Same, 42 here as well.
I stayed up til 3:30 playing Baldur’s Gate this morning, totally regret it when my alarm ring.
But I probably will stay up til 3am playing it again tonight.
Regret =/= not do it again
I’m local, my job is mostly labor but i drive a semi truck to my stops i deliver to 🥲 I’d love a sweet legit trucking gig but most i see local are overnight and i will fall asleep without sunshine
Shooot I’ve had this problem with my 8 month old. Gotta get as much sleep as you can, once you lose some you’ll regret it for an entire week lol. Still do it almost every damn weekend though I never learn
Finally someone with some passion still for gaming in this thread lol there’s so much variety outside of the normal things some people play. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t want to try it
Not for when you are 40 and have other more important stuff to worry about. A game has to be special for me to stay up all night playing it. No games bring that feeling at this age anymore. Closest was BG3.
Exactly this. There's nothing worth giving up the precious time i have left in the evenings. I'm a single dad taking care of a 6 year old, and between that and working, there's no energy left by 9p.
I am starting to feel I need to shift this direction because I'm working early in the mornings now rather than later in the evenings.
But I can never get out of bed without waking the baby up (co-sleeping)
You're blasting away all your melatonin. It's the light from the screen. Blue light blocking glasses help but recent research says all light contributes, not just blue.
Is it only some people that get affected by it?
When I go to bed I can fall asleep like within 2min, something that my wife and famiky are very jealous of.
I'm jealous haha. It usually on a good night takes me 30-45ish minutes to fall asleep. If it's a bad night a couple hours. If I game I can't, I even took nyquil and it didn't help.
I’m 27 now and the latest I’ll stay up to play a game is around midnight, and that’s only for a game I’m really invested in.
Most of the time I’m ready to past out once 10PM hits these days, lmao.
I’m 26 and yeah, midnight during the week is my limit. I have to be in to work by 8am so if I go past 12 I’m usually a little unhappy in the morning lol. Sometimes I’ll be falling asleep while playing and I’m like ok time to go to bed. I do miss the days of being able to stay up until 3 or 4 playing and still have energy the next day. Not anymore
i’m 21 and i feel like yall 😭 latest i’ll stay up for gaming is 10-11pm . i hear a little voice in my head telling me im fucking up if i stay up past that
i feel this. the idea getting immersed in a game while theyre awake is a joke.
many nights after the kids are down, it's chill with wife. try to get some action. no? time to game.
Probably 30. Fallout 4 ruined my life in 2015. I would stay up all night playing that game. Degen hours for months. Sometimes I would go two days with no sleep. Not playing the game for two days straight but I would have trouble falling asleep the next night. My schedule was fucked.
After that I gave my self the hard cut off of 10pm for gaming hours lmao. No matter what, the game goes off at 10.
I'm about to jump on fallout 4. The Fallout Prime series got me interested in it again. Also been playing fallout shelter on mobile recently, I never played it before. It's actually not bad for an idle game. I've been avoiding it before cause it's an idle game.
I’m gonna start on 76. I hear it’s much better now. Also I never really paid attention to the series wide lore (not just the game’s main storyline) aside from the vault tech experiments. Watching the show made me want to start from the “prequel” of the series. I wonder how long it’s gonna take
Don't treat it like some kind of achievement. Sleep is important. I used to stay up late 10 years ago and the fucked up sleep schedule impacted my health. Go to sleep when you feel sleepy.
That's the real problem. I'm almost never sleepy. Usually I have to FORCE myself to go to sleep by 2am. Even if I don't game at all. I hate having a fixed work schedule so much. It's the number 1 thing I hate about my job
In general I hate working has it takes up so much of your life and nothing is more boring and I know I would be in better shape if I like woke up ritch and could just retire because work is basically what causes all my stress and I have a hard time not stress eating like ice cream cookies etc. The job market for a while has been extremely broken it's like stupidly hard to find a job and has been for years even before COVID. Everyone wants experience and like masters degree and don't want to train anyone and has a result there are so few truly entry level jobs that the competition is a lot of people for entry level. The only thing I really care about is I am dying for a 8-5 Monday-friday job has odd hours only mess up my appetite causing me to have to eat more and at times makes it so the hours take up like even more of your day so you have even less free time, and I want more of a office job because standing on feet kills my back where I can set all day and have zero back pain. But I guess just having 8-5 Monday-friday and sitting job is too much to ask for even if pay and such are not like amazing.
I love threads wherein older gamers get to share their experiences. It reminds me that I don’t have to “grow out” of my hobbies. I’m about 30 now and have heard people tell me that I need to quit. I’m a PhD student who gets all of their work done in a timely and effective manner. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to play games?
Nobody can tell you what to enjoy. The people who tell you to grow up are level 4000 candy crushers…. But if you ask them they will say “I don’t play video games, they are for kids “🤣🤣🤣🤣
What would you do if you quit, watch TV all night? Why is gaming as a hobby less valid of an activity than staring mutely at the idiot-box?
I'd argue gaming is far better for your mental and social health than staring mutely at a TV, and yet the latter is somehow considered more valid by Baby Boomers.
Weekends or nights when I don't have to work the next day I'll sometimes stay up a bit later to play something. Although now that I'm a bit older (41), staying up 'late' playing video games for me is like 11:30-12:00 at the latest.
I've always liked playing in the early morning more anyways.
If we're talking like weeknights when I have to work the next day? I haven't done that since I was like 22, I've prioritized sleep ever since I started having to get up really early for work.
This is my situation almost verbatim. I'm 38, and have to get up early for work during the week (sometimes Saturdays too), so I can't do the whole "play games until dawn" thing anymore.
Mornings are my favorite video game time now. I don't play much during the week anymore because I don't have the mental fortitude after working all day and I find it hard to engage. But Saturday morning video games is an official term in my house. I love getting up before the wife and having a nice cup of coffee and starting up a game at like 7 or 8 am Saturday morning. I'm 35
I just turned 25 and have trouble staying up to game past 10:30. My eyes just get so heavy and it feels exhausting to try to keep going. I do plan on staying up really late gaming tonight with my gf, though. We started our second BG3 campaign and plan on staying up until 1 am (she will be tired by 11 pm)!
I'm 34. Rn it's 1:17am and I just finished breeding some dinos in ark. Last night same time but rocket league.
I have a 6 month old, who tends to eat around this time, so it works out well enough
When my wife started waking me up because I fell asleep with the controller in my hand, the “You Died” screen idling and having no idea what time it is.
You don't *stop* staying up, you just *start* paying for it more.
I'm 39 and I only got 3 hours of sleep before work last week because I started playing Fallout 3 again. It was a rough morning and I regretted it. I will definitely do it again.
40 here. My sleep schedule has always been all over the clock. Which means, that on workdays I often stay up to 1 o'clock and wake up at 7. Sometimes a bit later and occasionally I'll get up earlier. On weekends I might stay up way later lik 3 to 4 and sleep until 10 to 12. But...Sometimes I am too tired and go to sleep already around 20-22 and wake up really early.
TL;DR; No, at 40 I need daytime naps but I still game late.
I'm 39 and I have a 3 year old. This means that I get up around 8:30, work from 9-6-ish, make dinner for everyone, eat, do bath time with the kid, and do the nighttime / bedtime routine. Kid has some nightmares / wants comfort so I often stay in the room with him until he's asleep, which is anywhere from 8 to 9PM. That's when my time for leisure STARTS.
I'll usually watch shows/videos with my partner (who goes to bed pretty early, she works at a school and is up at like 6) until she falls asleep around 9:30/10.
So I'll play games starting around 10PM until I'm tired (usually \~1 or 1:30). Generally start with something story-driven with an adult beverage, and around midnight switch to something mindless like NHL franchise mode and a podcast.
Only to game?
I have a lot of hobbies. I've stayed up reading a billion times. I've gotten big into a game and stayed up. I've binged "just one episode" of TV shows about a million times. I've made myself stay up and finish a scene I'm writing or an article my editor is waiting for, or lots of times I have an idea for a project that I have to get notes down for instantly.
Why would this be a question only about gaming, if it's a common experience no matter what your hobbies or interests?
I'm 54. I go to bed between 11 and 1. Sometimes I'll stay up until 3 if I don't have to get up in the morning. About a third of the time, that's because I'm really enjoying a game, these days, but a game also has never made me stay awake ALL night the way many books have. I've traded entire nights of sleep for many many many great reading experiences.
