten to a point where I feel like I’ve overcome my limitations in a meaningful way. Those games are about dynamic challenges and perseverance at any cost, which resonates with me on a deeper level.
Games are art, or should try to be, and how long you spend with them depends on your relationship with them.
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.
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.
I like a variety of experiences so 20 hours seems about the sweet spot for me per game. Except for multiplayer games, which I can play on and off for years. I’m sure I’ve accumulated a combined couple thousand hours out of Counterstrike, TF2, and Halo over the years for instance.
What I enjoy about CS is everyone starts back from the same level on each map in terms of loadout and budget. Yet every game is different in one way or another, with different people in matchmaking or even different macro or micro decisions by familiar players. So even playing the same 5 maps means they are different each time you play. It’s why I’ve been playing CS since 1.0 and have logged just shy of 2000 hrs in CSGO. I can’t remember how many hours I have played of CS in the pre-Steam era but it used to be 4-5 hour stints I reckon. Now I play 1-3 hours or so max, and that only 1 or 2 times a week.
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!
