Video Games: Obsession, Lifestyle or Passtime

[Fortesque]

I am a gamer, I spend a lot of time gaming. I also spend a lot of time doing other things, you know going outside, working, studying, things like that.

I am also very against all those people saying "All Video Games are Obsessive" bull crap. Granted I was fairly obsessed with WoW: Burning Crusade a few years ago, staying up till 5am most night to urn Heroics or level up a newer character. Even now, I will stay up till 2, 3, 4am playing L4D, Guild Wars or Modern Warfare multiplayer but only on nights that I CAN do it. Nights where I dont have to work at 7am or have uni courses at 8 or 9am. I can spend hours playing Dwarf Fortress, becoming completely oblivious to the outside world and focusing on what my little Dwarfs are up to, but is this an Obsession?

I, personally, can have just as much fun going around to a friends house, picking up the xbox controller, having a few beers and playing Call of Duty or Gears of War, that I would going out to a club or a party and being around bad Dance music and having hundreds of people I don't know there, again is this an Obsession?

So, I ask you people of the Escapist, When does having fun become an Obsession?

 

[Pimppeter2]

Gaming is a Passtime to me.

But it is also part of what makes me, me. Like Basketball and other things.

 

[DuplicateValue]

Passtime - I can (and regularly do) go without it for long periods of time.
The last time I played a game was around two weeks ago.

 

[SomeBritishDude]

Obsession.

I'm kind of weirded out when people tell me they haven't played a video game for 6 months. How can you not? It's like TV or the internet to me, but for many it isn't.

 

[FlyAwayAutumn]

Some people play games cus they're bored, others play cus they love games. Some people play games for a living... and you can too!!

While that sounds like a commercial I've seen somewhere, everyone play's for different reasons. It becomes an obsession when you cannot, and I mean CAN NOT think of anything other than videogames.

 

[El Poncho]

I game whenever I can, if I had something planned gaming will just have to wait.

 

[Aesir23]

Obsession for me, but I couldn't be happier.

 

[Halceon]

It can be all of those things. It's one of the reasons i resist starting EVE online - i know it'll devour too much of my attention. But as it stands now, i spend less time on gaming than on other, less fulfilling timewasters. I could call it a lifestyle, as i do apply game principles to many aspects of life, but then it's "games" not "gaming".

 

[Fortesque]

It can be all of those things. It's one of the reasons i resist starting EVE online - i know it'll devour too much of my attention. But as it stands now, i spend less time on gaming than on other, less fulfilling timewasters. I could call it a lifestyle, as i do apply game principles to many aspects of life, but then it's "games" not "gaming".

Good thing not starting EVE Online... that thing is more of a job than a game

 

[Slayer_2]

Depends on the game. I had some pretty big nerd outs on Gears 2 when it first came out. Now I just play the occasional game of Mirror's Edge and await the sequel.

 

[manimani]

Id call it a lifestyle for me. It only becomes an obsession every few games or so. Oblivion, Fallout 3, Halo 1, all stole my life. Most of my other games I play on and off, but i play everyday no matter what. Career research. XD

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Gaming is the healthiest obsession I've ever had.

I've always had an addictive, obsessive personality, and gaming keeps me from going out drinking myself to death or wasting all my money on shit.

When I was 8 it was Transformers, when I was 12 it was Premier League Soccer, when I was a teen it was guitar and metal, when I was in my early twenties it was drinking and women...

But gaming's always been there, just never as much as now. It makes me happy.

 

[Cyclone of Mystery]

Lifestyle. I've grown up on videogames; can't imagine life without 'em.

 

[Blanks]

definitely part of my everyday lifestyle some games i'll obsess over, but that's only when i'm enjoying a game i've hyped

 

[Dark Prophet]

it's slowly shifting from obsession to lifestyle and it's about half way there. I personaly have nothing against it being an obsession but others do and because I wanted to maintain those few connections to humanity that I have I had to change my way.

 

[Good morning blues]

Video gaming becomes unhealthy when it starts to impede on time that otherwise would have been spent productively. There's nothing wrong with playing games for recreation. There's everything wrong with playing video games instead of working, maintaining yourself, or having an active social life.

 

[x0ny]

I play about 2 hours a day now. Used to be 18 hours a day ^^;