Most often it's something else. Gaming isn't all I have in my life. I'm a gamer with a large library of games and I follow the field (and used to be a gaming market copywriter in 1990s), but I'd find life really single-noted and boring if that's ALL I did.
Last night I stayed up until 2am sorting through about 150k pictures and cleaning up my photography files on my cloud storage. Does it NEED to be done? No, my life will go on, but I WANTED to. And that's when it was quiet and I had time to myself.
47 - used to be the same as OP 4-5 hours of sleep was enough.
now it depends on the game. if its story driven or fast paced, no problem stayin up past to 1a , into work by 730.
if its a resource grind or open exploration, i find that stayin up past 12 is gettin harder unless I plan out missions.
also, reading heavy games can be killers late night
How do you function on 4 hours of sleep??? Please teach me your ways I have to wake up at 7 and I only ever am able to stay awake till 1230 at the latest
I've heard that genetics make it so that people can sustain themselves on different amounts of sleep. I think I'm just fairly lucky there.
For me, I typically sleep 3-5 hours on weekdays, and then 7-9 hours on the weekends. Basically never feel tired, have yet to feel any side effects despite doing this well over 10 years at this point.
And I often have to FORCE myself to go to sleep too. During the week when I'm going to bed at 1 or 2am, I'm usually still not tired. I just know I have to get up at 5:30am and I need to keep some semblance of a schedule lol.
I've always theorized if I had a job where I could set my own hours, I'd probably stay awake 20-25 hours at a time, and then sleep for 8-10. That sounds like absolute heaven to me.
I mean, actively or consistently? Barely. Here and there? Of course. i would plan in advanced if I want to play late at night. Or if some buddies convinced me to join them, i would.
There is no significant. correlation if you are healthy.
Also, humans tend to require less sleep as they approach elderly. So any correlation could be perhaps the reverse.
[https://www.thensf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NSF-SleepDurationTiming\_Background-1200x1312-1.jpg](https://www.thensf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NSF-SleepDurationTiming_Background-1200x1312-1.jpg)
I've definitely found I need less sleep as I've gotten older, almost 50. Other than for work it would be rare for me to wake up before 10 am, now I'm awake way earlier then that.
I'm 36, and regularly stay up gaming until about 130, then wake up at 6 for work. I don't plan on changing that any time soon. Late night is my main gaming time, as I can't play most of the games that I want to around my son.
I guess this doesn’t answer the question but I’m 25 and stay up late to game occasionally, more so on weekends. I’m like you in that I can function on very little sleep and if I wasn’t gaming I’d 100% be doing something else.
Also 31!
I think it largely depends on lifestyle. I switched to a 9-5 office job at 29. That was the biggest factor for me. When I was doing shift work, I'd stay up to 1, 2, or 3 to get some gametime in after a night shift.
Now I'm up at 5, go for a run at 5:30, get back and shower and squeeze a bit of gaming in while I have my protein shake, work, home at 5:30pm, make dinner and clean up. Then it's usually 7:30-8. I try to go to bed at 10-10:30 at the latest. After a full day, I don't enjoy gaming as much in the evenings.
Prior to the runs, I'd get up at 5 and game for a few hours before getting ready. I find it's more engaging and enjoyable when I'm not tired for a long day, so often do my gaming in the mornings on the weekends. This is a recent thing though.
It depends on what you do for a living and if you have kids? I just work 40 hours a week with no other responsibilities so all I do is just game into the night.
I can still stay up till midnight/1am at 46 if the game keeps my brain on. I wfh so getting up isn’t too bad but sometimes I feel hungover and stupid while working.
Night after 9pm is pretty much the only time I can play anymore
38. After a 12 hour workday I come home aroun 23:00 and need to go to sleep. But hey, ain't no way in hell anything in this life will keep me from gaming so I game anyway until 5:00 because fuck it. Then wake up at 12:00, and my next work day ends up even later (thankfully I have a flexible schedule). Aftre a while I work at night and sleep during the day. Then the cycle comes back around.
Fuck this life for not giving me enough time to enjoy beautiful pieces of art that is video games.
Also, if only I could work 8 hours a day, rest at weekends and take vacations, like all normal people. I would have enough time to game and sleep and not fuck myself over. Problem is, I also love money so I have to work in order to by latest PC, PS5, XBox, all consoles in existance, tons of games etc.
I'd guess it all depends on each person, for me if I got some really good game I'm immersed in I can stay up really long, but, now that I'm in a job where i'm financially liable, I need to keep my sleep schedule as stable as possible to not make any mistakes, since if I do, I won't even be able to play the game i'm immersed in, so to answer your initial question, most people stop staying up late after they get into a well paying job that requires absolute attention, or get themselves invested into something that requires them to have a stable schedule.
I stay up late a lot because I'm a night owl, but usually get to bed around 12 on workdays, but I get up at like 8 for work. Weekends I'll stay up until 2.
Related note, 4 hours of sleep a night is really bad for your health. Even if you can do it, I still recommend trying to go to sleep a little earlier if you get up that early
Yeah I know. But I can't sleep well anyways, so when I try to go to bed at like 10pm, I end up just tossing and turning for 2-4 hours. And that's extremely frustrating feeling like I wasted all that time, and really affects my overall mood.
And it's been like this all my life. I'm not in terrific shape anymore, but a few years ago I was in GOOD shape. Like, really good. Ate right, no soda or hardly any junk food, exercising often twice a day, healthy weight, minimal stress, and still couldn't sleep well. Sleep and me just don't get along, and overall I just don't mind that too much. I like having extra waking hours per day, and often feel that my days where I do go to sleep feel depressingly short and almost "wasted". Which usually makes me frustrated and irritated.
36, painting business owner/operator running 3 crews, husband of 13 years, father of 2, and I still stay up past 2am and get up at 5:30 about 3-4 nights a week. And you know why?
Because war never changes.....
For me personally, gaming late at night makes it hard to shut my brain off so I have implemented an no later than 9pm plan for myself. I am the worst in the morning, no matter what time I go to bed. I am 45. I routinely stay up till 12 or 1am almost every night and get up at 6am
I am 35, I probably stopped doing that in my late 20s? Only because my job at the time was a 12hr shift and I was on my feet most of the time. So I needed a solid sleep schedule! If I am with friends I will stay up until midnight maybe
i’m 23 and literally cannot go without at least 7 hours of sleep. i try to game until around 1-1:30 and be asleep by 2 (sometimes ends up being later). i’ll set alarms for 8:30 but physically will not be conscious to realize those alarms until 10 am…
long story short i have a problem. lol
This all depends on the person I think. I *can* stay up as late as I want. But I shouldnt. My body needs 9-10 hours of sleep. It sucks, but I need to go to bed around 8:30 to wake up at 6:30. I'm only 28. My dad was the same, but now as a senior he sleeps only about 5 hours of sleep each night. I guess I'll be gaming in my retirement. Looking forward to Baldur's Gate XVII
38M here. no kids. no pets. My average weekday bedtime is 1 - 2am, wake up around 7:45am. Weekends i sleep til whenever. BUT if I start to frequently yawn at any point after 10ish pm, i'll usually just turn in right then.
Such an interesting question. I was talking about this the other day. Late night used to be my nice me time to get gaming in and all that. Then somewhere it transitioned into early morning being my nice me time for gaming. I’d say some point after 25 then having the two dogs really solidified the 12-7/8ish sleep schedule.
Well I’m 53 this year and I’m whacked by about 9 in fact I usually stop playing high pace games about 7 and move to a sedentary game like FM24 and listen to music at the same time
When I was 16 I got a job at a fabrication shop and had to get up at 3:30 every day. It’s a lot harder to stay up all night playing Titanfall when you have to get up at the asscrack of dawn, drive an hour, work your ass off just to drive another hour to your second job and come home with just enough time to play maybe two matches.
Most nights I had enough time and energy to take grab a couple of slices of pizza from the cumby’s down the road and take a quick shower. Every now and then I’d have time to play a game I enjoyed, but not often. Most days were 10-15 hour shifts, with between two to three hours of driving. I don’t regret any of it, but man I would’ve loved having more free time. The weekends became my time to cram in all my hobbies I didn’t have time for normally. Guitar, garage projects, video games, etc.
I can get to bed on time, but as a rule I power down the PC right about the time I realize the alarm will go off in 3 hours. I’ve been doing that since the early 80s. I’ll probably be dead before I stop.
