Lost my video game stamina

[Ragnarohk]

How's your stamina when it comes to playing video games?

I remember being able to pull all nighters and binge play (WoW or other games). For the Cataclysm launch I played 24+ hours.

I'm now 26 years old and don't have the ability to play that much anymore.

After around 2 hours of playing a video game I start to feel strained, tired, and lose focus.

It doesn't seem to be because of prolonged use of electronics. I'm currently recieving 7 hours per day of online classes because of Corona, and don't have an issue with that.

All things considered, I find it somewhat good. It's pushing me away from games (and I personally find that healthy in my life).

Have you experience a loss (or gain) of stamina throught the years?

[Dakhath]

This happened to me several years back, I'm not sure I'd call it stamina but even games im hyped for I will only play for an hour or two before growing bored and doing something else. The only thing I can suggest is to find other hobbies that will enrich your life with the time you don't play games.

[XDurionX]

I'm 40 now. I don't want to be challenged in video games anymore. I want to be easily entertained. If a game frustrates me, i stop playing it.

[iosdeveloper]

you are ready for real drugs, son

[crewskater]

This comes and goes as you get older. There are times where I play 0 games for a few months and there are times where it's all I do.

[MrPaladinGuy]

I'm 36 and my reactions have slowed down, attention spam diminished, and overall interest vanished like a fart in the wind. Now I understand why people watch uploaders/streamers rather than actually playing a game.

[Tenjen]

Yeah i know the feeling. 32 now all nighters past 12 will WRECK me while before I was able to harcore raid in wow deep into the night and go to college the next day like nothing happened.

i also feel the strain and often pause to just surf or rest or chat. I get distracted easily too.

[ONCHEhap]

try to find games that challenge you heavily without requiring you to play for extreme amounts of time.

It may not work for you,but it worked for me.
Doom Eternal reignited my passion for gaming for example

[Djuntas]

I just cant play very demanding games, but have no real problem playing casual shit. 2-3 games of AOE2 is plenty for me these days, 27 Idk...it just what it is. My eye's also just tend to get annoyed playing these micro-heavy games.

[Daedius]

I've become pretty shit at FPS games, my reflexes just ain't there... I've pretty much veered towards RPGs and story driven games.

[Witchblade77]

I've been losing stamina for all kinds of things not limited to, but including video games since i hit my thirties and it hasn't been getting any better, so.. yep.

honestly at this point I cannot even manage to function properly in general if i miss out on full 8 hours of sleep per night. I tried pushing it a few times and ended up paying for it afterwards. it was NOT worth it, even for much more important things than video games. I still play. but casually and mostly solo so that I can walk away at a moments notice.

[endersblade]

I've been losing stamina for all kinds of things not limited to, but including video games since i hit my thirties and it hasn't been getting any better, so.. yep.

honestly at this point I cannot even manage to function properly in general if i miss out on full 8 hours of sleep per night. I tried pushing it a few times and ended up paying for it afterwards. it was NOT worth it, even for much more important things than video games. I still play. but casually and mostly solo so that I can walk away at a moments notice.

I'm 38 and I'm in the same boat. I mostly just watch YouTube or Netflix all day long now. I get an itch to play something, but in many situations by the time it's downloaded and installed, I just don't care anymore. Or I spend hours getting mods set up, and never play it. Or I do actually start playing it, get about an hour in, stop, and not touch the game again for weeks, if at all.

This carries over to the rest of life, like Witchblade says. I actually have paid my friends to come over and clean my apartment for me, because I lack the energy or motivation to do so. This is abnormal for me, I used to do a full clean of my apartment every Saturday and a once-over every Wednesday, as well as just generally keeping my place clean. The first time I had them over, they took out 20 pizza boxes going back as far as 6 months prior. Now, I do dispose of food and biodegradable stuff as often as I can, so it's not like I have literal filth all over the place, no moldy food or fungus or bad smells. Just piles of boxes, empty grocery bags, discarded amazon packaging, etc.

I also can barely get 3 hours of solid sleep every night. I spend about an hour in bed, get uncomfortable and/or brain one shut up which stresses me out, move to my computer chair for about 2 hours, then repeat the cycle until my alarm goes off. And now that I work from home, all of the above is even worse. I just don't have the energy to do anything but sit here and stare at my monitors all day long, with the occasional clicking to find the next video/movie to stare at for long periods of time.

