How do you structure your gaming sessions?

[Stedde]

I love to get some time in each day. For me it's a nice way to wind down after a full day of working and doing family stuff.
Then during the weekend I sometimes get a longer gaming session in. This year I am a lot more structure since I am on the journey to become Top 100 on PSNProfile for my country.

What strikes now, is that I have a harder time to sit and play hour after hour. Before that was not an issue. I could sit and play for hours with no rest.
Now I feel I lose a little bit of focus and the excitement slowly runs out. But a break for 30 min or so, then I feel the energy and want to continue. Maybe it's an age thing.

Anybody feel the same?
How do you structure your gaming sessions?

[Lava_Yuki]

I'm not sure if it's an age thing but I too used to play waaaay more video games as a kid for sure, because I was so addicted to Pokemon and would put literally hundereds of hours into those games. I also played FFX-2 11 times over when I was 12. When I a teenager and uni student, I gamed less than as a kid but still more than now, as I simply had more free time. I went to med school where there was lots of study and traveling, so I used to game maybe an hour here and there on just weekends. 

 

Now as a working adult, I live alone (no family or kids, I live in a different country to my parents and brother so no family stuff as such) and have all my spare time to myself, but my work takes up a significant portion of my day, then I go to the gym afterwards. So I usually manage about 1-2 hours on weekdays and 3-4 hours on weekends, sometimes more where I split the sessions like 3 hours in the evening and another 1-2 hours before bed. 

 

I am still able to game for a few hours, although I am used to getting stuck into things for hours, be it drawing, gaming, working etc. which is a habit I have had since childhood

[BlackSquirrell1]

I need gaming to come down and unwind.  I work crazy hours so if I get a chance to game, and it isn't daylight outside, I'll grab a few minutes, hours, to play a bit of MP.  Of course, if I'm not involved in an event and I can get outside to do a bit of dirt bike riding or surfing, I'll escape and get some fresh air.  I guess I just take each day and see what the weather is like or what mood I'm in.

[StraightVege]

The second paragraph is certainly relatable. Thinking back to 15 years ago, I could handle 12-hour marathon sessions, while experiencing little in the way of fatigue. Presently, I can tolerate only 4-5 hour stretches before tiredness and boredom begin to set in, so I generally prefer short games now. Brief indies feel just right, but even the prospect of tackling massive RPGs and whatnot is daunting.

 

Can't say I have much structure to speak of, though. Whenever I have the time/energy and happen to be in the mood, I might pick up a controller, but those two conditions are often not met simultaneously.

[Stedde]

I think the quality of the game must be so much higher for me than before to really get stuck and play hour after hour without tiredness and boredom. But when you get hooked on a game it's a really nice feeling!

[Annoyingtiger888]

I think we all struggle with it as we get older, which is a shame but makes sense. For me, I have unlimited amount of time so I can play whenever I want. The problem is sticking to 1 thing. I'm not sure why, but I really struggle to focus on one thing for too long unless I'm SUPER into it, but that doesn't happen often. If I'm grinding for a trophy and just want to get it over with, I'll power through it while watching YouTube and taking a bunch of breaks to browse the forum or eat something. Mostly, though, I just jump between a handful of games, playing whichever sounds most fun in the moment and switching to a different one when I start to get tired of it. This is why tiger never finishes anything ?

[Sikutai]

18 minutes ago, Annoyingtiger888 said:

I think we all struggle with it as we get older, which is a shame but makes sense. For me, I have unlimited amount of time so I can play whenever I want. The problem is sticking to 1 thing. I'm not sure why, but I really struggle to focus on one thing for too long unless I'm SUPER into it, but that doesn't happen often. If I'm grinding for a trophy and just want to get it over with, I'll power through it while watching YouTube and taking a bunch of breaks to browse the forum or eat something. Mostly, though, I just jump between a handful of games, playing whichever sounds most fun in the moment and switching to a different one when I start to get tired of it. This is why tiger never finishes anything 

 

Your description of yourself also applies to me, including the unlimited amount of time for gaming.  I am exactly like you.

[Annoyingtiger888]

Just now, Sikutai said:

 

Your description of yourself also applies to me, including the unlimited amount of time for gaming.  I am exactly like you.

 

*gasp* MY EVIL TWIN!

 

Or maybe I'm the evil one ?

[Sikutai]

6 minutes ago, Annoyingtiger888 said:

 

*gasp* MY EVIL TWIN!

 

Or maybe I'm the evil one 

 

Since I consider myself the good guy in life, you must be the evil twin.

[visighost]

I’m with you as well - has me wondering if I’m suffering from late onset ADHD, but it probably is just a combination of factors that come with middle-age: more demanding work, family responsibilities, less energy. It takes a lot for a single game to keep me drawn in: an engaging story, no need to constantly use a guide (for missable collectibles, mostly), and a decent difficulty curve (too easy I’m bored, too hard I give up). I still game a decent amount (a little over lunch - working from home!) and a few hours in the evening, depending on family schedule. Typically boot 4-5 games in a day, I’d say.

