Gaming after the transition to adult life

[LeonLethality]

Yo folks! Long time no see. Let's get in to what I want to talk about. I've recently gone through a lot in life, from homelessness to post secondary to the 9-5 and grocery bills. And it's pretty much taken a big hit on my gaming. Checking over my steam list it's kind of funny that now when I have the income to buy games, I have such little time to play them. I've found myself setting up times for when I want to play games. It's become part of my scheduling routine, when am I going to play what game, will I play it with friends and when do we both have the time do it. These are issues I never really had in my old high schooler living with my parents life. It's been an interesting process coping with all this change and I'm glad I didn't have to completely give up this hobby.

I'm interested in hearing how you folks adapted a huge change in lifestyle without giving up this hobby. Or maybe you have given it up, I'd be interested in hearing why.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

There really isn't a "transition to adult life". Life *is* transition. You are always going to be in a state of change. Sometimes that change will provide you more time for your hobbies, sometimes less. I know guys in their 40's who game more now than they ever could when they were younger. They just have more time.

But yeah. The change thing. Better get used to it buddy. You're just getting started.

 

[Rawne1980]

I have more time to game now than I did a few years back.

I work from home so game in my off hours. The kids are at school so my days off are filled with games. My wife is a nurse that works long hours so I have a hell of a lot of free time.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Now that I've managed to obtain a full-time job, I've realised that all my free time wasn't so much spent gaming as it was killing time on the internet, reading people's opinions, to no great reward.

So if anything I actually game more.

 

[lechat]

it's actually the reason i stopped playing mmorgs
combine a 60 hour week with actually wanting to have a life and keep reasonably fit and you realize there is no chance to compete so something had to go

job
life
mmorg

you can pick 2

 

[Idlemessiah]

I'm guessing you mean the transition from college student to being a full time working adult right?

If that is the case, then my gaming habits haven't changed a jot. Had plenty of time for it in college and university, and given the current state of the economy I can only get 4 days of work a week, so I still have plenty of time for gaming.

 

[VanQ]

it's actually the reason i stopped playing mmorgs
combine a 60 hour week with actually wanting to have a life and keep reasonably fit and you realize there is no chance to compete so something had to go

job
life
mmorg

you can pick 2

Pretty much sums up my current situation pretty well. Between a full time job, university and trying to maintain some degree of social life, I just don't have the time for MMOs any more. I still play a fair amount of TF2 and a spot of this and that single player RPG here and there but MMOs are right out the window for me at this point.

Ah, I miss high school where I could dedicate my evenings to raiding Blackwing Lair and Naxxramas with my old raiding guild. Kinda off topic but WoW hasn't been the same since WotLK anyway so I quit around then. My grades have admittedly gone up exponentially since.

Maybe it was for the best. But I swear that the day the world's first VRMMO goes on the market, I will drop EVERYTHING for that. I won't be able to help myself.

 

[Eleuthera]

I don't game as much as I did when I was till in Uni (6-10 hours a day), but I still play games pretty much daily. I get home from work around 5pm, and I go to bed around 10:30. In those 5 hours I/we do some grocery shopping, cooking and have a chat about the day, but at least 2 hours a day are still spent gaming. Social life takes place on the weekends, and on the internet.

 

[Goro]

I used to get somewhere on Friday night, unpack the rig, start gaming and them stumble home on Sunday afternoon. Now I can't play violent video games if the kids are awake.
I also have 2 jobs so as soon as the kids are sleeping I look wistfully at the Xbox, then get some sleep myself. I still haven't finished red dead redemption.

 

[Tdoodle]

I still play, I just play less. I'll get in an hour or so in the evenings if I'm at home (split between my house and my girlfriend's at the moment) and get in a couple of hours if I'm around during the day. I quite like it, stuff lasts longer now so I'm not spending as much on it.

 

[tce11]

I used to think any game that was under 20 hours to complete was not worth my time or money, but now that I'm busy pretty much all week, I've found a new appreciation for shorter games that I can complete in a sitting or two during the weekend. It's actually opened me up to a lot more new game experiences which I would have totally dismissed when I was younger and had lots of free time. So it has been a nice change of pace for me.

 

[Vault101]

Yo folks! Long time no see. Let's get in to what I want to talk about. I've recently gone through a lot in life, from homelessness to post secondary to the 9-5 and grocery bills. And it's pretty much taken a big hit on my gaming.

thats not really what I'd call "adult" life...adult life has more responsibilities

I have less time for gamingthease days not because of my job but because I'm focusing on other..."things"

 

[The Nossa]

My adult life is like pretty much the same as my "child life"

I still game
I still study
I still have time

 

[Legion]

In terms of gaming I actually have more time available for it now than when I was a student due to me working early mornings. I get less sleep though.

As for how much I game compared to when I was younger in regards to choice, I'd say I spend less time on games more recently due to less interest in them. Before, when I got a new game I'd pretty much spend an entire day playing it, and normally beat it in two or three days. Now I tend to play for an hour or two maximum before going and doing something else. Assassins Creed 3 took me about a month to actually complete for example.

