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[BossLackey]

I've never been busier in my life at the age of 34. But that doesn't stop me from making time for video games. If anything, I need them more than ever to give my mind and body a reprieve from my demanding job.

Problem is, games are SO fucking long and numerous. We all joke about backlogs, but it's true. It just continues to get bigger and bigger. I don't expect to make a dent in mine, but damn. I feel like I'm buying a new game before I've truly started the last one.

And that's entirely my fault, of course. But I see these large, narrative based games and I WANT to be a part of them. But when I start playing them, they can feel like a slog. I enjoy them in the moment, but it feels like I'm making barely any progress when I only have an hour here and there to commit to them.

I've come to a crossroads where I need to make the decision to just...cut out certain genres even though I don't want to. I recently got into JRPGs more than before. There's a LOT I love here. But they're too damn long and bloated.

We need more Resident Evil length games.

How do you manage video games as an adult? Or are we mostly in the same boat?

 

[Kilau]

 

[The Cockatrice]

Avoid women.

 

[GymWolf]

Get chronic insomnia, sleeping 8 hours a day is overrated anyway.

 

[Roman Empire]

You cut a few hours of your sleep schedule if possible. I barely have the energy to play for more than an hour a day. It's just how life works.

 

[64bitmodels]

easy infinite gaming time cheat

don't get a wife or have kids. ez gaming time 100% win.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Pretty easy to accomplish when you dont have a family or kids

 

[Danjin44]

How do you manage video games as an adult? Or are we mostly in the same boat?

I can enjoy long games, for me I just don’t have to finish it as fast as possible, it can take me months to finish one big game and I don’t mind that….what I like about single player games I can take my own pace when playing game.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

Get a Switch or Steam Deck.

 

[nowhat]

Stimulants and sleep deprivation.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I don’t buy games day one. I pick stuff up on deep sales, or even through cheap bundles that have stuff from my Steam wishlist.
No need to feel guilty for having a backlog, unless you’re dropping big money on games that you’re not finishing. Otherwise just play what you’re in the mood to play.

Personally I’ve been trying to get better with sticking to one game until it’s finished - with maybe a side game to slowly work on.

 

[Dynasty8]

Night time is usually "me" time. I have a couple to a few good hours where I can game or do whatever I want after 9pm.

As long as I get around 7 hours of sleep, I'm good.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

Still has no kids? Still has no kids.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

don't work

 

[saintjules]

OP, your comment sounds as if I wrote it funny enough haha. I share the same feelings.

I'm at the age of 40 and got a Condo last year. Work and paying on a mortgage/bills takes more time away from anything else. Any time left leaves me spending it on a little bit of TV and working on music production. It's quite hard to find the time to play these long games. Oh, there's a backlog alright. It goes far back into the mid PS3 cycle (insert oooof.gif). I don't think I'll go that far back to play those games sadly.

Horizon Forbidden West, GOW Ragnarok, FFXVI. These are just a few of a ton of games I start, but can't seem compelled to finish. Yet here I am on GAF daily reading about new games and getting ready to buy them without finishing the last game I touched. Hell, even my PSVR2 is in the box right now. I got 2 cats recently so have been a bit reluctant to play in front of them (might have to put them in the bedroom).

I definitely would like to start playing games that have shorter playtimes. Games like FFVII Rebirth and Spider-Man 2 however for example are ones that I will absolutely see through to the end without semi-retiring them. So it will have to be a balance as to what game you think will be a chore versus the ones with an enjoyable experience to play. Then the hours go by fast.

I love games like Yakuza because the story keeps me interested, but I may have to start thinking about bypassing a majority of the sidequests just to get through them quickly. I am now in the last chapter of Yakuza: Like a Dragon after 3 YEARS of playing it off and on. So yeah, I want to play the games that are advertised with long playtimes, but may have to find shortcuts. Specifically for a game like the Yakuza series. I also love the Legend of Heroes games, but they are the prime definition of long and what may be something to avoid. You'll never finish them all. I certainly don't find myself to do so.

So in short? Play games primarily that you have a high interest in. If you know they're long in length, try to avoid the bloated sidequests. I find those tend to make you go into a deeper hole which takes you away from the main plot of the game.

 

[MiguelItUp]

You find time for the things that you enjoy. If you're bad at making time, create a schedule for a bit, and then it will come naturally. I play a bit in the morning, and I play a bit in the evening. Sometimes right after work. On the weekends I play a little bit more. But I make sure to work around other priorities and responsibilities.

