The hours I dump into games varies wildly. Certain games, mainly Splatoon 2/3, Final Fantasy 14, Factorio, Satisfactory, and anything with a level editor I’ll happily dump hundreds of hours into. According to Steam, the game I dumped the most hours into as of this post is Distance, with the majority of that being spent in its level editor.

However many it takes to beat them. I typically don’t replay games, and I don’t play into those insane multiplayer games that require hundreds if not thousands of hours. I beat one, I move on. The only exceptions are NHL and MLB, I play those on Friday nights with some beers to decompress from the week so I have a disproportionate amount of hours in those, but I also don’t buy new ones every year; maybe every 4-5 years. I really bounce off of games that are too long or too big, though. No game needs to be 100 hours long. The last time I did one of those was Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and that’s the last time I’ll ever do that.

I tend to prefer indie games, cult classic series like armored core, and a few big mainstream titles like Mario kart and breath of the wild. How much time I put into games depends not on what “kind” of gamer I am so much as whether I need more out of it. I’ve only played Undertale twice through, but it had a big impact on me and at the end I had enough to take with me. If I feel like I’ve lost those impressions I might go back to that well after a long while. Right now I’m going back to a few of my old PS2 games to see if there’s more for me to draw from them. They’re like old books you reread with new eyes.

On the other hand I’ve put hundreds of hours into darkest dungeon and slay the spire, and I’ll probably continue until I’ve gotten to a point where I feel like I’ve overcome my limitations in a meaningful way. Those games are about dynamic challenges and perseverance at any cost, which resonates with me on a deeper level.

Games are art, or should try to be, and how long you spend with them depends on your relationship with them.

When did people start tracking how many hours they play? I used to play games for hours a day. I loved getting lost in them, but I never kept track of hour many hours I spent. Now I’m a dad with a full time job, so I only get to play a little bit every once in a while. But when i get an hour to play I really enjoy it a lot!

I’ve been playing Runescape since grade school. I’m approaching a bit shy of 25,000 hours played (a little under 3 years). As an AFK’able “second monitor game” a good half of that is just “I’m at my computer anyway” but the other half is actual investment/more active playing.

I don’t bother playing a game if I’m not going to invest a significant amount of time into it. I aim for 100% completion or reaching the top 0.1% of players if there is a competitive ranking system. It’s extremely rare for me to play a game that I don’t dump a minimum of 500 hours into.

My play time is less now than it was when I was a teen but it’s still skewed towards the higher end due to me being fortunate enough to work from home with a FIFO queue of work. If my work is done - I can game during work hours if I want to. As long as I keep close tabs on my queue and handle anything as it comes in. This gives me 8~ hours of potential game time that I otherwise wouldn’t have. Since I need to be near my computer in case any work comes in - I’m pretty limited with activities I can do. I can lift some weights, browse the internet, cook a quick meal, or play video games. But I can’t really leave the house, go swim in the pool, etc.

Definitely more time in less games. It makes me seem like I don’t like them but I get burned out yknow

My girlfriend hates video games other than Stardew Valley. She freaked out when she realized she put 100 hours into Stardew. Sweet summer child.

Objective numbers: Steam tells me my most player game is Tabletop Simulator, but that one doesn’t really count since it’s lots of different games. My second most played game is still Destiny 2 at 285 hours, despite the fact that I stopped playing years ago. My most played non-steam game – also my most played game by quite a large margin – is Final Fantasy XIV, at 990 hours.

My favorite game I’ve played so far this year has been Citizen Sleeper, and that took me around 13¼ hours. Pentiment is probably my second favorite of the year, and that one took like 16¾ hours. I’ve done one playthrough of Disco Elysium and at 33¾ hours that one was starting to feel a bit long. Webbed was a really fun experience that felt nice and bite sized, and that one got 7½ hours. The most memorable game I played last year was probably Before Your Eyes, and that game is about two hours long!

Subjective thoughts and feelings: These days I much prefer games that keep themselves contained. I’ve got one big game I’m investing a lot of time in (FFXIV), but that’s over the course of years and also a game played with friends, which I feel changes the dynamic. For solo games I look for things that tell a compelling story or offer a compelling gameplay experience, and don’t feel the need to pad out gameplay to 200 hours (so most AAAs are kinda out for me these days).

