What are your gaming gaps, & are they getting longer or shorter?

[G3]

Alright, been curious about this since the 90s. I play for a while, then go a bit without really turning on a console or even looking for anything online. Then I get back into a game or games pretty heavy for a few months. Then fade away again.

It used to be like 3 months off, then game for a stretch, 3 months off. But the time off is getting shorter now. Not sure why. Is this the same for everyone?

 

[SSJBlastoise]

It happens to me in a way but it's not really periodic. although it usually happens after I finish a game I really liked. Finishing Bioshock Infinite some how left me not wanting to play anything for a few days(mostly because I wanted the awesomeness of the game to wear off before I even played anything else).

The periods aren't nearly as long as yours though, most I've been off was a week or two and it usually happens when I have nothing new to play. I don't see this happening soon because Steam seems to keep selling games I'm interested in for 75% off.

 

[teqrevisited]

I've been a constant player of games since around 1995. Always playing or replaying something. If I don't turn on a handheld, console or my PC at any point during the day then it's either because I was busy or I was really ill, to the point of being hurt merely by being awake.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'll go for months without playing a game, but it's rarely because in all that time I never felt like it. It's more often because I just don't have any time to game, which is currently a combination of senior year in college and living at home with an overbearing mother. There was a time around Junior or Senior year of high school when I really was temporarily burnt out on gaming, but it didn't last long, and it's not a regular occurrence.

 

[krazykidd]

I've been a constant player of games since around 1995. Always playing or replaying something. If I don't turn on a handheld, console or my PC at any point during the day then it's either because I was busy or I was really ill, to the point of being hurt merely by being awake.

Mostly this, so much that i think gaming closer to an addiction than anything else . I MUST be playing something all the time .

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I tend to go on weeks without playing something, and sometimes that's intentional because while I do have a backlog of games I want to play I just want to read something.

I will go on a book binge and read book after book until I don't want to read anymore, and then I go back to playing games.

Although, sometimes I do go on gaps on accident because I work too damn much and I'm too tired to play anything. >.>

 

[purplecactus]

They're getting longer for me. Partly it's because of the uni workload picking up, partly it's because I've got more outdoorsy things going on, and partly it's because for all but three months of the year I live with non-gamers, and somehow I lose motivation to game all that much.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

It depends. Right now I'm playing a lot of co-op with my girlfriend and my cousin (different games, different houses, different consoles) so whenever I'm at MY place alone I don't immediately think of gaming and so I concentrate on other stuff. But once this co-op streak is over I'll probably be going back to my good old hermit self.

 

[FFP2]

It's happening to me right now. I haven't touched my 360 in almost 2 months (apart from the occasional Bayonetta level).

There's nothing that really makes me want to boot my 360... Even though I have like 4 new games for it.

 

[hazabaza1]

I rarely go a day without playing something. Recent issues have stopped me from playing as much as I would like to but I still get a decent amount in.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Well, there are always the Crunch-time sessions near exam periods when my gaming time goes down, but it rarely dies.

Currently though.. damn. I'm following an internship which involves me being away from home from 7:00 till (more often than I'd like) 18:30 or so. When I get home, I can get maybe one or two hours of gaming in after dinner before bedtime - I often just don't game but watch some Youtube or browse fora like these to wind down the day.

Obviously when I'm on vacation I'm not playing, but that doesn't really count

 

[Nazulu]

It can become very long but that's because of bloody work and homework as well as the many chores I have to complete everyday.

 

[Something Amyss]

I rarely go more than a couple of days without playing at least a little of something or other.

 

[Echopunk]

I always used to go on binges whenever I bought a new game. Morrowind saw the advent of the marathon session that began after work on a friday night and ended on sunday in time for me to shower and wash my clothes for the week.

My first 360 died early in 2007, and I didn't replace it until late 2008 (or later). During that time I played Mark of the Wolves and Shenmue on Dreamcast, but that was about it.

Since my almost year long hiatus from "modern gaming," I find that it takes a lot more effort for me to invest the time it takes to sit down and play a game. When I get a game, I put about half my free time into playing it, but I can't just sit and sink as much time into it as I used to. I have other responsibilities and interests.

I spend much less time playing games than I did when I was younger, and the interval between these sessions continues to lengthen.

 

[Trueflame]

This happens to me with consoles, often because I'm busy working on other stuff and don't have time for it, or when I do find time for it it's really late and I don't feel like making a lot of noise and disturbing people, etc. So I've gone considerable amounts of time without playing games, half a year or a bit more even.

That's been greatly reduced in the last couple of years though, because I've been expanding my steam collection and playing more games on the PC. Since I spend so much time on my computer anyway, and it's practically always turned on, that means they're right there at my fingertips. Plus, headphones mean that I can game even at 3am with the volume as high as I like. So for the past year or so, the longest I've gone without gaming is probably a couple of weeks.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Often when I get a game I play only that for at least as long as it takes to finish the game completely (AC3, generally more linear games that I don't enjoy as much) and at most months on end (Skyrim, Dark Souls, Armored Core). Eventually I'll realise that I'm not having as much fun as I normally do, at which point I go into denial and play it mechanically for a few more weeks, and during this time a niggling suspicion grows in the form of remembering another game that I would like to play, until I go off the game I'm playing in favour of indie games, Photoshop, or real life until I get the game I was thinking of for a reasonable price ('Stralya). Armored Core is really the only large game I've come back to.

But no, they're about the same as they always were, about a few weeks at most.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I might go a week or so but not a month.
There was a period of a few years where I was gaming very little (an occasional game for the pc) but I was in college at the time. I skipped a generation of consoles or two: never got a ps1 or n64.