 

[Tareskog]

35 yrs here. I have a 3 year old, and one almost 1 year old kid. I work shift which include late evenings and night. Some weeks I don't have any time at all to game, which I've come to terms with. My priorities are my family and other hobbies such as working out and photography. But when I do game I have also realized that due to my time limit I no longer have time for never ending games such as Cities Skylines and massive RPGs as I did before. Instead I've turned back to the games I first started to play in the 90s; shooters and platformers. The ressurection of boomer shooters have truly been a blessing. I don't feel lost when I pick up the game two weeks later and they are perfect for short bursts.

I also use howlongtobeat and check out walkthroughs often to see how long games are and how far I am from beating them.

 

[BossLackey]

Stimulants and sleep deprivation.

You joke, but that's legitimately my life. I'm a massive night owl and it makes the 9-5 grind (or more like 9-7) so much harder. Dragging ass half the day. Pounding coffee. Then at like 9 PM I'm absolutely READY TO GOOOOOO. Always been that way. I hate it lol.

 

[JOEVIAL]

Similar situation OP. Here is what I have done that was worked for me the past few years:

• Refocus my priorities and determine what is worthwhile to me.
• Really ask myself "will I enjoy this? How much time do I have to invest in order for it to start being good?"
• Only play what I consider worthy of my time.
• Drop everything else. Sell it. Delete it. It's not worth my time.

As you can imagine, this has cut out a significant amount of games. I have sold probably 60% of my collection, a little over a hundred games. Many games are not worth putting the time into.

There is no time to "try" something, even if folks rate it highly and are talking about it.

Only play what you truly want to play.

Don't let others determine what you want to play.

 

[Roberts]

I game after wife and kids are asleep. For two, sometimes three hours almost every day (or watch a movie). Sleep for 4-5 hours. For the most of the day I'm totally fine, mind's sharp and all, but the fatigue kicks in around 7pm. Thankfully, I just lie down and have a 15 minute powernap that energises me for the rest of the day. It's probably not healthy at all, but I'm fine atm. I played Starfield for 130 hours and that took me a month which is crazy, but I also had less work in September so I could play during the day now and then.

 

[Soodanim]

I'm currently playing No Man's Sky on and off to chill out on the evenings when I have time and I fancy it. It's nice to play a game with no pressure or major time/skill requirement.

I have other games that are absolutely weekend games, because very rarely do I want to spend however long it takes getting into a new game with all of its tutorials and intros. Even if the weekend if for setting up so I can pick it up on a weekday, it still needs that initial time investment.

 

[_Ex_]

Play games late at night, after all your required adult responsibilities are finished for the day. If you usually drink and socialize or binge streaming shows late at night, you'll have to cut back on that, in order to play games. If you live with a significant other, they'll have to compromise and allow you to have YOU time at night. Don't be afraid to beat long games over a long period of time. I have beaten 100+ hour long games by playing 2 hours a night for 5-6 days a week... it just takes a while is all. Be sure you get at least 6 hours of sleep per night, or your body will breakdown and your mind will suffer. I try to get 7 myself.

 

[BossLackey]

Similar situation OP. Here is what I have done that was worked for me the past few years:

• Refocus my priorities and determine what is worthwhile to me.
• Really ask myself "will I enjoy this? How much time do I have to invest in order for it to start being good?"
• Only play what I consider worthy of my time.
• Drop everything else. Sell it. Delete it. It's not worth my time.

As you can imagine, this has cut out a significant amount of games. I have sold probably 60% of my collection, a little over a hundred games. Many games are not worth putting the time into.

There is no time to "try" something, even if folks rate it highly and are talking about it.

Only play what you truly want to play.

Don't let others determine what you want to play.

Good advice. I think I do just need to sit down, organize my thoughts on this, and eliminate games that are not 100% worth my time or are simply too long.

 

[Hohenheim]

For me it's all about those hours at night after the kid is asleep and responsibilities are done.Those hours go by so fast, and i'm probably losing out on some much needed sleep from time to time, but totally worth it! I've managed to finished 15 games so far this year, and i'm pretty satisfied with that. Having a portable PC as a companion piece to my desktop (rog ally in my case) helps a lot!

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Lately I have more time but when I was working 60-70 hours a week it was nearly impossible except for the one or two days off depending. Otherwise I would just shave an hour or three off of my sleep.

When it went down to 45 hrs a week or so it was much easier to find time.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Delete the gym, hit the lawyer, Facebook up. Wait... what were we even talking about!?

