Nice detailed breakdown down. Is there an app you can use to quantify this? I'd really like those stats accurately and I don't trust my math. I think mine might be a ways off to, averaging doesn't work. I was able to get 22 hours this week so far but only 15 last week so I feel my 2 hour a day average doesn't represent my gaming time very well. All I know is I'm up to 480 hours (give or take 10 hours) since Mid Febuary when I started Hardcore gaming again. Can you give me stats on that? 

This weekend I plan to fo nothing else but game and finish the games I have in rotation. I'm getting more hardcore as the year progresses. 

I wish.  Sad to say, I track tons of useless information by hand on columnar spreadsheet pads, then type them up for archives.  

Why would it be sad to say? Yeah, it's a bit anal but it's also super satisfying to compile and have that data. I have to be very careful cause I used to have OCD and tendencies from autism to get way too into the details, like listing and lining up every game I wanted to buy based on magazine previews or listing all the objectives I had to complete in a game (before trophies), feels like back then I spent more time compiling data than I did playing games but that said I'd like to get my data a little more accurate and parsed like yours. 

Do you account for time spent in games you haven't finished and how do you keep track of time? I'm eyeballing the clock roughly and round to the closest 15 minutes, for long games I'm rounding out to the hour mark currently but might start logging with a stop watch to the minute. Also, do you count demos, trials and betas as time played? I feel they should be left out for some reason I can't figure out. 

Nowadays I can buy every game I am interested on, but when I have free tiime, I spent it trying to choose the best game i can spend this time on, sometimes overthinking and ending without being able to choose, and just passing... Its really hard to have a normal life now (working, wife, social life) and to have time for gaming...

This year that hasn't been an issue.  I've only played 2 games this year on one platform.  Assassin's Creed Odyssey I started in January and finished up a few weeks ago.  Started Like A Dragon Infinite Wealth and only have about 11.5 hours in it.  I've never tried a demo, trial, or beta.  

The console I'm on was showing the hours/minutes for Odyssey and my save file on Like a Dragon also indicates the hours/minutes.  My games are also showing on True Achievements with the amount of time spent in them.  I've noticed that True Achievements tracks longer times than the console but I think the differences are for time spent in menus, looking at maps, dying and having to respawn and work your way back to where you were when your progress was last tracked being included.

Yeah, I'm on the "It fluctuates" spectrum as most probably do because the organization of our time does fluctuate with our work, other hobbies and such. I play tennis on the regular, so I kinda have to make a choice between discarding my gaming time for tennis but nonetheless. For example, the last two-three weeks I managed to play at about 15-25 hours each of them.

For example, I'm currently playing Second Story R remake and sinking some time in Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent(one of the best mobile game btb). Great time until we get to the busy holiday schedule too.

Funnily enough, I had for a couple of months almost all the time in the world to game and yet I chose most of the time to rot myself glued to YouTube instead.

Honestly, to people who gets into such a mood, it's tough but honestly, the best thing you can do is truly to just start something, whatever. The taste for gaming will come back as well with it

It depends, but I try to save one hour a day for it, give or take, unless it's something I really really like and was waiting to play.

This is of course complete bollocks. A laughably ignorant post. I am neither jaded nor depressed and definitely not making excuses (for what actually?). On the contrary, I am in a pretty good place right now. Like I said I barely have time regardless and though for me it has been on a downwards slope for years now, this might even be why I don’t feel the need to play a video game in the time I actually have. As such ‘gaming’ might definitely not be a “hobby for life”. We’ll see. People can be happy without playing video games you know. I might as well tell you that there is life outside of video games.

Besides, I didn’t even necessarily mean ‘degraded’ as you took it. I meant ‘degraded in my personal ranking of priorities’. So gaming used to be one of my main things to do with my free time, but now, there’s a whole bunch of other things, hobbies or otherwise, I’d rather be doing, and gaming has ‘degraded’ to a pretty low rank.

I didn't mean offence, I didn't realise you meant degraded as a personal matter in priorities and I might be going through a rough patch (who the hell isn't, the world is falling apart) but gaming is what's keeping me going the past few months. I also have other hobbies and things to take care of that take priority but if it wasn't for games right now and newly this website, I don't know how I'd face the day without having a gaming session to look forward to. And I've fell off mid-core/Hardcore gaming also, many times for extended periods, sometimes years but I always go back and like Guitar, I pick it up and fell right at home when I need it the most. It is a hobby for life, the same way playing an instrument is. You might not be playing the instrument nmright now but it doesn't take away that you can at any time, pick it up and get right back into it... if you have the time.  

I still try to aim for half an hour a day at least, yet most days I now skip gaming altogether. By the time I get time alone to enjoy a game it's usually too late (past 11pm) and I'm too tired to pay attention to a game. So I'll say I'm down to 2 hours a week.

It's different priorities I guess. I used to spend up to 13 hours on weekend days on GT Sport and similar on FS2020. Yet that 'golden age', basically a revival of my time with Everquest and WoW was on Covid lockdowns and back problems.

This was my last great and epic time sink

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/exploring-the-world-in-the-beechcraft-bonanza/266981

322 days, 323 legs (crossed the date line) 321,741 NM traveled with 7146 stops. Total flight time 2589:52 avg 124.2 knots.
243 countries, sovereign territories and island nations visited.

That averages to 8 hours a day, although not all attended. (Auto pilot and do something else for the ocean stretches) I moved my waking hours around according to which part of the world I was exploring (with real time and weather). Getting actual jet lag lol.

My GT Sport stats come to avg 3.26 hours per day. Boosted by months long home with a back injury where all I could do was online races to take my mind off the pain. (The avg is actually low balling it, not including time in menus and waiting for online races to start, all driving time)

However long gone are the days where I worked, came home, played Everquest from 7PM to 3AM and back to work again.

I hope to be able to make more time again in winter and after back to school. Kids back to bed at a more reasonable time, earlier dark, less work and activities outside. When it's nice out, I just don't feel like sitting inside and playing video games. Plus I have a pool to maintain, gardens, grass, love to go for a run, swim, cycling, reading a book in the sun. Gaming comes last in summer and often gets squeezed out.

It's fine, I'm in much better shape than in my 20s, can run 15K in a bit over an hour, swim a mile in my pool several time a week. Cleared out a new area along the river bank to plant more trees, removed a lot of non native (and other) invasive plants, removed dead/dying trees. (Got a bit over an acre of grounds to maintain) It's all more rewarding than Minecraft etc.

But I never get a game finished anymore, even though I play much shorter VR games nowadays. I can't even imagine starting a long RPG nowadays.