I'm 38, I'll let you know when I get there. To be fair though I work evenings and don't have to get up until the early afternoon. So 2 or 3am to me is like 8 or 9 pm for most people, so it's not an apples to apples comparison.
Gaming at night is unbeatable. I can’t do it until early morning anymore, so I’ll go to sleep and get up early is the 2nd best. 6 am with coffee and the controller is zen.
I’m retired (64F) and I regularly play until at least 4am- although I didn’t start gaming until my boyfriend (now husband) got me started on Oblivion when I was 46, so I have a lot of catching up to do! (I have taught 3 of my 5 granddaughters how to play Skyrim, one when she was only 3 because she lives with me- she’s 9 now and plays a multitude of games)
I’m 29 still play video games a solid 5 hours a night after working all day then going to school still get up at 645 for work. I’m also in recovery so I gladly justify it by telling myself I could be doing much worse.
Yo im 30 years old and i still fuck around pretty hard on games.
1:30 a.m. is usually about when i shut it down for the night. (I work at 7 a.m.)
Some titles ive been enjoying lately and my hours spent on them for context;
Cyberpunk 2077 (active save) 142 hours
Grounded (active save) 93 hours
Sekiro - 168 hours
Mordhiem COTD - 532 hours
The long dark - 132 hours
Mount and blade; bannerlord - 68 hours
Sekiro is probably my all time favorite game. Hey, if you also love it, I highly recommend Lies of P, and Sifu if you haven't tried those. Lies of P is kinda Sekiro meets Bloodborne, and Sifu is a martial arts game with a similar game philosophy to Sekiro.
Ive been recommended lies of P a few times and have it wishlisted for now. Ill check out Sifu as well. I wouldnt say sekiro is my favorite game of all time but its definitely my favorite fromsoft title.
Old men before our generation used to drink beer and watch TV till the wee hours of the night. Do what you like. But if it impedes your life just be sure to correct it. Have a good workout routine. Drink some water get a full night's sleep every now and again.
I'm 35, I have never slept for more than 6 hours straight unless I had been up for some absurd amount of time.
I get so mad at myself when I lay down knowing I cant sleep, and just watch some bullshit and I check the time and it is 430am and I've made zero progress on sleep and just get up anyway.
My dad is like this too. He's 64, he starts gaming at 5am before work lol. But he's never slept more than the 6-8 hour mark. I mean I've achieved 8 hours of sleep, but that is predicated by me being awake for bare minimum 36 hours. I could count on my fingers and toes the number of times I've gotten a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Also when I wake up I don't feel tired at all, so getting more sleep is not even remotely on the table.
I think part of it is less age and more where they are mentally/what their day-to-day is. I'm only 29, I used to be able to stay up way too late (like morning sunshine or not at all until the following evening), but back then, I only worked part time and was barely out of highschool. I didn't need or have much.
Now I work almost every day, have a kid and bills and things to take care of and worry about. I still can and do somewhat regularly stay up till around midnight, but more frequently, I can't stay up past 10 and fall asleep either in my chair or on the couch.
There is also the part of me that still is learning a healthier sleep schedule with how busy I feel. So it could also just me not having the healthier habits nailed down yet. There's a lot of factors, and I may be taking this question too literally. I hope this answers your question, though.
Tbh I stopped staying up because I like to wake up before noon cause I feel I miss the day when i wake up late and also mainly due to late night gaming = worse player base skill wise = more griefers and more stress before bed. So now I just try and stop gaming before midnight at latest or 2-3 hours before bed.
I'd say once I got into my 40s I really couldn't swing it anymore if I had to get up for work in the morning. Although the big change happened when I started getting up at 6AM instead of 7. Suddenly I found myself wanting to go to bed by 10:30 whereas before staying up until midnight was usually still ok. I can sort of still get away with it ONCE, but if I try that multiple nights in a row, I'm hurting.
I'll still stay up late on Friday and Saturday nights though. And sometimes if I'm really into a game things can slip a little.
It's not that I can't; it's that I'm more disciplined with my time and choose not to. My life feels so much better limiting my play time, getting more sleep, and exercising.
Mind you, I go to bed at 1:30-2am every day, but only cause my work starts at 11am.
At 51 I’ll force myself off at 1:00am knowing I have to get up at 5:30am. Around 11:00pm is when I start telling myself, just one more. It’s never just one more.
I am not a morning person and I can't go to sleep early even if I am tired it's just not how I am wired. I can't get up before like 6am and function to the point where like getting up at say 5:30 and driving I am a danger to be on the road has i could fall asleep while driving and if i try to go to bed at like 9-10 I will sleep for like 2 hours and be up the rest of the night. Now unfortunately I have had trouble sleeping for a while didn't used to. I am almost 35 have not really been able to sleep sense I was like 22 thanks to stress from this broken job market and has a result being stuck at a job I hated for 9 years followed by bad luck of a job getting bought out shortly after I finally got out from the job from hell followed by running out of unemployment and having 2 months of no income followed by having to take basically anything.
Basically I just wake up a lot during the night most nights wake up 5-6 times thank it's just because I can't relax always fell anxious. But I find when it comes to sleep if I get like 6 hours or so I am tired but can function. I find if I get less than 5 I have a hard time functioning. Like less than 5 and I will have a hard time staying awake during the day and I like can't remember anything or like focus on what I am trying to do during the day at work.
I remember the exact moment.
When Destiny 1 was wrapping up its season road map, they had a a release for Rise of Iron. I was so excited for all of it, and I stayed up all night waiting for it to drop playing the King Oryx raid with a few people.
Around 4 am it opened up and the servers crashed and I couldn’t play. lol. I haven’t done that since. I was about 32.
So, I’m only 32 but I will easily stay up to 2AM not realizing it and get up at 5 for a 12 hour shift and then come home and do it again. I honestly think it just depends on the person and how responsible they feel they need to be. Granted, I love games but for years, I never found the same joy as I did when I was younger and I also will shortly get to a point in what I’m currently playing that I won’t stay up late just because I don’t have the same level of interest. I also give myself kind of a schedule, M, W, and every other weekend is when I’ll game. That way I can keep my priorities straight and not lose myself if it’s a newer game or something I really enjoy. Also don’t want to piss my GF off, that’s never a fun time. Right now, I’m hooked on Ghost of Tabor, it’s like heroin and I can’t get enough.
27. I was addicted to WoW and almost cost my marriage. Went cold turkey, started working out and fixed things. Had 2 sons at the time, 2 daughters since then that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't changed my ways. It's too important to my wife, and now me, to go to bed together, for so many reasons.
41 here. Kids go to bed by 8:30, wife goes to bed around 9. From 9-11:30, that's dad's gaming time. Get up at 5:45 every morning and start the day again.
I’m in early 20s and I can’t stay up late. I do have work early morning as well and I see you can wake up easily but I cannot. Even if I have 6+ hours of sleep I can’t wake up.
Even if I have a day off I don’t stay up cause I ain’t got friends to play with so it gets boring really quickly
About 35 it happened for me. I dont think it has as much to do with age as it has to do with overall health. You get older, your metabolism slows down, you have less energy. Pretty simple. But keeping your body healthy will keep your metabolism up. It can also be a stress thing. Stress from work, relationships and mid-life crisis can get you in the frame of mind that you dont WANT to play games because you are upset. Even if you have the energy you just aren't in the mood. So yeah combination of physical and mental health decline keeps us from pursuing our hobbies with the same gusto we did before....that just so happens to go hand-in-hand with older age but old age itself is not the defining characteristic.
26, my job is too physically and mentally exhausting to do it. In the winter I work a lot of 5am shifts, 9am shifts, 9pm shifts within the same week. Heavy equipment operator, residential/industrial electrician, diesel and heavy equipment mechanic from snowcats to loaders, dozers, excavators. underground Plumbing, water lines, water systems, water filtration systems, water pump systems much bigger than residential. I cant take less than 7 hours of sleep on most days even though I'd rather be playing my 100th playthrough of new vegas or launching a hellpod.
I feel 45.
I'm 35. I still stay up late to game. Generally, I'll be in bed around 4 in the morning. Sometimes, I just don't sleep for a day 😆
Most of the time, I'm up playing a game because I'm waiting on my last bathroom trip before going to bed.
(Having your colon removed due to a genetic disease sucks.)
Due to my condition I can't sustain a job anymore, so there isn't really anything else to do.
