How long is a good time to play video games?

Check the category that best matches your play style, this is our best estimate for how long it will take you to complete the game. You can also click on the games individually to really break down the stats.

Main Story (Required)

Main Story and Additional Quests/Medals/Unlockables

Completionist (100%)

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Use the accuracy guide so you know what times to trust.

Accuracy Guide

When concerned about gaming disorder or gaming addiction, most people wonder: “How many hours of video games is too much?” After all, people who enjoy gaming can spend a lot of time in front of a screen, passing hours upon hours engaged in virtual worlds. Is there a threshold for addiction, a time limit for harmless playing beyond which gaming is excessive? The answer to the question about how many hours of video games is too much might surprise you.

How Many Hours of Video Games is Too Much? It’s Debatable

Experts in the fields of physical health, mental health, child development, and psychology conduct ongoing studies of the impact of screen time (time spent using electronic devices, including video game devices). The results? Disagreement and debate. The most definitive answer is that there isn’t yet a clear recommendation for the maximum number of hours kids should spend playing video games and generally using “screens”.

The uncertainty is obvious in study results:

• San Diego State University psychology professor and researcher, Jean Twenge, maintains the safe limit for teens is one to two hours daily (Rossman, 2017)
• The American Academy of Pediatrics says the one- to two-hour limit is for young children age two to five and that older kids and teens have “consistent limits” but don’t define that numerically (Marachi, 2016)
• A study authored by Twenge and conducted by San Diego State University and Florida State University found that, in teens, more than five hours of video games is too much (Rossman, 2017)
• A 2010 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that many youths are playing for more than 50 hours a week, which far exceeds the five hours daily mark (Oskin, 2012)
• “Problem gamers” play video games between 80 and 100 hours per week; at more than double full-time employment or school, this is indisputably too much (King, 2010)

While there isn’t a consensus on how many hours of video games (and general screen time) is too much, the finding by Twenge and her colleagues that more than five hours per day is excessive seems reasonable. More than that interferes in the amount of sleep a child or teen gets per night, the amount of time spent doing homework, and the time available for activities involving movement (How to Help Your Child Addicted to Video Games).

No one can say definitively how much gaming is acceptable. Not only that, some researchers and psychologists argue that the amount of time spent on gaming is irrelevant, that “too much” isn’t a real issue.

How Many Hours of Video Games is Too Much? Does it Matter?

The amount of time spent gaming may not matter as much as whether video games are interfering in life. It’s not simply a matter of hours spent playing video games. The issue may be “when” rather than “how much.” When are kids playing games, and when does it become a problem? Once again, the answer isn’t set in stone.

Dr. Peter Gray (2012), a research professor at Boston College, explains that many people spend a lot of time pursuing hobbies and passions, but they’re not addicted to those passions. It’s the same for gaming. Someone can love video games, get much joy from them, play them for many hours every day, and not have a gaming disorder or video game addiction.

Researchers at Oxford University have taken this notion a step farther. After studying the issue of limiting video game time and general screen time, they concluded that there is no correlation, positive or negative, between digital or online activity and wellbeing. Limiting time spent playing games, therefore, might not be all that beneficial. In fact, they assert, “moderate screen-use above the recommended limits [undefined in the report] might actually be linked to slightly higher levels of children’s wellbeing.”

The true issue might not be the hours spent playing video games but how the play interferes in someone’s life. Gaming can have a negative impact on those engaged in the activity. Some negative effects of video gaming include:

• Poor school/work performance
• Relationship difficulties
• Social isolation
• Sleep deprivation
• Hopelessness
• Depression
• Suicidal thoughts
• Poor health (dehydration, lack of nutrition)
• Obesity
• Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) from prolonged sitting

These problems may indeed be caused by too much time playing video games, but the jury is still out on how many hours of video games is too much. One way to answer that question for yourself is to reflect on your own life and your own gaming.

Do you want to spend less time playing but find it hard to do? Do you notice problems in your life that are associated with gaming (Gaming Addiction Symptoms: How You Know You’re Addicted)? When you play, do you feel relaxed and happy, or do you feel tense and stressed?

Your answers will help you decide how much time playing video games is too much for you.

article references

APA Reference
Peterson, T. (2021, December 15). How Many Hours of Video Games Is too Much?, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2022, September 6 from https://www.healthyplace.com/addictions/gaming-disorder/how-many-hours-of-video-games-is-too-much

For video game enthusiasts who are on a tight schedule because of several commitments, they engage in daily, playing video games without the correct sense of time can turn out to be a tremendous waste of time. In other words, you might end up blowing many hours on a video game instead of spending that time doing something constructive. 

Of course, all work with no play makes Jack a dull boy, but the reverse is also true. For that reason, it is important to know the best time to grab your pads and play through to your thrilling adventures. Some games need at least half an hour for a round of play, while for games like free no download slots, five to ten minutes could be enough to quench your thirst before your next gaming session. 

