Man, that is just crazy that someone can play that long in one session. I've had moments where I played for several hours at a time, but those were rare, and I would stop to eat, sleep and all the other necessities.

However, I can see this happening to others and being a really big problem for them. Luckily, now there is help available for people who fall into this problem. I feel it's something that could be harder to avoid even if people say something like"Oh, it won't happen to me." or "I'll make sure it doesn't happen"

Good article. I am actually running into issues with my two boys, one in particular. We have house rules of no games/internet M-F due to school. But, it is hard and the boys will literally choose games over any other activity.

I used to do that. But always managed to somehow keep my high grades up in school and some form of social interactions. Those peoples were gamers, true, but we still managed to hang out, and not play games, just doing the regular stuff.
Its wird how games can have totally different effect on different people.

I used to do that back in the Runescape days, but it was only during the weekends/holidays when I was like 13-15 so school wasn't intense.

Very smart idea. It's more common to see addictions for not only games, but technology as well. I'm glad the family managed to bring some light out of a rather dark situation

Back in High School I managed to be pretty aware of how much I needed to learn to find balance. Had a loooot of friends who were deep into WoW and would play every night, keeping themselves from healthy amounts of sleep and generally not doing homework or studying. Obviously education isn't the only metric of success, but they probably lost a few solid opportunities thanks to it, while I generally stuck to playing single-player console games exclusively on the weekends.

It's all about balance and moderation, as with everything. Too much of a good thing is always bad, and I tend to stay far away from games that force you to be deeply involved on a daily basis to have fun (MMOs, MOBAs, mobile games, multiplayer in general). Some people make the balance work with those games, but I'd rather not fight those urges and social pressure.

Good article. Luckily I have never got any gaming problems.

I'm quite sure that I won't ever get a gaming addiction like that. I can't play video games for longer than a few hours.

I think the longest play session I've had was like 10 hours but even that involved me stopping to eat,pee,etc. Then I would get right back to it. It was with Mass Effect 1 I think. I was doing a replay of it or something similar. I'll probably do the same with the newest Mass Effect. Already took my days off so I'm ready.

My longest ever was 24 hours when Shenmue II first came out. I have had a few long binges but never that long ever again. It's rare a game will do it to me. Shenmue II,Xenoblade,Dragon Age Origins,Xenoblade X and Zelda Botw have made me go on some long binges. What I normally do in game is play a couple hours and take a long long break in the day and come back for a little bit. After a long binge I always felt depressed. So something like Botw I banned myself for now until I finish some of the other recent games I bought.

But 16 hour gaming binges will prepare this teen to work double shifts at MacDonald's. Yes, I can be heartless at times.