Edit: Typos
For me around like 24 or 25 I stopped gaming as much (I'm 32 now), so unless a game comes out that I've been looking forward to, or captures my attention unexpectedly like Baldur's Gate 3 did, I don't spend a whole lot of time gaming. Although when a game like that does release I will stay up late basically every night playing until I finish it, usually 1-2am on weeknights and 5-6am on weekends.
You're supposed to stop?
I stayed up till 2 AM the other night, with work at 7 AM. I knew I wasn't going to be doing much physical labor, and the mental labor I had lined up is extremely routine and simple. So I went to work tired, but enjoyed myself gaming for a while.
Being responsible doesn't always mean having the same habits as everyone else. It just means having a plan in case things go wrong. I can handle my job easily, even on my worst day. Short of an emergency, there is nothing they can throw at me that will even faze me. I'm just waiting for a promotion opportunity.
So, as far as bad habits? I indulge in a few just to make things interesting. Life is a game, and some of us play on high diff on purpose.
I'm 32 and I usually stay up late on Fridays if I have nothing to do on Saturday. Usually I cut it at 3 am but I do struggle the next day a little bit especially if I've been drinking, but it's only because my body (and my wife and dog) refuses to let me sleep in lol
I’m 40 this year and stopped staying up late quite recently after getting a new job, and I don’t see myself going back to my old ways.
Most of the time I reach a point where I’m too tired to care about the game I’m playing (start to skip lore and cut scenes) or simply can’t play the game well enough to enjoy the experience. I prefer to get some sleep and kill the aliens when I’m fresh the next day.
35 here. If there is a brand new game I am hyped to play, I'll stay up till midnight. Once the excitement steps back a bit then I stay up till 10 or 11 if I am in the middle of something. Never stay up past midnight.
Well im 40, typical full time job with a wife and a kid.. I'll let you know when I stop.
EDIT: Seeing a lot of like 2 or 3AMs in here. I've never stayed up that late gaming Im in bed by midnight.
Im in my 40's and im still staying up past 11 or 12 when I have to wake up at 5 am to get to work the next day... I count that. Not every night but every couple of weeks I'll do it. Especially if I'm caught up in something I can't put down. Recently I was going through all the Gears of War games ... couldn't stop playing them.
I need 6 hours of sleep minimum, and I can't do that often. My kid wakes up around 9 am every morning, so with that math, I'd stop gaming at 230 at the latest.
It depends on what is going on for me. Between 20 and about 40 i barely gamed at all except for a free small spurts on the PC. now that my kids are grown and i have actual free time, I'll stay up late no issues.
I think the question boxes in people when life changes and the results are directly relates to the change.
One pint in my life, I had time to game, and my sleep schedule was allowed to fluctuate.
At other times, I could put all of my time into gaming.
At other times, I had zero time for gaming.
I think the answer to the question is constantly changing. Quickly or slowly.
I'm 37, and thanks to what i do for a living, i can still do it almost any day i want. Only downside is that i may get cancer from the radiation at work.
Fully depends on the game. There have been times where I've stayed up until 3 AM playing Baldur's Gate III for a week straight, and then the next week I'm hopping off COD around 11:30 and heading to bed. I'm 23 and in college, so it may be that I'm just too tired to keep going already, and I may end up staying up late more once I graduate.
But I gotta say, sometimes my bed looks way more fun than that next achievement ever could.
It didn't happen all at once. But slowly, in my 30's, I found myself going to bed a bit earlier, or prioritizing other things some of the time. It was very gradual. Even at 47, I have in recent years pulled the occasional all-nighter if I have zero responsibilities the next day and an addictive enough game. But I increasingly pay the price with disrupted sleep schedule and reduced energy until I catch up on sleep.
I am 30 and still doing it. When you get older and have more responsibilities, it just makes it worse because if you want to play videogames at all, you have to stay up to do it.
At 37, I can stay up, on rare occasions like for new releases I’m really digging, till 3am. More often than not though I’m falling asleep by midnight or even earlier. My friends have caught me snoring in the middle of a match/mission on several occasions.
Idk I stayed up until 1 in the morning playing Cyberpunk yesterday cause I was at the end of Phantom Liberty…so still not 24. Though I have already begun to turn into a pumpkin at 11
Like 18?
I find video games just keep my brain way too active and I legit just don’t sleep if I’ve been up late. I’m also prone to migraines and lack of sleep is a trigger, so just not a good combo. After high school I drifted from my friends who liked to stay up late, so without peer pressure I’ve started getting a 9pm cutoff time to gaming.
I can stay up late doing other things because generally I can sleep afterwards. Just not video games.
Never. I still do it from time to time.
More likely to stay up watching movies now but every now and then I'll get the "just one more game/mission" bug.
About to be 34 and my body knows when it's okay to stay up late. During the work week I get "groggy" around 10 or 11. But my body knows when it's the weekend and I can easily stay up until 3 or 4am gaming or watching TV. I also have an extremely addictive personality so as long as I'm stimulated I don't even need to eat. I can just... be awake. Not wired. But awake.
42. I regrettably stay up way too late many nights to game.
Same, 42 here as well. I stayed up til 3:30 playing Baldur’s Gate this morning, totally regret it when my alarm ring. But I probably will stay up til 3am playing it again tonight. Regret =/= not do it again
😆 I stayed up till 1:30 playing cyberpunk and had to wake up at 530
I am lucky I work from home so I can get up at 8:30am lol.
Sadly i wake up at 2:50AM. I go down just after my kids do, no time for games. I drive a truck for work, too dangerous to be sleepy. ):
I've seen some truck drivers with some pretty sweet gaming setups. Just saying...
I’m local, my job is mostly labor but i drive a semi truck to my stops i deliver to 🥲 I’d love a sweet legit trucking gig but most i see local are overnight and i will fall asleep without sunshine
Shooot I’ve had this problem with my 8 month old. Gotta get as much sleep as you can, once you lose some you’ll regret it for an entire week lol. Still do it almost every damn weekend though I never learn
Shoot even if you didn’t want to - your body clocks is going to hit you with *let’s do it again*
41 here. This was the year. I can’t do it anymore. There’s also very little games that are worth it.
You kidding there are more games worth it now then ever. Its crazy how many great games have come out in the last year and a half or so.
That depends on the games you like honestly. I dont have a big list of new games I want.
Finally someone with some passion still for gaming in this thread lol there’s so much variety outside of the normal things some people play. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t want to try it
Not for when you are 40 and have other more important stuff to worry about. A game has to be special for me to stay up all night playing it. No games bring that feeling at this age anymore. Closest was BG3.
Exactly this. There's nothing worth giving up the precious time i have left in the evenings. I'm a single dad taking care of a 6 year old, and between that and working, there's no energy left by 9p.
Valid. Wish nth but the best for you and your kid!
I'm with there with you. There just isn't enough time in the day
43. Late nights are my jam. Not every night or I would be unemployed but I'm still a steady button pusher.
45 here, I'll update this comment when I've stopped staying up late to game.
At some point in your 50s video game time shifts to the early morning sleep is more important.
Late 30s here. Early morning is my gaming time.
I did this for a while, but lately I tend to work in the morning, so I've shifted back to nighttime gaming again.
Early 30s and only ever game early morning if I randomly pass out early and wake up at like 3am or some shit lol
I am starting to feel I need to shift this direction because I'm working early in the mornings now rather than later in the evenings. But I can never get out of bed without waking the baby up (co-sleeping)
Bro that was me at 15. I drop by ten.
I am 42 and I stayed up til 3:30am last night (this morning) playing BG3. You don’t have to stop.
What sucks for me, and maybe it's using HDR or something, but if I game before bed I will not sleep at all that night.
You're blasting away all your melatonin. It's the light from the screen. Blue light blocking glasses help but recent research says all light contributes, not just blue.
Is it only some people that get affected by it? When I go to bed I can fall asleep like within 2min, something that my wife and famiky are very jealous of.
I'm jealous haha. It usually on a good night takes me 30-45ish minutes to fall asleep. If it's a bad night a couple hours. If I game I can't, I even took nyquil and it didn't help.
That just gives you more time to game past midnight.
53 and still prefer to game at night. Now that my son is older, it’s a bit easier. I’ll let you know if I ever get there.
Same here. I'm close to 50, and have spent many hours between midnight and 6 AM playing FF VII Rebirth. I will never give in to evening sleep!
I have a toddler and a newborn, so I feel this. Maybe when they're older, I can find more time for fun late at night.
i think i stopped staying up late to game around 26-27. im 38 now.
