Losing Yourself (and Time) in the Game

[Kitty Reeves]

So, a lot of people discuss about spending too much time gaming or losing yourself while playing. I normally try to limit my time playing, but sometimes lose myself and spend way too long playing. Today I was playing Vindictus, and since there is an event going on, I spent of a lot of time farming and raiding. I was also helping out lower level guildies with their story quests, and hanging out with friends on a voip whilst playing. Between all of that, I lost myself in the game, and spent TEN HOURS playing. It honestly felt like 2 hours, maybe less.

Have you ever "lost time" in a game, or accidentally spent way longer playing then you meant too? How do you try to avoid having that happen?

 

[AndroidOS]

I try my best to limit my play times to around an hour/hour and a half unless I'm playing with friends (and even then, I'm usually the first person to leave). There have been occasions when I've completely lost myself in a game though - though I've never spent ten hours playing a game in one sitting though!

 

[Yuin]

I'm generally pretty good at managing my time and limiting myself so I don't play for an excessively long amount of time. But I've been playing Overwatch recently, and that game is a master of somehow stealing my time, I tell myself I'll just play a round or two and next thing I know 4 hours passed...

As for how to avoid it, I find theirs no easy way besides reminding yourself to look at the time often, make sure time passes at a normal speed.

On a slightly unrelated note, how is Vindictus activity wise, I remember playing it a bunch a long while ago, and I enjoyed it, was considering coming back to play a bit but was worried the game was dead.

 

[Sylar]

Ehh, if I'm playing it's usually on my day off so I'm actually trying to lose myself in the game haha. I'll play for 10 hours on purpose. When I'm in school though I have to limit it to an hour or two at a time. Though, sometimes if I don't have a lot of homework or something I will just sit down and play for 4 hours or something

 

[Casiox]

Well, that's the main objective of gaming, they were specially made for general ENTERTAINMENT, which means that you will forget about whatever may be happening outside so you can just focus on something in special, games were not made to make people rich not either to kill people or something like that, they were simply made for entertaining people and that's it, it's not the game's business if you stay awake until 4 AM playing it, it's not the game's fault if you end up blind after playing them, it's basically something that depends on the players or whoever play it or get involved with the game itself. People have to measure their own activities and take their responsibilities.
That's my opinion though.

 

[fcuco]

The only games that gave me this kind of trouble were online multi player ones, I remember pulling all-nighters playing Quake 3 all the time yet it was more about the community than the actual game, because when we were not playing we were wasting time in IRC. I remember realizing that I had to go to bed because I saw that the sun was actually rising.

This never happens to me now, partly because I barely play online multiplayer games anymore and because most single player games usually get my attention for less than an hour before I get bored.

 

[Steamroller]

Ahh yes, several times I lost my notion of time while playing something. Recently, I remember pretty well how much hours I poured into geneforge I without even get up off my seat, like 6 to 8 hours.

 

[Joel7050]

I've lost track of time in the multiplayer community of Minecraft. Spending hours chatting away and helping other players out. I've got a pretty good reputation on some servers and can't help staying online to talk to everyone who knows me well. It's a little unhealthy, but I tend to control thirst and the need to go to the bathroom just to chat a little longer before saying something like "brb"

 

[Arcticlands]

I lose my self in game and time every single day.

 

[anadrotowski]

A lot of times, I am pretty good at determining how much time has passed, but sometimes, the reality slips away too fast for me and then I'm not sure how much time has passed at all. It's crazy knowing that I could spend 12 hours on a game, and then not notice the time difference at all. It's really crazy.

 

[ValX]

Well I never actually limit myself since playing game is really useful to release stress, so I lose myself and my time like a lot, but not really that much because it's not everyday a game is interesting. When I'm suddenly interested to things in a game then I'd just play until I'm too tired or too bored to play anymore. But most of the times the games just don't feel like they want me to play them for hours, so I just don't.

 

[Gladdy]

I think we all had that happen to us more than once. I don't have that problem anymore since I've learned some self-control as I aged but when I was younger and all I saw was ''OMG, THAT AMAZING GAME'' I didn't realize how easily it was to get addicted.

I had one period when I was around 13-14 years old where I really got addicted to gaming. I would skip school and stay up all night. I didn't realize it until it was too late. Luckily, I had amazing friends that got me away from my computer and helped me break that addiction. It took a while because every time I'd stop playing for few hours it was ''games, games, games''.

Right now, if I'd play a game for a few hours straight, I'd most likely get bored of it and turn it off myself. I learned to mix gaming with other social activities. Perhaps this just came as part of my maturing process.

 

[littlestar]

A few years back, I found Sims 2 (with expansion packs) for $1.50 at a yard sale. That game was so easy to get lost in! I have no idea how people can manage multiple families in that game. I would set a simple goal for the family I was working on. Next thing I know, it's been an hour. In general, I feel like task based games really take up a lot of time.

 

[Makef0rt]

I pretty much always get lost in time when I play something I really like. Worst case scenarios were while I was at college. I used to play so much and ended up going to bed late and barely getting 2 or max 3 hours of sleep, sometimes no sleep at all

 

[kenoobie]

I remember the first time I played Civilization 3. I started in the morning and was so immersed in the game that I could not believe I was playing the game for over 8 hours. You might think that I learned my lesson then I played Civilization 4. So I pretty much blame the game rather than blame myself.

 

[arachnophobik]

There are games that I don't regret spending a lot of time in, like MMORPGs for example. This is mainly because I can make friends where I remain in contact with even after years of not playing the game. But as for the other games that I do regret spending time on, the way I try to avoid them is if it doesn't catch my attention in the first 30 minutes of playing it, then I automatically decide that the game is simply not for me.

 

[jelleh]

Yes, I have indeed lost myself in a game before. For example: I wanted to play for about an hour and I completely lost control and spent 3-4 hours. And that is not the worst time. Games are just slightly addicting and you need a lot of self control.

 

[Denis_P]

I lose a massive amount of time, or time just goes by incredibly quickly any time I play an online shooter. This is especially so if the matches are long and I don't take a look at the time in between loading screens.

I think it's just because that anytime I'm playing a shooter I'm so intensely focused on hunting down the other team, playing objectives, and watching my own back that having to do so many things that require intense focus just skews my perception of how much time is going by.

 

[BatmanWayne]

It happen to me everytime I play Grand theft Auto lol, every time I finish a mission I like to rob cars and get away from the police, and when I am too too bored I like to put the cheat codes and start killing inocent cops, the last time I did that I spend like 4 hours doing that stupid thing, it is very funny how the cops try to kill you but you erase them with all the codes, don't do that, it takes a lot of time ever lol.

 

[prasanna kumar]

I have experienced this, Initially when I was in high school, I loved the game " Vice city" and I still love it , but I used spend atleast 6 hours a day playing the game at a stretch, most of the times I would even skip my meals for the game. But then later I realized that i getting too much addicted to the game and no sooner i realized this I controlled my instincts for gaming.