 

[BossLackey]

Play games late at night, after all your required adult responsibilities are finished for the day. If you usually drink and socialize or binge streaming shows late at night, you'll have to cut back on that, in order to play games. If you live with a significant other, they'll have to compromise and allow you to have YOU time at night. Don't be afraid to beat long games over a long period of time. I have beaten 100+ hour long games by playing 2 hours a night for 5-6 days a week... it just takes a while is all. Be sure you get at least 6 hours of sleep per night, or your body will breakdown and your mind will suffer. I try to get 7 myself.

I actually don't usually watch shows because of this. Though I do watch a LOT of movies.

In fact, I actually prefer games with close to no narrative because I can have a movie on monitor 2 while playing a game. Kind of feels like I'm optimizing my time a bit (though these are usually throwaway movies like Critters 2 or something that I don't have to pay much attention to lmao).

 

[lughnasadh123]

Game length is fine if people would stop pushing themselves to fit a set amount of games in per month/year. Seems they're more focused on knocking them out rather than just engaging with one that's fun.

 

[Morrie’s wig shop]

Avoid women.

This, any free time you have will be sucked away….. then when you do get a chance to play, your the bad guy.

I’m only kidding, no but really sometimes pussy trumps video games.

 

[shaddam]

Its helps to me that I have a lot of downtime in the office. I played most of my boomer shooters there. Now I am close to finishing halo2 (finished 1 last week) and I am planning to move to 3 etc. Back home I am playing the far cry games in order on PS5. I think it helps if you have a plan what to play and where. I bought some ps3 games recently and an sd card adapter, PS5 gamepad wireless adapter for my ps2. My backlog will never end.

 

[funking giblet]

It's not about making time, it's about having patience when you are older. Easy just to sit down and do nothing than game...

 

[BossLackey]

Game length is fine if people would stop pushing themselves to fit a set amount of games in per month/year. Seems they're more focused on knocking them out rather than just engaging with one that's fun.

My main problem isn't that I'm trying to finish x amount of games per year, it's that I have a very very wide variety of genres I'm interested in. So I'm constantly wanting to play 30 other games at any given time.

 

[SmokedMeat]

I get about 45 minutes to 1hr on weekdays (weekends I’ll get about 3.5hrs in).

It’s always at the end of the day before going to bed, which is when my wife and I have our own “me” times to do what we want. I never game during the daytime unless I’m sick.

I don’t watch movies really and only the occasional. TV shows. So there’s rarely any of that bogging me down.

 

[The Last Ninja]

Get a WFH coding job.
In sprint planning give an estimate of 4 hours to rewrite a function based on the new requirements.
Use ChatGPT and get it done in 30 min.
Enjoy your 3 hours and 30 minutes of gaming time.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Just depends on what you prioritize, as far as entertainment is concerned. I would rather spend evenings playing games for a few hours a night instead of watching tv programs or movies like most adults have done historically.

 

[Mossybrew]

I'm on the other side, where my kids are now adults, single so I don't have a wife pestering me with her emotional needs, and I can devote all the time I want after work and on weekends to gaming.

 

[Bernardougf]

I've never been busier in my life at the age of 34. But that doesn't stop me from making time for video games. If anything, I need them more than ever to give my mind and body a reprieve from my demanding job.

Problem is, games are SO fucking long and numerous. We all joke about backlogs, but it's true. It just continues to get bigger and bigger. I don't expect to make a dent in mine, but damn. I feel like I'm buying a new game before I've truly started the last one.

And that's entirely my fault, of course. But I see these large, narrative based games and I WANT to be a part of them. But when I start playing them, they can feel like a slog. I enjoy them in the moment, but it feels like I'm making barely any progress when I only have an hour here and there to commit to them.

I've come to a crossroads where I need to make the decision to just...cut out certain genres even though I don't want to. I recently got into JRPGs more than before. There's a LOT I love here. But they're too damn long and bloated.

We need more Resident Evil length games.

How do you manage video games as an adult? Or are we mostly in the same boat?

Same boat... and I have two kids and Im a single dad (thank god)... but you will learn with time to filter much more and choose the right games to invest your time. Your taste is probably going to start to change either.

 

[SJRB]

Spoiler: it does not.

 

[Beer Baelly]

It's tough man

 

[NecrosaroIII]

Play when you can. Don't have kids

 

[BossLackey]

Play when you can. Don't have kids

Kind of planning on not having kids. For a LOT of reasons.

 

[Shifty1897]

We're all in the same boat. I try to only play one game per system at a time and only move to the next game when I've beaten the current game. I miss some big releases because of that. I try to play 10 games a year but odds are I'll not get there this year.