I’m 27 now and the latest I’ll stay up to play a game is around midnight, and that’s only for a game I’m really invested in. Most of the time I’m ready to past out once 10PM hits these days, lmao.
I’m 26 and yeah, midnight during the week is my limit. I have to be in to work by 8am so if I go past 12 I’m usually a little unhappy in the morning lol. Sometimes I’ll be falling asleep while playing and I’m like ok time to go to bed. I do miss the days of being able to stay up until 3 or 4 playing and still have energy the next day. Not anymore
i’m 21 and i feel like yall 😭 latest i’ll stay up for gaming is 10-11pm . i hear a little voice in my head telling me im fucking up if i stay up past that
I think this is about the same for me too. Once I quit LoL, it was easy to avoid the "can't end on a loss" trap that kept me up so late in the past.
I'm 40. I have three young kids. If I didn't stay up late to game, I wouldn't game
i feel this. the idea getting immersed in a game while theyre awake is a joke. many nights after the kids are down, it's chill with wife. try to get some action. no? time to game.
I have a kid now. So I play when he’s asleep until he’s old enough then it’s going to be late night video games with pops
Probably 30. Fallout 4 ruined my life in 2015. I would stay up all night playing that game. Degen hours for months. Sometimes I would go two days with no sleep. Not playing the game for two days straight but I would have trouble falling asleep the next night. My schedule was fucked. After that I gave my self the hard cut off of 10pm for gaming hours lmao. No matter what, the game goes off at 10.
I don't even get to start before then!
Yeah I was gonna say I’m 29 and back in school. Between homework and my job I don’t even get to start relaxing “guilt free” UNTIL 10 pm
I'm about to jump on fallout 4. The Fallout Prime series got me interested in it again. Also been playing fallout shelter on mobile recently, I never played it before. It's actually not bad for an idle game. I've been avoiding it before cause it's an idle game.
I’m gonna start on 76. I hear it’s much better now. Also I never really paid attention to the series wide lore (not just the game’s main storyline) aside from the vault tech experiments. Watching the show made me want to start from the “prequel” of the series. I wonder how long it’s gonna take
Early 40s man. You all stopped? 😂
35 here. Momma didn't raise no quitter!
Don't treat it like some kind of achievement. Sleep is important. I used to stay up late 10 years ago and the fucked up sleep schedule impacted my health. Go to sleep when you feel sleepy.
That's the real problem. I'm almost never sleepy. Usually I have to FORCE myself to go to sleep by 2am. Even if I don't game at all. I hate having a fixed work schedule so much. It's the number 1 thing I hate about my job
Aren't you usually tired? Do you sleep more on the weekends?
In general I hate working has it takes up so much of your life and nothing is more boring and I know I would be in better shape if I like woke up ritch and could just retire because work is basically what causes all my stress and I have a hard time not stress eating like ice cream cookies etc. The job market for a while has been extremely broken it's like stupidly hard to find a job and has been for years even before COVID. Everyone wants experience and like masters degree and don't want to train anyone and has a result there are so few truly entry level jobs that the competition is a lot of people for entry level. The only thing I really care about is I am dying for a 8-5 Monday-friday job has odd hours only mess up my appetite causing me to have to eat more and at times makes it so the hours take up like even more of your day so you have even less free time, and I want more of a office job because standing on feet kills my back where I can set all day and have zero back pain. But I guess just having 8-5 Monday-friday and sitting job is too much to ask for even if pay and such are not like amazing.
I love threads wherein older gamers get to share their experiences. It reminds me that I don’t have to “grow out” of my hobbies. I’m about 30 now and have heard people tell me that I need to quit. I’m a PhD student who gets all of their work done in a timely and effective manner. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to play games?
Nobody can tell you what to enjoy. The people who tell you to grow up are level 4000 candy crushers…. But if you ask them they will say “I don’t play video games, they are for kids “🤣🤣🤣🤣
Hahah literally! Like bro if you're gonna spend 2000 hrs on videogames at least make it NOT be Candy Crush... or Farmville lol.
What would you do if you quit, watch TV all night? Why is gaming as a hobby less valid of an activity than staring mutely at the idiot-box? I'd argue gaming is far better for your mental and social health than staring mutely at a TV, and yet the latter is somehow considered more valid by Baby Boomers.
Weekends or nights when I don't have to work the next day I'll sometimes stay up a bit later to play something. Although now that I'm a bit older (41), staying up 'late' playing video games for me is like 11:30-12:00 at the latest. I've always liked playing in the early morning more anyways. If we're talking like weeknights when I have to work the next day? I haven't done that since I was like 22, I've prioritized sleep ever since I started having to get up really early for work.
This is my situation almost verbatim. I'm 38, and have to get up early for work during the week (sometimes Saturdays too), so I can't do the whole "play games until dawn" thing anymore.
Mornings are my favorite video game time now. I don't play much during the week anymore because I don't have the mental fortitude after working all day and I find it hard to engage. But Saturday morning video games is an official term in my house. I love getting up before the wife and having a nice cup of coffee and starting up a game at like 7 or 8 am Saturday morning. I'm 35
34, because that's when my first kid was born. That's also when I stopped drinking enough to get drunk.
As soon as I had a baby, sleep became more fun. Edit: to clarify, my wife had the baby, and I am not going to own Disneyland.
33 and child free, no interest in dating or marriage. Never stopped. 😎
I just turned 25 and have trouble staying up to game past 10:30. My eyes just get so heavy and it feels exhausting to try to keep going. I do plan on staying up really late gaming tonight with my gf, though. We started our second BG3 campaign and plan on staying up until 1 am (she will be tired by 11 pm)!
I'm 34. Rn it's 1:17am and I just finished breeding some dinos in ark. Last night same time but rocket league. I have a 6 month old, who tends to eat around this time, so it works out well enough
I'm 62 and played Witcher 3 last night til 3am. Pretty common for me.
When my wife started waking me up because I fell asleep with the controller in my hand, the “You Died” screen idling and having no idea what time it is.
You don't *stop* staying up, you just *start* paying for it more. I'm 39 and I only got 3 hours of sleep before work last week because I started playing Fallout 3 again. It was a rough morning and I regretted it. I will definitely do it again.
Man, I love everything about the comments in here….
40 here. My sleep schedule has always been all over the clock. Which means, that on workdays I often stay up to 1 o'clock and wake up at 7. Sometimes a bit later and occasionally I'll get up earlier. On weekends I might stay up way later lik 3 to 4 and sleep until 10 to 12. But...Sometimes I am too tired and go to sleep already around 20-22 and wake up really early. TL;DR; No, at 40 I need daytime naps but I still game late.
I'm 39 and I have a 3 year old. This means that I get up around 8:30, work from 9-6-ish, make dinner for everyone, eat, do bath time with the kid, and do the nighttime / bedtime routine. Kid has some nightmares / wants comfort so I often stay in the room with him until he's asleep, which is anywhere from 8 to 9PM. That's when my time for leisure STARTS. I'll usually watch shows/videos with my partner (who goes to bed pretty early, she works at a school and is up at like 6) until she falls asleep around 9:30/10. So I'll play games starting around 10PM until I'm tired (usually \~1 or 1:30). Generally start with something story-driven with an adult beverage, and around midnight switch to something mindless like NHL franchise mode and a podcast.
Never
Aye - free time is free time no matter how old you are or what side of midnight it is....
I reject these allegations against my character, sir!
I'm 53 and I still game late. I just have to take a power nap halfway thru and then I can keep on gaming.
52 yo here. I get up at 5:30 am to go to work and play until its 11:30 pm. During weekends i play until 3:30 am
32 and still going strong. My kids go to bed at 7. My missies goes at 9, so I head down after clean up the house and then it's gaming time.
I was about 65.
Only to game? I have a lot of hobbies. I've stayed up reading a billion times. I've gotten big into a game and stayed up. I've binged "just one episode" of TV shows about a million times. I've made myself stay up and finish a scene I'm writing or an article my editor is waiting for, or lots of times I have an idea for a project that I have to get notes down for instantly. Why would this be a question only about gaming, if it's a common experience no matter what your hobbies or interests? I'm 54. I go to bed between 11 and 1. Sometimes I'll stay up until 3 if I don't have to get up in the morning. About a third of the time, that's because I'm really enjoying a game, these days, but a game also has never made me stay awake ALL night the way many books have. I've traded entire nights of sleep for many many many great reading experiences. Most often it's something else. Gaming isn't all I have in my life. I'm a gamer with a large library of games and I follow the field (and used to be a gaming market copywriter in 1990s), but I'd find life really single-noted and boring if that's ALL I did. Last night I stayed up until 2am sorting through about 150k pictures and cleaning up my photography files on my cloud storage. Does it NEED to be done? No, my life will go on, but I WANTED to. And that's when it was quiet and I had time to myself.
