News Four percent of gamers play for 50 hours a week

What? They must be MMO players then because I'm lucky if I get 1/5 of that time, replaying both Crysis games being an exception because of bank holidays. And none of the Americans I know have that much time to play either, they're too busy trying to keep their jobs.

 

When I was a student, I was hitting 50hrs a week no problem.
Now it's close to 15-20 hours a week, which still isn't bad!

 

It fluctuates pretty wildly for me, being a shift worker and having a lot of other commitments and interests in my life. I think I've spent maybe 2 hours in the past fortnight gaming? But if I really get into something that can increase dramatically at the detriment of basically everyone and everything else in my life

 

If a man played 50 hours a week from he was 10 till he was 80, he would've have wasted over 20 years of his life on it, just to put it in some sort of perspective.

 

What makes you think those hours were 'wasted' though? People play games for a reason; they obviously enjoy it.

Personally, I watch hardly any TV whatsoever, maybe a few hours a week at most. But that doesn't mean I think that everyone who watches TV is 'wasting' their lives. I just enjoy gaming more in my spare time, so that's what I do. Some of my most vivid memories of my childhood were of playing games with my friends, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

 

Hmm I thought I was 'extreme' until I read this

 

can we really classify WoW players as 'gamers'?

surely 'crack addicted zombies' would be a better term?

 

I play games instead of watching TV; most TV at the moment is pretty rubbish to be honest whilst games can hold my attention for hours on end.

 

48 hours a week => extreme gamer?

i play 50 hours two week (according to Steam, there are a couple other games). that would come to around 30 hours a week, need to play more to get the "extreme gamer" tag.

 

well look at the flip side hopefully these people dont already have kids and if we are lucky they will die off so their gene pool will come to an end lol... MMO style games are plain and simply wrong, they are designed to be addictive and that really needs to change, they should put a cap of 8hrs of game play every 24hr cycle at least.

 

Good grief! And here I thought I was bad!

I've racked up 26 hours on two different games in the last week on Steam, probably another 4 or 5 on a third. I also had 4 days off so had significantly more time than normal. Usually the most I can manage after a full day at work is 3 or 4 hours in lieu of watching the idiot box, most nights I simply can't be bothered but do put in a fair few hours at the weekend.

 

Hm, average weekday consists of five gaming hours on average, when I add up all my breaks and what not. So 25 hours per week on weekdays. Weekends are often 10 hours per day, to be brutally honest. Only 45 hours a week on average, just shy of being extreme.

And persistent stat tracking, levels and unlocks in games such as the entire Battlefield series don't equally promote addictive gaming habits? Or the Call of Duty series with its ever growing prestige levels. Or TF2 with it's "Play more for random chance at items!". I played WoW for almost three years and have logged about 9 hours on all of my characters combined, compared to my almost 300 hours (aka over 12 days) on just TF2. What about classic RPGs which suck hundreds of hours of their players? Must get your whole party to level 100! Yes, I'm looking at you, Pokemon. Look at South Korea where people play themselves to death on Starcraft, an RTS mind you.

It's simply quite naive to blame MMOs for people playing excessive amounts of video games. If you want something vague and easy to point fingers at try 'society' or 'bad parenting' or something equally half-baked.

 

I probably do around 70 - 80 hours a week lol ...

 

Damn, that makes me above average. I hate being pigeon holed

 

How man of those games have had real human deaths be the cause of it? such as suicides, murders, and food/sleep/water deprivation? I rest my point...

 

I like Sloth's point better, although, it sounds like the same point.

 

Wonder if they using MMO's as their marking post? People throw an awful lot into those...more than is healthy. I know..I steer away from that now generally..it aint good.

How much I game per week depends on so many things. Last week was probably about 15 - 20 hours. Some weeks it can be over 50..depends on the game and my life.

 

Did you even read my post? I specifically mention Starcraft players playing themselves to death. It's relatively common, actually. Most notable is this article. I think you'll like it. Watch the way the author cleverly turns a death from Starcraft, an RTS, into a rip on MMORPGs and goes on to cite surveys of gamers which included all types of games, and then uses that data to claim MMOs alone are bad yet again. People need to nut up and admit that it is the player and not the game which cause problems.

 

there hasnt been any medically recorded incidents involving Star Craft that resulted in death other then that reported article but there has been for WoW, there has been several deaths now in the double digits, show me another game that has those figures.... again show a new article, press release, or medical documentation for that statement that has more then ONE incident and okay I believe you bottom line its been shown and proven that even still MMO are far more addicting then any other form of game.

 

I edited some stuff in to my post if you want to check it later.

I specifcally chose Mr. Lee because of the way he played up until his death without stop. This man was driven by just the pure need to play to the point that he ignored bodily needs (aside from using the restroom). The game has nothing particular to do with it, it could have easily been WoW or MW2 or No One Lives Forever for all it matters, he was an addict and needed help.

Though I'd like some links as well. Show me that the game itself is the sole cause and not the person. I'd like to see how an MMO creates behavior which isn't already common in people due to other causes.

I assume you mean cases like this?

Well consider these:

Halo 3 uncovering murderous intent.
Murder due to brother with loud speakers.
Lethal chewing gum.
Gotta have that dessert.
Unnamed video game leads to violence.

All of these seem to be very similar behavior, yet occur because of very different reasons. MMOs aren't the only reason people go bat**** crazy over pointless things. They're just easy to pick on because no one wants to blame sweet little Johnny for being an addict.