[Mirishka]

2-3 hours tops for me anymore. I used to routinely game for 8-10 hours a day, but I just can't do that anymore.

[Super Kami Dende]

Greatly depends on the games these days. But it requires a game to be far more engaging than it used to 10 years ago to get me to binge it. I remember as a Teen basically finishing every game I owned to as close to 100% as I could, I didn't own a game that I hadn't finished.

As an Adult and working Fulltime, my Steam Library is full of Games I've never finished.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm 38 and I'm in the same boat. I mostly just watch YouTube or Netflix all day long now. I get an itch to play something, but in many situations by the time it's downloaded and installed, I just don't care anymore. Or I spend hours getting mods set up, and never play it. Or I do actually start playing it, get about an hour in, stop, and not touch the game again for weeks, if at all.

This carries over to the rest of life, like Witchblade says. I actually have paid my friends to come over and clean my apartment for me, because I lack the energy or motivation to do so. This is abnormal for me, I used to do a full clean of my apartment every Saturday and a once-over every Wednesday, as well as just generally keeping my place clean. The first time I had them over, they took out 20 pizza boxes going back as far as 6 months prior. Now, I do dispose of food and biodegradable stuff as often as I can, so it's not like I have literal filth all over the place, no moldy food or fungus or bad smells. Just piles of boxes, empty grocery bags, discarded amazon packaging, etc.

I also can barely get 3 hours of solid sleep every night. I spend about an hour in bed, get uncomfortable and/or brain one shut up which stresses me out, move to my computer chair for about 2 hours, then repeat the cycle until my alarm goes off. And now that I work from home, all of the above is even worse. I just don't have the energy to do anything but sit here and stare at my monitors all day long, with the occasional clicking to find the next video/movie to stare at for long periods of time.

Jesus, are you Me? Everything apart from the paying friends to clean for me is basically spot on.

[Video Games]

Im 28 and can still do 12 hours easy, even if i switch games in between. I did 8 14 hours in a row for persona 5 when that came out and i just finished nioh 2 after 55 hours

[Shinrael]

I'm 38 and I'm in the same boat. I mostly just watch YouTube or Netflix all day long now. I get an itch to play something, but in many situations by the time it's downloaded and installed, I just don't care anymore. Or I spend hours getting mods set up, and never play it. Or I do actually start playing it, get about an hour in, stop, and not touch the game again for weeks, if at all.

This carries over to the rest of life, like Witchblade says. I actually have paid my friends to come over and clean my apartment for me, because I lack the energy or motivation to do so. This is abnormal for me, I used to do a full clean of my apartment every Saturday and a once-over every Wednesday, as well as just generally keeping my place clean. The first time I had them over, they took out 20 pizza boxes going back as far as 6 months prior. Now, I do dispose of food and biodegradable stuff as often as I can, so it's not like I have literal filth all over the place, no moldy food or fungus or bad smells. Just piles of boxes, empty grocery bags, discarded amazon packaging, etc.

I also can barely get 3 hours of solid sleep every night. I spend about an hour in bed, get uncomfortable and/or brain one shut up which stresses me out, move to my computer chair for about 2 hours, then repeat the cycle until my alarm goes off. And now that I work from home, all of the above is even worse. I just don't have the energy to do anything but sit here and stare at my monitors all day long, with the occasional clicking to find the next video/movie to stare at for long periods of time.

Have you tried going to the mountain? Not a park. A mountain. A forest, with rocks, rivers, waterfalls, no humans, no buildings, no roads, just a path in the forest.

For some people it might sound crazy or too much effort but.. Games made me fall in love with nature. And every moment I spend in nature makes me excited about exploring games again. Now of course it is a different thing to actually sit down and play the game afterwards... you might still get bored/lose focus in an hour. But at the very least, it should help with motivation in life in general. I work from home too and have done my homework about the effects it can cause to the human body/brain. You need sunlight. You need movement. You need fresh air. You need green nature. It is just as important as eating healthy, sleeping properly and so on.

OT: My record for an all-nighter is 70 hours. I can probably still pull it off now, though it will be hard to find something interesting enough to keep me from falling asleep. And I will feel even more like a shit during those 70 hours than I used to before. I have noticed though that I care about sleeping a lot more than I used to in the past. Not that I cannot function, oh I can. People always gasp in awe when they see me going to bed after them and getting up hours before them without alarms and still being a volatile ball of energy. But what I noticed about a year ago was that I get extremely irritable when I haven't slept full 8 hours. I was probably like that before as well but I didn't have enough people I care about to actually help me notice (since it's not fun getting in fights over silly things with everyone around you...)