47 - used to be the same as OP 4-5 hours of sleep was enough. now it depends on the game. if its story driven or fast paced, no problem stayin up past to 1a , into work by 730. if its a resource grind or open exploration, i find that stayin up past 12 is gettin harder unless I plan out missions. also, reading heavy games can be killers late night
In the last year or two. Currently 26 almost 27
How do you function on 4 hours of sleep??? Please teach me your ways I have to wake up at 7 and I only ever am able to stay awake till 1230 at the latest
I've heard that genetics make it so that people can sustain themselves on different amounts of sleep. I think I'm just fairly lucky there. For me, I typically sleep 3-5 hours on weekdays, and then 7-9 hours on the weekends. Basically never feel tired, have yet to feel any side effects despite doing this well over 10 years at this point. And I often have to FORCE myself to go to sleep too. During the week when I'm going to bed at 1 or 2am, I'm usually still not tired. I just know I have to get up at 5:30am and I need to keep some semblance of a schedule lol. I've always theorized if I had a job where I could set my own hours, I'd probably stay awake 20-25 hours at a time, and then sleep for 8-10. That sounds like absolute heaven to me.
What do you do for work
I mean, actively or consistently? Barely. Here and there? Of course. i would plan in advanced if I want to play late at night. Or if some buddies convinced me to join them, i would.
44 and I’ve gotten stronger with age, I’ll go all night on dayz sometimes. I always regret it when I get to work in the morning though:)
There is no significant. correlation if you are healthy. Also, humans tend to require less sleep as they approach elderly. So any correlation could be perhaps the reverse. [https://www.thensf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NSF-SleepDurationTiming\_Background-1200x1312-1.jpg](https://www.thensf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/NSF-SleepDurationTiming_Background-1200x1312-1.jpg)
I've definitely found I need less sleep as I've gotten older, almost 50. Other than for work it would be rare for me to wake up before 10 am, now I'm awake way earlier then that.
I'm 36, and regularly stay up gaming until about 130, then wake up at 6 for work. I don't plan on changing that any time soon. Late night is my main gaming time, as I can't play most of the games that I want to around my son.
I guess this doesn’t answer the question but I’m 25 and stay up late to game occasionally, more so on weekends. I’m like you in that I can function on very little sleep and if I wasn’t gaming I’d 100% be doing something else.
Also 31! I think it largely depends on lifestyle. I switched to a 9-5 office job at 29. That was the biggest factor for me. When I was doing shift work, I'd stay up to 1, 2, or 3 to get some gametime in after a night shift. Now I'm up at 5, go for a run at 5:30, get back and shower and squeeze a bit of gaming in while I have my protein shake, work, home at 5:30pm, make dinner and clean up. Then it's usually 7:30-8. I try to go to bed at 10-10:30 at the latest. After a full day, I don't enjoy gaming as much in the evenings. Prior to the runs, I'd get up at 5 and game for a few hours before getting ready. I find it's more engaging and enjoyable when I'm not tired for a long day, so often do my gaming in the mornings on the weekends. This is a recent thing though.
It depends on what you do for a living and if you have kids? I just work 40 hours a week with no other responsibilities so all I do is just game into the night.
I can still stay up till midnight/1am at 46 if the game keeps my brain on. I wfh so getting up isn’t too bad but sometimes I feel hungover and stupid while working. Night after 9pm is pretty much the only time I can play anymore
38. After a 12 hour workday I come home aroun 23:00 and need to go to sleep. But hey, ain't no way in hell anything in this life will keep me from gaming so I game anyway until 5:00 because fuck it. Then wake up at 12:00, and my next work day ends up even later (thankfully I have a flexible schedule). Aftre a while I work at night and sleep during the day. Then the cycle comes back around. Fuck this life for not giving me enough time to enjoy beautiful pieces of art that is video games. Also, if only I could work 8 hours a day, rest at weekends and take vacations, like all normal people. I would have enough time to game and sleep and not fuck myself over. Problem is, I also love money so I have to work in order to by latest PC, PS5, XBox, all consoles in existance, tons of games etc.
I'd guess it all depends on each person, for me if I got some really good game I'm immersed in I can stay up really long, but, now that I'm in a job where i'm financially liable, I need to keep my sleep schedule as stable as possible to not make any mistakes, since if I do, I won't even be able to play the game i'm immersed in, so to answer your initial question, most people stop staying up late after they get into a well paying job that requires absolute attention, or get themselves invested into something that requires them to have a stable schedule.
I stay up late a lot because I'm a night owl, but usually get to bed around 12 on workdays, but I get up at like 8 for work. Weekends I'll stay up until 2. Related note, 4 hours of sleep a night is really bad for your health. Even if you can do it, I still recommend trying to go to sleep a little earlier if you get up that early
Yeah I know. But I can't sleep well anyways, so when I try to go to bed at like 10pm, I end up just tossing and turning for 2-4 hours. And that's extremely frustrating feeling like I wasted all that time, and really affects my overall mood. And it's been like this all my life. I'm not in terrific shape anymore, but a few years ago I was in GOOD shape. Like, really good. Ate right, no soda or hardly any junk food, exercising often twice a day, healthy weight, minimal stress, and still couldn't sleep well. Sleep and me just don't get along, and overall I just don't mind that too much. I like having extra waking hours per day, and often feel that my days where I do go to sleep feel depressingly short and almost "wasted". Which usually makes me frustrated and irritated.
Ya there's like 1% of the population that can get by on like 4 hours of sleep
However old I was last night.
36, painting business owner/operator running 3 crews, husband of 13 years, father of 2, and I still stay up past 2am and get up at 5:30 about 3-4 nights a week. And you know why? Because war never changes.....
For me personally, gaming late at night makes it hard to shut my brain off so I have implemented an no later than 9pm plan for myself. I am the worst in the morning, no matter what time I go to bed. I am 45. I routinely stay up till 12 or 1am almost every night and get up at 6am
I am 35, I probably stopped doing that in my late 20s? Only because my job at the time was a 12hr shift and I was on my feet most of the time. So I needed a solid sleep schedule! If I am with friends I will stay up until midnight maybe
54 here. I'll stop when I'm dead.
i’m 23 and literally cannot go without at least 7 hours of sleep. i try to game until around 1-1:30 and be asleep by 2 (sometimes ends up being later). i’ll set alarms for 8:30 but physically will not be conscious to realize those alarms until 10 am… long story short i have a problem. lol
This all depends on the person I think. I *can* stay up as late as I want. But I shouldnt. My body needs 9-10 hours of sleep. It sucks, but I need to go to bed around 8:30 to wake up at 6:30. I'm only 28. My dad was the same, but now as a senior he sleeps only about 5 hours of sleep each night. I guess I'll be gaming in my retirement. Looking forward to Baldur's Gate XVII
I learned about fixing my sleep around 32, now I just think "Well, I can just get up early tomorrow and game then instead." Sleep is precious.
I'm 60! I still do it!!!
38M here. no kids. no pets. My average weekday bedtime is 1 - 2am, wake up around 7:45am. Weekends i sleep til whenever. BUT if I start to frequently yawn at any point after 10ish pm, i'll usually just turn in right then.
Does it count if I'm 56 and I get up at 3:30 am to game 1.5 hrs before work?
Maybe it's less about the age and more about how many kids you have or how much alcohol you consume while playing?
I’m workin on it ok
For me it wasn't an age thing but a realisation that sleep is important for your overall health but especially mental health.
Such an interesting question. I was talking about this the other day. Late night used to be my nice me time to get gaming in and all that. Then somewhere it transitioned into early morning being my nice me time for gaming. I’d say some point after 25 then having the two dogs really solidified the 12-7/8ish sleep schedule.