I’m just busier these days than I used to be. Most nights when I get home from the lab I’ve got 4, maybe 5 hours free if I have leftovers and don’t need to cook, there are no chores, I don’t need to go grocery shopping, etc. Some nights I’ll want to use those hours playing FFXIV with my friends. Some nights I’ll want to work on other hobbies. Some nights I’ll just be tired and want to lay down to read or watch someone else play some games on YouTube.

So even though a game like Disco Elysium only took a bit under 34 hours to finish, that was spread over like a week of evenings dedicated only to playing that game. I will admit to having lost sleep for Citizen Sleeper (ironically); I beat that one in about 2 days despite the length, because it was compelling enough to really not want to put it down. And Webbed I beat in its entirety in one long weekend day (plus coming back the next day to 100% it, something I almost never do anymore).

Judging from my Elder Scrolls Online experience, it takes me about 175-200 days played to burn out on something I’m really into. But nothing else has really come close to that since I quit about a year ago. I’ve been kind of bouncing from game to game, got a couple hundred hours into Guild Wars 2, a hundred hours or so each on Grim Dawn and Diablo 3, a little less than a hundred on Vermintide 2. Basically, when I find a game that scratches an itch, I will play it until I’ve squeezed every drop of content from the bottle. And it looks like I’ll give a new game about a hundred hours to hook me, if I can get past the first hour or so.

I kind of want to go back to ESO, but it’s 75% less fun for me without the subscription (the Craft Bag is BAE, and the DLCs are where I’d be spending my time), but I’m hesitating on the question of “Is it responsible of me to be spending $15/mo on a game I’ve already quit playing once?” And yet, nothing else has come close to hitting that mark for me. GW2 is really amazing, it’s got a lot of things I’d definitely miss if I went back to ESO, but… it’s not the same, somehow.

It really depends on the game, games like pokemon, ck3, ffxiv, wow, minecraft, and the elder scrolls, stardew valley, animal crossig etc I put a few hundred to 1000 hours in and I play them on and off throughout the year. Other games I play once and then maybe again in a few years if I liked it. It really depends. games I play for a long time need to be games I don’t feel bad for NOT playing for a long time.

But I am someone who always kinda has her own little story about the character I am playing while I play, so it’s always something new when I decide to make another playthrough. And which is why CK3 is the most dangerous timesink for me because you don’t just play one character

I like a variety of experiences so 20 hours seems about the sweet spot for me per game. Except for multiplayer games, which I can play on and off for years. I’m sure I’ve accumulated a combined couple thousand hours out of Counterstrike, TF2, and Halo over the years for instance.

It varies wildly. I’ve got about 2000 into Path of Exile, a couple hundred into fallout 4, 100 or so into each Souls game, but I had literal years of play time put into WoW before I quit playing in Wrath.

The most hours I’ve ever put into a game (that wasn’t WoW pre-Cata) is 99 (Persona 5). My brain just can’t (or won’t) comprehend playing something for x-hundred/thousand hours even if I really enjoy it.

I generally prefer games that are more open ended and that let me hang out in the world working on something. Games like Skyrim, Satisfactory, Reshaping Mars, ETS2 and ATS, for example. I will play longer games that are more on rails, like Rise of the Tomb Raider or Horizon Zero Dawn, but I’ll tire of them much quicker than others. Something about being forced to move on to the next thing too many times makes me nope out of it after a while. The other games I mentioned have progression and goals, but there isn’t really an off-switch and you’re not really pushed to complete them. A game on rails will end, and I get my enjoyment from being part of the world, really.

Other times, I like playing games where you can do a quick mission or something and call it a day. I’ll think I have a lot of hours in them, but I’ll usually be shocked by how few it really is. I’ve played what seems like a lot of Phasmophobia, just doing one or two solo runs and calling it good for a few days or a month or whatever. I have maybe 40 hours in that game. Another example is Deep Rock Galactic. I like them and will come back to them, but I normally only play them when I have an hour or two at most to put into them.

I’m a big fan of replayable games, esp things like Roguelikes. I usually have one “main” game at a time, and sink in about 100 hours or so until I feel like I’ve got the “meat” all eaten and transition to something new. Multiplayer games also serve a great role for me since they are naturally varied, and I’ll easily put 200-300 hours in my initial kick, and occasionally come back for shorter stints over time.

Occasionally, a game really grips me. I’ve got ~700 hours in RimWorld, I was depressed and unemployed and it kept me going. I’ve also got about that much in Binding of Isaac, IMO still the greatest Roguelike made and has metric tons of content. I also have like 800 in Stellaris, but that’s because I used to play it full time during my WFH call center job, I never play it on my own time haha