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WOF: How much time do you spend playing games?

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On October 30, 2010, 6:26 AM

Weekend Open Forum Microsoft recently revealed that over 25 million gamers spend more than 1 billion hours on Xbox Live each month playing games, watching videos, and listening to music.

Do the math and on average Xbox users are spending over 30 hours per month using the console. That's an impressive figure, though of course not all of that time is devoted to playing games, in fact I believe Microsoft is more interested in highlighting how its entertainment platform has grown beyond games and is being used more extensively to communicate with friends and play media.

But let's focus on the gaming side of things for a second. It's not hard to guess that if you visit TechSpot and are reading this, odds are you are a gamer, even if you don't have enough time in your hands at this very moment, you do play games on occasion.


In my case, depending on how busy I am, it can be weeks and I won't touch a single game, but then there are periods when I'll get pretty hooked up and will make time to dedicate to a worthwhile title. It's not often that you come across a WoW-class of addicting game -- I'm looking at you StarCraft II -- though for me it could be anything as long as it's really good, from first person shooters to real time strategy games, and when playing with friends, think Super Mario Wii, Rock Band or Pro Evolution Soccer.

Unfortunately I've had little time to spare recently, so I've been missing most of the latest titles and when playing something I've simply recurred to the games I've owned for a while. All in all, I've likely spent no more than 5 hours playing in the last month, though you could say I'm making time for when Crysis 2 and Duke Nukem Forever (*ouch) are released.

How about yourself? How much time do you usually dedicate to play games in your computer, console or even smartphone? Discuss.

User Comments: 168

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  1. You ever have that moment when at 8 pm you tell yourself you're going to shut Civ 5 off at 10 pm, and then its somehow midnight?

  2. I play PC games for 1hrs if I have enough time. By the way, the original post's picture, it looks like a cockpit for robot for me but I want to know what kind of the controller is it ( which locate on the right side that have 6 swithes).

  3. It is really hard for me to average this. Like at the moment I am constantly playing New Vegas on PC... however sometimes I get dry spells in my gaming where I am literally playing like 5 hours or less a week.

  4. Too many....

    In the past at least, now im guessing about 8 to 10 hours....

  5. Far too much...

    Average 10 - 12 hours a month.

  6. Right now... I'm in my 3rd week of unemployment. I'm pretty much playing games too much. I'm running out of gaming stamina but I've done 10 hours in a day pretty easily.

  7. Not as much as I've played before. Now roughly 10 hours / week - best case scenario. I'm pretty busy preparing the house for winter...hopefully after that I will catch up and enjoy the games I like.

  8. I'm still finishing up my undergrad, so the time I spend is heavily dependent on how much work I get. Some weeks I'll play an hour or two, other weeks will be several hours.

  9. Around 2 to 4 hours a week.

  10. Playing 1-2 hours a week. To busy with work and family

  11. id say around 15h a week

  12. 18 hours a week playing LoL mostly. Less now that schools getting busier

  13. Now-a-days I average about 2hrs a month. 2-3 years ago I would play 18+hrs a day. MMO grinding fest, can't say I miss those days. FFXI was my timesink and it sure was a huge timesink at that.

  14. Average 5 hrs a week, if I have time. I currently play TF2, LoL or HoN, + some RDR.

  15. anywhere between 1-10 hours...depending on how much free time i have..probably more for new releases i've waiting to play

  16. I play 1-2 hours a day, but this monday I begin working in a new job, so, this should probably affect the time is spend on games.

  17. About 40 hours a week. All while juggling a GF and Job. Busy busy.

  18. Hmm, well I would say about 10 hours a week. I have a girlfriend, and a job, so yeah, those two things keep me busy.

    But even if I was single and unemployed, I would probably still play the same. I like games, but if the games aren't that good (or don't have much replay value), I'm very likely to just delete them.

  19. Probably less than 9-10hrs a week on average. Not many games grab my attention...or hold it.

    At the moment the average is creeping up since I'm playing through the Narodnaya Solianka mod for STALKER:SHOC. The fact that it is so huge (includes all the maps from SHOC, CS and CoP as well as the Labyrinth, Dead City, ATP, Undiscovered Country, Forgotten Forest etc.), an additional two main storylines and around 200 additional quests (some very sophisticated and interdependant),....in addition to the not-fully completed translation, makes for a very challenging gaming experience that on many occasions requires backtracking to earlier savegames- which usually means extended gaming just to get back to the point where you started- albeit without the storyline lockouts from the previous run through.

  20. I tend to play for around 10 hours a week but depends as I usually only play online when my mates are on. Always good fun playing with people you know!

  21. Battlefield bad company 2 , love the gun dinamics very realistic , soothing a m24 7.62 ver sus 50 cal

    Very diferent rounds and in bfbc2 it show that , also bullet drop , and correction are the things that get me in bfbc2

  22. Maybe 2 hours on a good day. Depends how strick parents are.

  23. Guest said:

    Battlefield bad company 2 , love the gun dinamics very realistic , soothing a m24 7.62 ver sus 50 cal

    Very diferent rounds and in bfbc2 it show that , also bullet drop , and correction are the things that get me in bfbc2

    Agreed. What do you play it on?

  24. i cant account about 3 - 6 hours daily

  25. I play car racing games, but seldom (Shift, Colin McRae). In college, I maintained a Star Trek game for multiple users running on an hp mini computer.

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