http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/08/ohio-teen-collapses-suffers-dehydration-after-4-day-xbox-marathon/

Always get unnerved a bit when I see these articles as it usually paints gamers in a bad light. I have gone 6 to 8hrs at times gaming straight with 2 maybe 3 bathroom breaks lasting 1min. However, i've never gone for a 24hr period of gaming, or more, and always got some sleep.

At what point do you consider it crossing the line from enthusiastic gaming to hard core obsessive gaming?

When it interferes with other things in your schedule that you should've prioritized higher.

This. It's not so much a certain number of hours, as it is the impact it has on your life outside of gaming. If other parts of your life begin to suffer, that is too much and an obsession.

I think binge gamers are probably looking to escape reality in some way, like some people turn to the bottle or drugs. There is more at play than just gaming too much.

And I wouldn't lump hardcoe gamers in with the binge gamers. hardcoe gamers are people with a certain attitude about games, often taking the form of nerd-rage and elitism. But I don't think hardcoe gamers have an unhealthy addiction or habit, just personality issues.

Casual gamers can be binge gamers. I believe I read an article about a woman spending vast sums of money and time in Farmville a while ago. So there ya go

That's nothing. I heard some dude murdered his friend because he sold his virtual sword in some MMORPG. In another case an infant died of neglect because his parents went for a huge gaming session to play a game which centered around raising a virtual kid.
Here's an article full of gaming obsessions gone horribly wrong; http://listverse.com/2010/11/07/top-10-cases-of-extreme-game-addiction/

Wait, wait, wait... that kid spent 4 days straight playing Modern Warfare 3?!

Christ, the game is not that good. Saying any more would... make me look like a very bad person.

I have done 24+ marathons. I did it with AD&D in high school, and with a couple of video games - but I still ate and took care of myself. There's nothing wrong with marathon gaming as long as you're not putting more important things on hold for the marathon sessions.

This kid though, he's got other problems if he's compulsively playing Modern Warfare 3 for 4 days straight.

I really don't think the game he plays is the issue.

Well if we're talking about this kind of situation, the above obviously applies.

However if you put it into a much wider scale (ie fandom) it becomes a lot more difficult to distinguish I think. There are certain people I've spoken to on the Bioware forums who take their love of Mass Effect/Dragon Age very very very far. I'm sure that's the case in most fandoms and, at the risk of being flamed, I think a lot of that is because it's got a higher percentage of female fans than other game series. And women, more than men in my experience, tend to get into every nook and cranny of a game's fandom. But it's all subjective. When does being a supporter of something, say a game, become obsessive? When you're playing in all your free time? When you start writing fanfiction about the game? When you follow every single voice actor on Twitter and tweet them regularly? When you use your annual leave from work to go to a single convention that showcases the game?

Or is it only when you do all of those things combined? I guess any one of those is probably considered fairly normal but when someone does all of it....it's more than a little obsessive.

I like this. I live in the middle of nowhere, time progresses so slow. I usually have more time on my hands than I can do with, so I spend more time gaming. Spending 8-12 hours a day gaming isn't a big deal for me, since I still have time for plenty other things. Some people in my family even have the nerve to outright insult me about this, which aggravates me to no end. One time my mother and my grandmother were talking about going camping and they said "I don't know if Oreo wants to come, he'll be far away from his video games! I don't know if he can handle that." I seriously wanted to slap both of them across the face. I'm more than willing to drop the controller and go out and do things, but alas, that rarely happens. Heck, I was gaming just a few days ago and I got an invitation to go to Algonquin Park, to which I gladly accepted.

That is why I support Ergin's statement.

Even though I game a lot, it's a very low priority for me. Hungry? Thirsty? I'm pausing the game and dealing with it. Friends asking me to go out with them? I'm going out. When I have nothing else to do I like to game, and I happen to have nothing to do quite often, so I game quite a lot. But when I do have something else to do (except schoolwork sometimes, you know how procrastination goes) then that always goes first.

It's fine to game a lot, you just have to be sensible with it. It's fine if you spend most of your free time on it, because it's called free time for a reason. Just don't prioritize it over everything else. Take care of yourself, keep in touch with friends, don't skip school.

I guess your folks have never heard of a gameboy

Yep this is me too. I don't think I've ever declined doing something else because I was gaming. Definitely not eating, drinking or sleeping though. Those are my favourite things!! Well....some of my favourite things.

Summer holiday was ending. It was the year 2009 and I was really into Warhawk. I'd become used to waking up at 3 PM and going to sleep around 4 AM. I had to do something to change it to fit the early 7 AM mornings. So I had a 36 hour long Warhawk maraton a week before the summer holiday would end.

I'm still alive! More people die from... Pretty much anything, than people who die because they played video games too long / too "seriously" (forgetting to eat?). This only gets a lot of media attention before... You know.. It's the bad video games we're talking about.

Same. This is also the reason I never really got into into MMOs. I don't want to have to decline invitations from my RL friends because I have an ingame appointment for doing a group raid or whatever.

For me, I played TONS of Civ3 ("Just one more turn. . . ") http://www.civanon.org/home.shtml never helped, I played Civ4 as much as I played Civ3.

I also remember that Baldur's Gate had a loading screen that was a reminder for players to eat, lol. It was like "Though you're characters do not need to eat, remember that you do." It was awesome

Yep. I don't understand how people with jobs and significant others have time for MMOs...

The only time I ever got into an MMO was when I was dating a guy who played it. And that was pretty much all we did. And that's why we broke up

I'm getting Guild Wars 2 but only because it doesn't have a subscription (so no pressure to come and get my monthly money's worth) and it looks like the activities are set up so they can be easily done with random people by just going there and doing them.

I've said it before but I'm not much of a gamer. I'll be an enthusiastic fan of a game and really love it but never play for hours on end. I can rack up at most 200 hours on a game like Fallout but over the period of maybe a year. The most I've spent playing a game would probably have been two hours straight. It seems like it'd be a fun experience to play for hours on end like that, at least once in my life but I never find the time.

Plus, gaming that long seems to be a "hardcoe only" thing. Mainly because the people who do it are the ones who have the headsets, microphones, custom controllers, and vibrating chairs to play their video games. I'm a PC gamer so I don't really do multiplayer much. I guess playing multiplayer is what really adds to the experience of playing a game.

I thought I was bad when I once played Guild Wars for 8 hours straight

YOLO!

He passed out playing Modern Warfare 3?

For FOUR DAYS?

How can you even play a game like that for four days straight. MMOs I understand, but an online shooter?

He would've had to be disconnected a least a hundred times during that time and still refused to eat or drink? That sounds impossible...

"Obsessed is a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated."

Is it worth dying for a game though?


Yes gnrfan you idiot

It's worth dying for your passion, whatever that may be.

Edit: safeguard this post from the guys who are gonna quote this post saying "Well what if my passion is stealing from orphans?" or some crap. Because we all know the CD types try to be wise asses.

I support this statement. Most matches last an upwards of 10 minutes at the most. The longest a match can go on is about 20 minutes tops from playing Search and Destroy and Sabotage. I've binged out on World at War and Modern Warfare 2 but my comrades and I would often take "intermissions" to void our bladders and get refreshments. You're eventually going to end up sitting in a pre-game lobby and go "hmm, I'm hungry." to which somebody should suggest they all stretch their legs.

I understand that some raids are probably long and very time consuming, and going AFK could get everyone killed(thus making your dedication to the dungeon pointless), but an online shooter? I fear for humanity.

If you're wondering why Fox News hates gamers, it's because Fox News hates everybody.