The Best Time Depends on Some Factors

So, how can you successfully set up a time to catch up on your favourite games? Before you decide when is the best time to play, you have to take a couple of factors into consideration. They include:

Different people have different routines because of the different activities they engage in. Some people go to work in the morning others in the evening, while others go to work just about any time. So, it is important to note all your routines before deciding the best time for you to engage in video games. By looking at your schedule, you’ll at least know when you are free to get into that game you love playing. It can be dead in the night when everybody is asleep or during the weekends when you don’t have any work shifts to worry about. Better yet you can squeeze in some time during your tea and lunch breaks to spend a couple of minutes relishing some riveting action.

The next thing to take into account is the type of game you enjoy playing. Some players like to take on the single-player games, others enjoy playing multiplayer games like RPG (Role Player Games). Players who enjoy the company of friends will probably have to be more deliberate about setting their gaming time as they’ll have to wait for teammates to go online as well. Gamers who ride solo, on the other hand, can just get into action whenever they see fit. 

Let’s say, for instance, you are into RPG games where you play with your friends online, and you are located in England. In that case, 11 pm will be your best time to engage in RPG online games because most RPG players in America are also logged on at that same time. That way, finding a teammate in the random mode becomes easy. 

For Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs), however, the situation can get a bit complicated. MMOs tend to have peak times for gamers, especially on Thursday and Friday. But then, due to conflicting time zones, you’ll find that sleep time for one player is noontime for another. Additionally, if you are playing from the local server, you will also notice different age groups are logged on at different times.

For some gamers, it depends on what time of the year it is. Some players always enjoy games during winter times because it is always quiet, and there is very little to do because most people stay indoors. Other players get into gaming mode during the summers because all kinds of activities are going on, and most people are on vacation.

Why Are You Playing the Games?

The reason why you start playing video games also dictates how long you’ll stay in the game, and perhaps even the type of game that you will be playing. For example, if you are playing the game to socialize with friends through the multiplayer interfaces, then you are likely to spend more time in the game in the range of an hour plus. On the other hand, if you are just looking for a quick breather before moving on to something else, anything from 10 minutes to half an hour could be enough. 

Then there’s a different category of players, the pro gamers who do it competitively. For those players, bragging rights on the leaderboards are more important. Such players often spend several hours a day to sharpen their skills in the game so that they can then take part in competitive action. A lot of pro gamers have won millions of dollars in prize money after participating in global video game tournaments.

Sometimes, pro gamers double up as content creators in the sense that they stream their gaming activities in real-time through platforms such as Twitch or even via live channels on YouTube and Facebook. Pro gamers who double up as content creators also send hours in a day playing, to broadcast live to fans!

What about New Games?

The number of hours aside, let us look at the question of when to play a game, based on the date of the game release. In that case, if you choose to play a new game that’s fresh out of the oven, there is a possibility that you will be too early in the arena. Then, as a result, you are left dealing with bugs and glitches that will make your gameplay wonky! It is also possible to be too early to the arena, especially in online multiplayer games before most players embrace it. As a result, you could end up playing against or teaming up with bots that water down your experience at the end of the day. 

Thus, don’t dash to buy a new release on the first day. Wait around and listen if the developers are scheduling some changes before committing to the game. Better yet, just hang around and wait for a sale. It doesn’t normally take long, and as an added advantage, you will most probably start playing the game after at least one major update that’s already fixed errors, and better yet, there will be plenty of gamers online.

Old Is Gold, or Is It?

Even now, if you visit the discussion forums of any major online video game, you will see numerous threads whining about the latest changes, exenterating the newest release notes; longing for a long-gone era of when the game was just fine and didn’t need the new update in the first place. Those arguments stand head to head with other gamers appealing to the other developers to change the game in some other way. As it turns out, we the audience no longer only consume but also participates in the remodelling of the game.

But then again, if you join a game that’s too old, you also risk participating in a game that feels outdated and sluggish, and of course, you’ll also have a bot problem. Unless you are a collector, the experience of some older games will be eons behind what we’re already used to today. Playing video games in this era means making peace with yourself to the idea that you will seldom play a game at the best time. You will sometimes be too late or be too early, the only thing you can do is ride the wave as best as it comes.

Benefits of Playing Video Games

Spending some time with your console or on your PC or mobile device comes with plenty of benefits. For the average consumer, i.e. if you aren’t a pro gamer or content creator, you should participate in video games mindfully so that it doesn’t seize your attention from more important aspects of your life. According to research, taking part in some video game action at a rate of between 30 minutes and 1 hour every day comes with a range of benefits such as:

• Improving your memory
• Boosting your spatial visualization
• Gives you a better decision-making capacity
• Put you into a better mood because they help you relax and unwind
• Playing strategic games and challenges makes you better at problem-solving
• They can help with our social skills
• Fitness video games help us burn calories to stay healthy and active
• They help our brains grow as we continue learning during our gameplay

Parting Shot

Gone are the days when the average video gamer was thought to be a loner in a dark basement playing video games all day long. It’s a booming industry because of the many benefits that they come with, and of course, the joy that they bring in our lives. No matter your age, if you’ve never tried taking part in video games, then you should start today. The video game market today presents countless options that fit players of different tastes. And as you might have already deduced by now, there is no definitive time for playing your favourite video game. You can play at night, at noon, or any time of your liking, as long as you do it responsibly.