[HardModeTrophies]

My sessions are rather patchy, I tend to suspend my game session every 45 minutes or so to go and do something else and subsequently come back a bit later

 

The only exception is if I'm really close to getting the platinum, then I tend to rush the last trophy down ASAP to be done with it 

[ollo99]

My typical game sessions are maybe an hour long. The nights that I don't work, I will typically game for multiple hours with breaks to do something else.

 

Adult gaming is rough sometimes. You have work, house duties, relationships and other hobbies of course. Work is the biggest thing in my way. I wish to be unemployed, and my parents paying for everything again. It's the easiest life to live. ?

[RoastedPeanut]

I go through phases where i can game for hours on end, day after day, but then I'll hit a patch where I just can't find the motivation to sit there playing something for more than 45 minutes at a time. 

 

I've got a lot of things going on in my life and family responsibilities, so when I do find the time to be able to sit down and play for awhile, I want to play something that I know I'll really enjoy. The problem is I haven't been very interested in a lot of the big hit games these past few years so I find myself playing familiar platformers or something I haven't completed from my backlog from 10 years ago. 

[Stedde]

5 hours ago, ollo99 said:

Adult gaming is rough sometimes. You have work, house duties, relationships and other hobbies of course. Work is the biggest thing in my way. I wish to be unemployed, and my parents paying for everything again. It's the easiest life to live.

Those were then days! ?

[Long-Ryde]

22 hours ago, Stedde said:

What strikes now, is that I have a harder time to sit and play hour after hour. Before that was not an issue. I could sit and play for hours with no rest.
Now I feel I lose a little bit of focus and the excitement slowly runs out. But a break for 30 min or so, then I feel the energy and want to continue. Maybe it's an age thing.

Anybody feel the same?
How do you structure your gaming sessions?

 

I am in the same mode as you. When I started trophy hunting at age 20, I was much more disciplined about which games I would play and could focus on one game over a period of time, with gaming sessions lasting hours in my free time. Now at age 26, I can lose myself in a game for a couple hours on a rare occasion; most of the time, my gaming sessions seem to be 20-40 minutes before I'm checking my timer or considering another game.

 

I work wayyyy more now than before, so I game much less, but it's always been my primary hobby so I try to make time for it, whether researching games to play, or playing games, or list-making after family/friends, pets, and life responsibilities.

 

10 hours ago, Stedde said:

I think the quality of the game must be so much higher for me than before to really get stuck and play hour after hour without tiredness and boredom. But when you get hooked on a game it's a really nice feeling!

 

Agreed. I've played a good # of games across the years (around 500 on PS) and the weird thing that happens with me is I feel like a lot of games are super similar. So I have less motivation to finish them off when I can sort of anticipate what I'm going to be doing. I get that way a lot with games that have collectibles, because I know I'll either have to follow a guide, which I hate, or spend extra time searching for collectibles, which I'm not too fond of doing, relative to before.

 

My gaming is all over the place because I love to expand my horizons as much as possible, but now I use the "leaving soon" category on PS+ as a jumping off point for what I'm going to be playing if I don't have a specific game from my backlog in mind.

[Umdytr]

Within my free time I play for as long as I feel like, and there are huge variations in how that goes each time. I might take a break after just 1 hour, or I might keep going for upwards of 5 without so much as thinking to grab a snack. Depends a lot on the type of game, but also how invested I happen to be in the moment to moment gameplay as well as my mood.

[ChiefMichigan]

On weekends, I tend to play more throughout the day (even if it's the same amount of time total). On weekdays, I tend to play late afternoon onward and tend to have longer sessions.

I juggle multiple games at once, whether I'm trophy hunting or not. I rarely play just one (or even two games) for a week straight. 

 

 

[DARKKRAKEN666]

On 23/01/2023 at 9:21 PM, Stedde said:

I love to get some time in each day. For me it's a nice way to wind down after a full day of working and doing family stuff.
Then during the weekend I sometimes get a longer gaming session in. This year I am a lot more structure since I am on the journey to become Top 100 on PSNProfile for my country.

What strikes now, is that I have a harder time to sit and play hour after hour. Before that was not an issue. I could sit and play for hours with no rest.
Now I feel I lose a little bit of focus and the excitement slowly runs out. But a break for 30 min or so, then I feel the energy and want to continue. Maybe it's an age thing.

Anybody feel the same?
How do you structure your gaming sessions?

Good luck with your goal, it does seem a bit unattainable at your current pace though.

[Stedde]

21 hours ago, DARKKRAKEN666 said:

Good luck with your goal, it does seem a bit unattainable at your current pace though.

Thanks!
I am in no rush, but it will probably take a couple of years. 
Current estimate is around 2028! ?

But I have started strong this year,God Of War: Ragnarök Platinum is soon collected making it my third Platinum this year and January has not finished yet! 

I see some comments about how you play, for example do you play 1 game until you get 100% before you "allow" yourself to start a new one?
Or are you more all over the place? 

Personal this year I will aim for 100% before going to the next one. Might allow myself to have 2 games running in parallel.