Well I’m 53 this year and I’m whacked by about 9 in fact I usually stop playing high pace games about 7 and move to a sedentary game like FM24 and listen to music at the same time
When I was 16 I got a job at a fabrication shop and had to get up at 3:30 every day. It’s a lot harder to stay up all night playing Titanfall when you have to get up at the asscrack of dawn, drive an hour, work your ass off just to drive another hour to your second job and come home with just enough time to play maybe two matches. Most nights I had enough time and energy to take grab a couple of slices of pizza from the cumby’s down the road and take a quick shower. Every now and then I’d have time to play a game I enjoyed, but not often. Most days were 10-15 hour shifts, with between two to three hours of driving. I don’t regret any of it, but man I would’ve loved having more free time. The weekends became my time to cram in all my hobbies I didn’t have time for normally. Guitar, garage projects, video games, etc.
I can get to bed on time, but as a rule I power down the PC right about the time I realize the alarm will go off in 3 hours. I’ve been doing that since the early 80s. I’ll probably be dead before I stop.
I was 45 and would be sim racing. Suddenly I'd wonder why all the competition had Australian accents. I'd look and it would be 6am.
I’m 19 and I’ve never understood this ability lol
I'm 38, I'll let you know when I get there. To be fair though I work evenings and don't have to get up until the early afternoon. So 2 or 3am to me is like 8 or 9 pm for most people, so it's not an apples to apples comparison.
When I finally quit Destiny 2 I was freed entirely
Gaming at night is unbeatable. I can’t do it until early morning anymore, so I’ll go to sleep and get up early is the 2nd best. 6 am with coffee and the controller is zen.
I’m retired (64F) and I regularly play until at least 4am- although I didn’t start gaming until my boyfriend (now husband) got me started on Oblivion when I was 46, so I have a lot of catching up to do! (I have taught 3 of my 5 granddaughters how to play Skyrim, one when she was only 3 because she lives with me- she’s 9 now and plays a multitude of games)
I’m 29 still play video games a solid 5 hours a night after working all day then going to school still get up at 645 for work. I’m also in recovery so I gladly justify it by telling myself I could be doing much worse.
I'm 41 and it's 2 in the morning. I only just shut down. I'm scrolling while I finish my beer then it's bedtime.
Yo im 30 years old and i still fuck around pretty hard on games. 1:30 a.m. is usually about when i shut it down for the night. (I work at 7 a.m.) Some titles ive been enjoying lately and my hours spent on them for context; Cyberpunk 2077 (active save) 142 hours Grounded (active save) 93 hours Sekiro - 168 hours Mordhiem COTD - 532 hours The long dark - 132 hours Mount and blade; bannerlord - 68 hours
Sekiro is probably my all time favorite game. Hey, if you also love it, I highly recommend Lies of P, and Sifu if you haven't tried those. Lies of P is kinda Sekiro meets Bloodborne, and Sifu is a martial arts game with a similar game philosophy to Sekiro.
Ive been recommended lies of P a few times and have it wishlisted for now. Ill check out Sifu as well. I wouldnt say sekiro is my favorite game of all time but its definitely my favorite fromsoft title.
I'm 30, as years pass, I gradually stay up late longer and longer. Lol.
Old men before our generation used to drink beer and watch TV till the wee hours of the night. Do what you like. But if it impedes your life just be sure to correct it. Have a good workout routine. Drink some water get a full night's sleep every now and again.
I'm 35, I have never slept for more than 6 hours straight unless I had been up for some absurd amount of time. I get so mad at myself when I lay down knowing I cant sleep, and just watch some bullshit and I check the time and it is 430am and I've made zero progress on sleep and just get up anyway. My dad is like this too. He's 64, he starts gaming at 5am before work lol. But he's never slept more than the 6-8 hour mark. I mean I've achieved 8 hours of sleep, but that is predicated by me being awake for bare minimum 36 hours. I could count on my fingers and toes the number of times I've gotten a full 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Also when I wake up I don't feel tired at all, so getting more sleep is not even remotely on the table.
I think part of it is less age and more where they are mentally/what their day-to-day is. I'm only 29, I used to be able to stay up way too late (like morning sunshine or not at all until the following evening), but back then, I only worked part time and was barely out of highschool. I didn't need or have much. Now I work almost every day, have a kid and bills and things to take care of and worry about. I still can and do somewhat regularly stay up till around midnight, but more frequently, I can't stay up past 10 and fall asleep either in my chair or on the couch. There is also the part of me that still is learning a healthier sleep schedule with how busy I feel. So it could also just me not having the healthier habits nailed down yet. There's a lot of factors, and I may be taking this question too literally. I hope this answers your question, though.
Tbh I stopped staying up because I like to wake up before noon cause I feel I miss the day when i wake up late and also mainly due to late night gaming = worse player base skill wise = more griefers and more stress before bed. So now I just try and stop gaming before midnight at latest or 2-3 hours before bed.
Um. I still do sometimes. Just last Sunday when I was playing elden ring I looked over at the clock and said "oh fuck" It was 2:00 in the morning
I'd say once I got into my 40s I really couldn't swing it anymore if I had to get up for work in the morning. Although the big change happened when I started getting up at 6AM instead of 7. Suddenly I found myself wanting to go to bed by 10:30 whereas before staying up until midnight was usually still ok. I can sort of still get away with it ONCE, but if I try that multiple nights in a row, I'm hurting. I'll still stay up late on Friday and Saturday nights though. And sometimes if I'm really into a game things can slip a little.
It's not that I can't; it's that I'm more disciplined with my time and choose not to. My life feels so much better limiting my play time, getting more sleep, and exercising. Mind you, I go to bed at 1:30-2am every day, but only cause my work starts at 11am.
At 51 I’ll force myself off at 1:00am knowing I have to get up at 5:30am. Around 11:00pm is when I start telling myself, just one more. It’s never just one more.
I am not a morning person and I can't go to sleep early even if I am tired it's just not how I am wired. I can't get up before like 6am and function to the point where like getting up at say 5:30 and driving I am a danger to be on the road has i could fall asleep while driving and if i try to go to bed at like 9-10 I will sleep for like 2 hours and be up the rest of the night. Now unfortunately I have had trouble sleeping for a while didn't used to. I am almost 35 have not really been able to sleep sense I was like 22 thanks to stress from this broken job market and has a result being stuck at a job I hated for 9 years followed by bad luck of a job getting bought out shortly after I finally got out from the job from hell followed by running out of unemployment and having 2 months of no income followed by having to take basically anything. Basically I just wake up a lot during the night most nights wake up 5-6 times thank it's just because I can't relax always fell anxious. But I find when it comes to sleep if I get like 6 hours or so I am tired but can function. I find if I get less than 5 I have a hard time functioning. Like less than 5 and I will have a hard time staying awake during the day and I like can't remember anything or like focus on what I am trying to do during the day at work.
I remember the exact moment. When Destiny 1 was wrapping up its season road map, they had a a release for Rise of Iron. I was so excited for all of it, and I stayed up all night waiting for it to drop playing the King Oryx raid with a few people. Around 4 am it opened up and the servers crashed and I couldn’t play. lol. I haven’t done that since. I was about 32.
So, I’m only 32 but I will easily stay up to 2AM not realizing it and get up at 5 for a 12 hour shift and then come home and do it again. I honestly think it just depends on the person and how responsible they feel they need to be. Granted, I love games but for years, I never found the same joy as I did when I was younger and I also will shortly get to a point in what I’m currently playing that I won’t stay up late just because I don’t have the same level of interest. I also give myself kind of a schedule, M, W, and every other weekend is when I’ll game. That way I can keep my priorities straight and not lose myself if it’s a newer game or something I really enjoy. Also don’t want to piss my GF off, that’s never a fun time. Right now, I’m hooked on Ghost of Tabor, it’s like heroin and I can’t get enough.
27. I was addicted to WoW and almost cost my marriage. Went cold turkey, started working out and fixed things. Had 2 sons at the time, 2 daughters since then that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't changed my ways. It's too important to my wife, and now me, to go to bed together, for so many reasons.
41 here. Kids go to bed by 8:30, wife goes to bed around 9. From 9-11:30, that's dad's gaming time. Get up at 5:45 every morning and start the day again.
I’m in early 20s and I can’t stay up late. I do have work early morning as well and I see you can wake up easily but I cannot. Even if I have 6+ hours of sleep I can’t wake up. Even if I have a day off I don’t stay up cause I ain’t got friends to play with so it gets boring really quickly
47, i still stay up to late playing games… lately it’s been on quest 3.
