Gaming Exhaustion ~ When did this begin?

[Mozgus]

I'll be posting these kind of rants here and on the D-Toid blog, just to get the most opinions. Obviously, this place takes priority in terms of my attention. I figure if anyone doesn't like me going all copy/paste on this forum, I'll stop.

Does anyone remember those old warnings in our game manuals? I can't remember if they were the same as the seizure warnings, but they essentially advised that you take a 15 minute break every hour of gaming. Oh how I used to mock those...

When I was younger, I could have a marathon session of games every evening after school, and all throughout the weekends. I was never phased. I always felt fine.

In recent years however, I start feeling completely exhausted after 30-45 minutes. I'm finding that I can only rely on quick, pick-up-and-play titles now, which kind of sucks. I tend to experience a few symptoms, depending on the game.

Motion sickness. I never had this issue until the turn of this century, and now it seems like half of the first-person shooters give me this sensation. I also get it from many third-person games. I literally have to turn it off because I feel my stomach churning. I think it's connected to the field-of-vision for each game. Halo was the worst offender I've ever had. I wanted to puke after about 10 minutes. It was as if Master Chief was sticking he head out 3 feet in front of his torso.

Headaches. Usually right above the eyeballs. It does tend to be related to the brightness/contrast of the TV, but in order to prevent it, I often have to darken the picture so much that the game is more difficult.

Wrists hurt. This is extremely common with the PS2 Dual Shock, and less so with other controllers. I don't know what it is about these Sony pads, but they just kill me. The most comfortable controller I have ever had is Gamecube's. I never had any issues with that.

Attention span. I've found that if I actually am tackling an RPG, I'll only clearly remember the first half-hour of the story for that given session, and then the rest is just a blur when I continue days later.

Stiffness. And not in my pants. I really do have to take those breaks every hour or less, just to try to bend. I'll often stumble a bit, feeling dizzy, if it's over an hour. Sitting still for that long just doesn't work anymore. This might also be way I can't tolerate many movies. I tend to stop halfway and never come back.

Overall sleepiness. I've been a generally tired person since 7th grade, but games will knock me out like no other. Somewhere around the 90 minute mark, if I make it that far, I'm just dozing off. The only exception is if it's a high action FPS game, like TF2.

So did this just all come about from my relatively laid-back life? Now I'm only 22 years old, and I've had nothing but physical jobs off and on, but the results above are pretty consistent throughout those years. I'm 185lbs, 5'11", so I'm not some huge chunk of lard. I'm stronger than my friends, but not as agile.

Anyone else of my age or older, and feeling the same way? I'm not asking for advise. I'm just curious, and also mournful of the days long past when I could enjoy really long, encompassing games. How anyone plays World of Warcraft is so far beyond my comprehension.

[racketboy]

I get the motion sickness with PC FPSs all the time.
I stopped playing Half-Life because I just didn't feel motivated to play a game that made me feel cruddy the rest of the night.

Attention span has always been a big issue with me since my college years -- at least with Single-Player games.
That's why I like arcade games and DS games so much. They are great for quick gaming sessions.
Multiplayer games are a bit different as you have other real people to keep you going. But even then, sometimes, I'm asking other people if they want to play instead.

BTW, I think it's great that you post your blog stuff in here since I can't subscribe to a feed

[Adderall]

The attention span gets me... Like you guys, when I was younger I would spend hours and hours on the same game, day after day.. especially grinding RPGs and specifically FF Tactics.

If I could now, I think I could get back into it, but I just don't have the time anymore. Actually, Fire Emblem for Wii has been the first game to hold my interest for more than 20 minutes or so per session. I've been playing it about 1 - 2 hours a day. I haven't really noticed the sickness issues, and I'm in my late 20's. I don't prefer FPS games, so maybe I just don't play them enough to feel nauseous.

[Mozgus]

I get the motion sickness with PC FPSs all the time.
I stopped playing Half-Life because I just didn't feel motivated to play a game that made me feel cruddy the rest of the night.

That's sad. Valve games actually have no affect on me. Except for TF2 because it defaulted to field of view 75, but they quickly added the option to raise it to 90, and now I feel fine.

[racketboy]

I get the motion sickness with PC FPSs all the time.
I stopped playing Half-Life because I just didn't feel motivated to play a game that made me feel cruddy the rest of the night.

That's sad. Valve games actually have no affect on me. Except for TF2 because it defaulted to field of view 75, but they quickly added the option to raise it to 90, and now I feel fine.

Yeah -- I really wanted to get through the game.
I would actually be pretty into it for a while, but then I would start feeling funny and it would literally take me hours to recover.

[GagaMan]

Can't recall ever being exhasted after a game like that yet. I don't tend to play games for much longer than an hour at a time anyway, so maybe that's why.

[Droid party]

Wrists hurt. This is extremely common with the PS2 Dual Shock, and less so with other controllers. I don't know what it is about these Sony pads, but they just kill me. The most comfortable controller I have ever had is Gamecube's. I never had any issues with that.

I'm the opposite on that. The PS2 controller is probably the most comfortable controller I have ever used. On the other hand the GC controller is just too small for my hands and I start to get slight cramping occurring if I play for long periods of time. Not bad enough to cause enough discomfort to stop playing, but still annoying none the less.

I think it's cool your posting your destructiod blogs here. So please keep them coming.

[kinn]

I dont think I suffer from any of the above except for the attention span one. That and my memory seem to be really bad lately.

I also feel mentally tired after playing games. For example, I've been playing Assassins Creed and been loving it. But I just have to switch off sometimes to...recover/rest/take a breather...I dunno what.

Bah! I'll just put it down to me just getting older for now.

[All Hail The New Flesh]

I think the only problem I really have is just cramps in random areas in my body.

[baphomet_irl]

I get the motion sickness with PC FPSs all the time.
I stopped playing Half-Life because I just didn't feel motivated to play a game that made me feel cruddy the rest of the night.

That's sad. Valve games actually have no affect on me. Except for TF2 because it defaulted to field of view 75, but they quickly added the option to raise it to 90, and now I feel fine.

Yeah -- I really wanted to get through the game.
I would actually be pretty into it for a while, but then I would start feeling funny and it would literally take me hours to recover.

Have you tried Half Life: Source? - in my experience Quake1 or Quake 1.5 engined games would make me far more likely to get motion sickness than Source would.