As to games... IDK, for me it has always been about the aesthetics - art, music, story, exploration. Gameplay has always been second and so far I cannot name a game which could be carried entirely by gameplay for me.

For the record I am 23 and still much younger than most posters here. I believe I too will "age" in some regards but I also believe that I will not "age" the same way/to the same extent in some other regards. I think the WAY you live your life and the WAY you look at games and other aspects of your life has a great effect on these things. If there is nothing in life that makes your spark light up, then I think it is time to rethink your entire life.

[apustus]

I'm 25 and did 40 hours of Island Expeditions between waking up and going back to sleep at the start of this patch.

[Witchblade77]

I'm 38 and I'm in the same boat. I mostly just watch YouTube or Netflix all day long now. I get an itch to play something, but in many situations by the time it's downloaded and installed, I just don't care anymore. Or I spend hours getting mods set up, and never play it. Or I do actually start playing it, get about an hour in, stop, and not touch the game again for weeks, if at all.

This carries over to the rest of life, like Witchblade says. I actually have paid my friends to come over and clean my apartment for me, because I lack the energy or motivation to do so. This is abnormal for me, I used to do a full clean of my apartment every Saturday and a once-over every Wednesday, as well as just generally keeping my place clean. The first time I had them over, they took out 20 pizza boxes going back as far as 6 months prior. Now, I do dispose of food and biodegradable stuff as often as I can, so it's not like I have literal filth all over the place, no moldy food or fungus or bad smells. Just piles of boxes, empty grocery bags, discarded amazon packaging, etc.

I also can barely get 3 hours of solid sleep every night. I spend about an hour in bed, get uncomfortable and/or brain one shut up which stresses me out, move to my computer chair for about 2 hours, then repeat the cycle until my alarm goes off. And now that I work from home, all of the above is even worse. I just don't have the energy to do anything but sit here and stare at my monitors all day long, with the occasional clicking to find the next video/movie to stare at for long periods of time.

ok, i have to admit, i'm not THAT bad O_O

I do still have motivation and some energy, just not nearly as much as i used to, so i have to budget my time with a lot more care, or I won't be able to finish anything. I still want to do all kinds of things, I just know now that i cannot just skip a few hours of sleep to fit more stuff in, so I have to prioritize better.

I HAVE to have my sleep. its non negotiable. gone are the days when cheap ikea mattress was perfectly sufficient, nowadays we have a tempurpedic that we got matched for with a fascinating mattress looking contraption with a bunch of sensors in it, registering various pressure points and crap like that. if i don't get enough sleep - my whole day is screwed. gaming or otherwise. I also cannot work out as much as I used to, so had to adjust for that as well. (it was harder to adjust for my SO, as i never pushed myself to exhaustion, but its practically his modus operandi for all things, except his body doesn't recover like it used to anymore).

that said, what you have sounds like depression to be honest. now, I 100% admit that this is armchair diagnosis and I could be wrong, but even with maturity and shifting interests, this degree of lack of motivation and energy for ANYTHING coupled with insomnia TBH, sounds a bit alarming. going outside for walks might help a bit. but I would still maybe see a therapist? or at the very least, try eating better food? cause your diet sounds like it could majorly contribute to you feeling so sluggish. (I mean, I used to just eat whatever when I was younger, but my body cannot handle it anymore, so maybe neither can yours?)

[Drusin]

I've been a gamer all my life, since getting a sega+sonic back in the 90s and playing all day (no memory card or save codes). I'll be 35 this year and my schedule is currently 10am-2am on Wow, 2/3am-9am sleep. I used to just sleep and play whenever I wanted but I feel like I can optimize "wow days" better if I stick to a schedule.

[Wildmoon]

It's the same for me. No game can make me pull all nighters anymore. I am not sure if it's me or the games. Also, my desire to be competitive and interact with other players in game has also lessened a lot. I basically quited Classic WoW after having a lot of fun levelling once I reached 60 and realized that I have to try to get into 40man raid to progress. Used to push myselft to become as good as possible in SC:BW and SC2 and played WoW quite a lot. Now, I am just dicking around in Hearthstone and singleplayer games like a scrub lol.