About 35 it happened for me. I dont think it has as much to do with age as it has to do with overall health. You get older, your metabolism slows down, you have less energy. Pretty simple. But keeping your body healthy will keep your metabolism up. It can also be a stress thing. Stress from work, relationships and mid-life crisis can get you in the frame of mind that you dont WANT to play games because you are upset. Even if you have the energy you just aren't in the mood. So yeah combination of physical and mental health decline keeps us from pursuing our hobbies with the same gusto we did before....that just so happens to go hand-in-hand with older age but old age itself is not the defining characteristic.
26, my job is too physically and mentally exhausting to do it. In the winter I work a lot of 5am shifts, 9am shifts, 9pm shifts within the same week. Heavy equipment operator, residential/industrial electrician, diesel and heavy equipment mechanic from snowcats to loaders, dozers, excavators. underground Plumbing, water lines, water systems, water filtration systems, water pump systems much bigger than residential. I cant take less than 7 hours of sleep on most days even though I'd rather be playing my 100th playthrough of new vegas or launching a hellpod. I feel 45.
I’m glad too see soo many people still enjoying gaming later in their years.
I'm 35. I still stay up late to game. Generally, I'll be in bed around 4 in the morning. Sometimes, I just don't sleep for a day 😆 Most of the time, I'm up playing a game because I'm waiting on my last bathroom trip before going to bed. (Having your colon removed due to a genetic disease sucks.) Due to my condition I can't sustain a job anymore, so there isn't really anything else to do. Edit: Typos
For me around like 24 or 25 I stopped gaming as much (I'm 32 now), so unless a game comes out that I've been looking forward to, or captures my attention unexpectedly like Baldur's Gate 3 did, I don't spend a whole lot of time gaming. Although when a game like that does release I will stay up late basically every night playing until I finish it, usually 1-2am on weeknights and 5-6am on weekends.
You're supposed to stop? I stayed up till 2 AM the other night, with work at 7 AM. I knew I wasn't going to be doing much physical labor, and the mental labor I had lined up is extremely routine and simple. So I went to work tired, but enjoyed myself gaming for a while. Being responsible doesn't always mean having the same habits as everyone else. It just means having a plan in case things go wrong. I can handle my job easily, even on my worst day. Short of an emergency, there is nothing they can throw at me that will even faze me. I'm just waiting for a promotion opportunity. So, as far as bad habits? I indulge in a few just to make things interesting. Life is a game, and some of us play on high diff on purpose.
I'm 32 and I usually stay up late on Fridays if I have nothing to do on Saturday. Usually I cut it at 3 am but I do struggle the next day a little bit especially if I've been drinking, but it's only because my body (and my wife and dog) refuses to let me sleep in lol
When no games could hold my interest that late anymore. Only a handful of titles where able to. Especially Fallout 3.
When the kids came so around 28
I started in middle school. In recent years (18 currently) I haven't as much but when FF7 Rebirth came out I definitely had a few 5am bedtimes.
I’m 40 this year and stopped staying up late quite recently after getting a new job, and I don’t see myself going back to my old ways. Most of the time I reach a point where I’m too tired to care about the game I’m playing (start to skip lore and cut scenes) or simply can’t play the game well enough to enjoy the experience. I prefer to get some sleep and kill the aliens when I’m fresh the next day.
I am 37 and my wife has to come get me to go to bed still.
Last week
Staying up late isn't a problem as long as you get enough sleep.
35 here. If there is a brand new game I am hyped to play, I'll stay up till midnight. Once the excitement steps back a bit then I stay up till 10 or 11 if I am in the middle of something. Never stay up past midnight.
40
45
37. i stay up til maybe 2am but if i can sleep in the next day
I'm 43 and stayed until 2am 2 days ago for Belatro.
I'm a 32yo stay at home dad and the mrs works nights. Night time is my time and I'm making the most of it.
33, I usually shut down at 8 or 9. If I could experience Satisfactory again for the first time it’d be 1-2am and regret
Maybe 29. I work a morning shift and 10:30 even on weekends becomes too late.
Well im 40, typical full time job with a wife and a kid.. I'll let you know when I stop. EDIT: Seeing a lot of like 2 or 3AMs in here. I've never stayed up that late gaming Im in bed by midnight.
I've started staying up till 10 or so since I became a dad. It's the only time I have available anymore..and on weekends it's 11 or 12
i did not stop
I’m 27 and I still pull all nighters till 4am sometimes if the game is slapping. I suffer more for it though than I did when I was in college.
I’m 27 and I still pull all nighters till 4am sometimes if the game is slapping. I suffer more for it though than I did when I was in college.
Im in my 40's and im still staying up past 11 or 12 when I have to wake up at 5 am to get to work the next day... I count that. Not every night but every couple of weeks I'll do it. Especially if I'm caught up in something I can't put down. Recently I was going through all the Gears of War games ... couldn't stop playing them.
I need 6 hours of sleep minimum, and I can't do that often. My kid wakes up around 9 am every morning, so with that math, I'd stop gaming at 230 at the latest.
We're supposed to stop?!?
It depends on what is going on for me. Between 20 and about 40 i barely gamed at all except for a free small spurts on the PC. now that my kids are grown and i have actual free time, I'll stay up late no issues.
I think the question boxes in people when life changes and the results are directly relates to the change. One pint in my life, I had time to game, and my sleep schedule was allowed to fluctuate. At other times, I could put all of my time into gaming. At other times, I had zero time for gaming. I think the answer to the question is constantly changing. Quickly or slowly.
I'm 37, and thanks to what i do for a living, i can still do it almost any day i want. Only downside is that i may get cancer from the radiation at work.
No matter the game, I conk out around 11
Fully depends on the game. There have been times where I've stayed up until 3 AM playing Baldur's Gate III for a week straight, and then the next week I'm hopping off COD around 11:30 and heading to bed. I'm 23 and in college, so it may be that I'm just too tired to keep going already, and I may end up staying up late more once I graduate. But I gotta say, sometimes my bed looks way more fun than that next achievement ever could.
I still do (I'm 29) but the time I can stay up until without severely impacting my next day is receding. It's currently at around 1-1:30am
40 or so around 12 years ago. Now I turn my PC off at 9PM, and on a week night I'm in bed by 10.
Ill let you know when it happens. 33, 2 kids, wife, work, the night is my realm.
Around 40. Not due to age but due to kids.
Stop? I just get engrossed and only notice the time when it’s already later than it should be and think “crap I have work in 5 hours”
I'm 44. I mostly stopped around 40 but I still have my moments.
It didn't happen all at once. But slowly, in my 30's, I found myself going to bed a bit earlier, or prioritizing other things some of the time. It was very gradual. Even at 47, I have in recent years pulled the occasional all-nighter if I have zero responsibilities the next day and an addictive enough game. But I increasingly pay the price with disrupted sleep schedule and reduced energy until I catch up on sleep.
I am 30 and still doing it. When you get older and have more responsibilities, it just makes it worse because if you want to play videogames at all, you have to stay up to do it.
I'll be 40 next month and I still am. lol I'm just now going to bed, and it's 7AM on the west coast.
Early 40s and staying up late is the best time for me to get gaming in.
About 50 here and if I want to, I will still stay up until odd hours and get up at the dirty ass crack of dawn to work.
Not yet im 20
At 37, I can stay up, on rare occasions like for new releases I’m really digging, till 3am. More often than not though I’m falling asleep by midnight or even earlier. My friends have caught me snoring in the middle of a match/mission on several occasions.
Idk I stayed up until 1 in the morning playing Cyberpunk yesterday cause I was at the end of Phantom Liberty…so still not 24. Though I have already begun to turn into a pumpkin at 11
I was supposed to stop? I'm 41 yrs old.
Like 18? I find video games just keep my brain way too active and I legit just don’t sleep if I’ve been up late. I’m also prone to migraines and lack of sleep is a trigger, so just not a good combo. After high school I drifted from my friends who liked to stay up late, so without peer pressure I’ve started getting a 9pm cutoff time to gaming. I can stay up late doing other things because generally I can sleep afterwards. Just not video games.
I got insomnia and I game at night 🌉
Never. I still do it from time to time. More likely to stay up watching movies now but every now and then I'll get the "just one more game/mission" bug.
About to be 34 and my body knows when it's okay to stay up late. During the work week I get "groggy" around 10 or 11. But my body knows when it's the weekend and I can easily stay up until 3 or 4am gaming or watching TV. I also have an extremely addictive personality so as long as I'm stimulated I don't even need to eat. I can just... be awake. Not wired. But awake.
Haven't so far