 

[Fallere825]

it's actually the reason i stopped playing mmorgs
combine a 60 hour week with actually wanting to have a life and keep reasonably fit and you realize there is no chance to compete so something had to go

job
life
mmorg

you can pick 2

Pretty much sums up my current situation pretty well. Between a full time job, university and trying to maintain some degree of social life, I just don't have the time for MMOs any more. I still play a fair amount of TF2 and a spot of this and that single player RPG here and there but MMOs are right out the window for me at this point.

Ah, I miss high school where I could dedicate my evenings to raiding Blackwing Lair and Naxxramas with my old raiding guild. Kinda off topic but WoW hasn't been the same since WotLK anyway so I quit around then. My grades have admittedly gone up exponentially since.

Maybe it was for the best. But I swear that the day the world's first VRMMO goes on the market, I will drop EVERYTHING for that. I won't be able to help myself.

Are you also a fan of sword art online? The idea of a virtual reality MMO sounds increaddible to me too, as loong as i have a good internet connection by then, I would hate to lag.

Back on topic.
Since I started working, It's not as much that I havn't had the time for gaming, its almost like I don't always have the drive or desire to play games after work, On occasion I end up playing a game all day, it happens maybe once every 2 weeks, sometimes more often depending on my roster and what my friends are up to.

 

[The Hero Killer]

I'm in the same boat as TC, I now have a job and more than enough money to fund my habit but I barely have the time to play anything with my backlog seriously piling up, when just a year ago I would beat games so fast I had to replay stuff from the previous generation just to pass the time.

 

[VanQ]

Pretty much sums up my current situation pretty well. Between a full time job, university and trying to maintain some degree of social life, I just don't have the time for MMOs any more. I still play a fair amount of TF2 and a spot of this and that single player RPG here and there but MMOs are right out the window for me at this point.

Ah, I miss high school where I could dedicate my evenings to raiding Blackwing Lair and Naxxramas with my old raiding guild. Kinda off topic but WoW hasn't been the same since WotLK anyway so I quit around then. My grades have admittedly gone up exponentially since.

Maybe it was for the best. But I swear that the day the world's first VRMMO goes on the market, I will drop EVERYTHING for that. I won't be able to help myself.

Are you also a fan of sword art online? The idea of a virtual reality MMO sounds increaddible to me too, as loong as i have a good internet connection by then, I would hate to lag.

Back on topic.
Since I started working, It's not as much that I havn't had the time for gaming, its almost like I don't always have the drive or desire to play games after work, On occasion I end up playing a game all day, it happens maybe once every 2 weeks, sometimes more often depending on my roster and what my friends are up to.

I might be... just a little...

Spoiler: Shamelessly showing off my stuff

Okay, so I'm actually a pretty avid fan of SAO. I have all the novels and am in the process of buying the BDs of the series that just finished airing. I'm also guilty of dropping an unhealthy sum of money into a crane game in Akihabara in an attempt to get an Asuna figure and a Kuroyukihime figure from Accel World.

Accel World is also an excellent series to watch/read by the same author if you enjoyed SAO. I only hope that I can live to see the day where VRMMOs like in SAO are a reality. I don't care which one. SAO, ALO, GGO, they're all good to me and I'd play any of them to death. I'm praying every night that Gabe Newell cracks the VR thing like he's trying because if anyone can do it, it's based Gaben.

 

[PeterMerkin69]

I have a girlfriend, a job, a hobby farm, a ton of recreational interests besides gaming, and I still find time for gaming. The only difference is that now I have to put more thought into managing the time I do have. This is something that's relatively easy to accomplish at this point in my life.

In other words, I had to refine my diet. This is where pre-judging helps. But Peter, you say, how does one know if they like something without having experienced it? Well, you kinda have to use your brain a little bit. Scary, I know, but we, as a species, are actually pretty good at it, and we're good at pattern recognition, too. Is that movie directed by Uwe Boll? Does it take multiple head shots to kill someone in that shooter? I know from past experiences that if either of those things are true then I probably won't enjoy them. Congratulations, Peter, you've just saved yourself a few hours that can be better spent elsewhere.

Remember: You can't exercise good judgement without being judgemental!

 

[LeonLethality]

I'm guessing you mean the transition from college student to being a full time working adult right?

If that is the case, then my gaming habits haven't changed a jot. Had plenty of time for it in college and university, and given the current state of the economy I can only get 4 days of work a week, so I still have plenty of time for gaming.

Not quite, there's a lot that I believe goes in to one becoming an adult and I didn't really want to clutter up the OP giving all the little things in my life that make me feel like I've transitioned from a teenager to an adult. Especially since everyone has a different definition of what makes someone "adult."

thats not really what I'd call "adult" life...adult life has more responsibilities

As stated above I've left a lot out of the OP on what I do consider an adult life because I know that not everyone will agree with my definition. I do have loads more responsibilities than I wrote but I'm sure most people aren't really interested in the mundane things that go on in my life, and those aren't what this thread is about.