 

[AV]

Here's how: https://howlongtobeat.com/

Look at the hot new shit and cross-reference it here. Beat more games.

Best short games I've played this year are Hi-Fi Rush, Dave the Diver and Pizza Tower.

 

[kiphalfton]

Spoiler: it does not.

Pretty much. Sitting all day is draining.

The time I was playing the most, I was working entirely remote. The time I saved from driving gave me a whole other hour, as well as recouping another hour on top of that for lunch. So two whole hours a day more.

Dirty scoundrels made me go back to the office full time though, and now I'm back to wasting 2 hours of my day towards driving and taking a mandatory lunch.

 

[BossLackey]

Here's how: https://howlongtobeat.com/

Look at the hot new shit and cross-reference it here. Beat more games.

Best short games I've played this year are Hi-Fi Rush, Dave the Diver and Pizza Tower.

Pizza Tower is on my list. Game looks amazing.

I use howlongtobeat religiously. Mostly out of curiosity, but it does seem it's going to shift to planning lol

 

[lughnasadh123]

My main problem isn't that I'm trying to finish x amount of games per year, it's that I have a very very wide variety of genres I'm interested in. So I'm constantly wanting to play 30 other games at any given time.

Yeah, I get it and it's hard when there's so many good things coming out not to try them all but it does go hand in hand. At least there's down years to help with it. It's just a mind space I try to avoid. All is good so long as the game is too. Eventually there'll be a time to get to the others or not.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

First, I argue about games online while working, more than I actually play them.

Second, I play games with my son and have fun introducing different things. He's played through a lot of the Legend of Zelda series as I watch. And some co-op games together.

Third, I play when my wife falls asleep, because I'm usually awake for another hour. For that, I have plenty of options: PS Remote play from the upstairs PS5 to the bedroom TV; Switch; and old-school games on one of my hacked devices like the 3DS (currently playing 90s DOS rpgs on it through dosbox).

 

[Killer8]

The older you get, the more that convenience factors into your play decisions.

I turn on auto-update on a lot of devices so that when I sit down to play i'm not greeted by an unexpected hour long download. I try to setup each platform so that it's all ready to go at a moments notice. I spent the last week for example not playing anything, but I used the time to build the ultimate custom PS3 with everything i'd ever want from the platform installed on a 1TB drive. Definitely invest in bigger hard drives for all your devices because the minuscule price for the capacity beats having to wait hours. Thinking and getting your setup just right will take so much moment to moment hassle out of gaming. Even something as basic as getting wiring perfect and making a charging station for controllers / handhelds will make gaming sessions go smoother.

On the subject of handhelds, embrace them fully. There is a reason why the Japanese have gone balls deep into them. If it's a smaller game that runs on the Switch, get it on the Switch because then you can pick up and play whenever. It's amazing for commuting. 20 minutes here and there adds up to the point where you can be finishing a game every couple of weeks. Might not sound a lot but that's over 20 games a year. I also recently got a cheap Miyoo Mini Plus emulation handheld that I throw into my bag and chip away at retro games when I get the chance. You could easily get away with playing it while shitting on company time.

I also have far less patience for bullshit than I used to. If a game isn't grabbing me in the first couple of hours or so, it gets dumped. Have an honest conversation with yourself: "can I really see myself returning to this?" I don't care if it's a Final Fantasy XIII situation where "it gets good after 20 hours bro!" - I won't gamble that time to find out, and so that's a critical enough flaw to drop the game. Similarly if there are any technical issues that are going to take more than a couple of hours to fix, the game gets refunded. I was a hardcore PC fanboy for the better part of a decade but that shit is the precise reason why I now play on console more.

There are also too many 20+ hour games now, so focus only on what you really want to play. Sit down one night and make a list of anything that interests you and stick to it. So much time is wasted otherwise on unstructured procrastinating to find what you want to play next. I'd also advise spending more time actually gaming and not doing what i've just done by making massive walls of text on Neogaf!

 

[AV]

Pizza Tower is on my list. Game looks amazing.

I use howlongtobeat religiously. Mostly out of curiosity, but it does seem it's going to shift to planning lol

It's a Warioland clone so good that it's arguably even better than those games, it's rad. It's also cracked out of its fucking skull insane. Enjoy whenever you get round to it!

 

[executor]

Less games and only the ones that you prefer… I also suggest not to use gp or psplus otherwise you’ll be overflown and risk not to enjoy games anymore. Few good games you love and that’s it.