It's a question that I've been pondering for some time. How far into videogames are you? Are you just a casual gamer? Do you live eat and breathe videogames?

Take me, for example: Given the choice, I'd much rather sit down with a good book than play Halo online (although, this is something of a trick answer, because I'd rather shove hot needles under my fingernails than play Halo online.)

So I put to you: How far into videogames are you really.

A minimum of 1 hour of play a day on a work day and a minimum of 2 hours on a weekend day but get get a lot longer on holidays and such which can be much much longer. But it depends. I check the bigger gaming gaming sites daily. I quote games only when the time calls for it. But I do get very very excited about a game I've been waiting for so I'm going to say I'm in the middle.

I'm a casual gamer who wishes he had more time to play.

But you know, the real world and the girlfriend get in the way ;)

Not outrageously. I would play more games if my laptop was a little better (its no Crysis machine) and I had more cash. But I enjoy a good gaming session every now and then.

I would call myself somewhere between casual and hardcore. I don't play anywhere near as often as most, but I am really capable (especially in FPSes) when gaming.

If it weren't for the workload and life in general, I would play more. As it is, I tend to spend between 1-12 hours a week playing on my DS as its portable.

When free of work or on holiday it does creep up a bit more, but as it is I'm too busy doing other things to relax properly enough to play games when I'm bored. I prefer to either hang with friends, paint or read.

I used to be properly 'hardcore' but as I have grown up its just become less achievable without cutting into everything else in my life, so I have learnt to cut back.

I'd say casual. Like all things in life you need balance. Since TV got crap I find myself playing games more. I play for perhaps 2-3 hours a day but don't consider myself "hardcore" or strive to be the best. I'm in it to have fun, not to try and get to the top 1,000,000 on Call of Duty Leaderboards.

That said, I have both XBox 360 and PS3 and have a dedicated gaming/ cinema room, so I guess I'm a priviledged casual gamer!

I love playing video games. If given the option between eating, drinking, sleeping, reading or playing video games, I would play the video games.

I'm not sure how I'd define myself, I don't really think how into it you are is how much you play. Sometimes I don't touch a console or PC app for months, sometimes I forget to eat or do chores or go to work for days on end cause I'm so hooked up. But I'm always a part of the culture, I know about releases I haven't played and all my friends are gamers, I just get along better with them. I'd call myself close to hardcore.

I'm fairly into it, but only just above Casual. I usually play at least once a day, and I tend to get new games every other week, or once a month at the most.

i play a lot but i don't mad skills in a lot of types of games . then in others types i like this."cant touch this!"

If I enjoy playing a game I can clock in at around seventeen hours a day playing it straight (oh, Psychonauts, how I loathed/loved you) with minimal sleep, food, and drink. However, I would probably classify myself as a casual gamer. I don't game that often, prefer books or writing, and only truly enjoy very few games.

If I had the time I would much rather read all those books I'm missing out on then gaming...

It depends on the game, really. I can sit down with a Zelda game (except PH, that was horrible) and let hours pass without even realising it, then write an essay on the intricacies and undercurrents of the storyline (and actually did for Majora's Mask, that's how "into" that game I was).

If I've got a little bit free time, I'll probably play a pick-up-and-play game like FIFA for about half an hour, then go do something else. Gaming is always the first port of call for me when boredom strikes.

I read more about gaming than i actually play.

I visit many gaming sites multiple times daily and keep myself informed about the PS3 and Wii, although i have neither of them. I spend a considerable amount of my income for videogames, and it became worse when i recently discovered Steam for myself.
When it comes to playing, i spend 8 to 15 hours a week, an amount wich could be multiplied if i have fellow Rock Band Fans around. But i can't get that much into a SINGLE Game. I don't play much RPGs because i get bored of them after 25 hours of play, and i usually spend only a few months into playing a game i really like online.

The only contender for my gaming crave are movies, of wich can be said most of the same as above.

I'm always going to pick reading over everything else in the world, except for coke fueled orgies with Gina Torres, Amanda Palmer and Lindsey Ballato, so gaming does fall by the wayside.

On the other hand, sometimes I get the itch and I've suddenly been playing for 13 hours at a time and haven't noticed.

I'm gaming more regularly these days, so I'd estimate I put about 3 or 4 hours in a day of gaming.

When I get employed again, I'm getting me a gaming pc o doom, and then I may never leave the house. We'll see.

I love and appreciate gaming, but I don't game nearly as much as I could; I have other interests I try to keep up as well, and college takes up a lot of my time. I wouldn't say that I'm a casual gamer because I really get into games and have been known (on occasion) to game for 10+ hours straight, but since I don't game as often as I could, I wouldn't say that I'm totally hardcore, either. I guess I'm somewhere in between.

I try to have a life, so not as much as I could...which reminds me.
Why am I posting on an Internet forum?

In all seriousness I play around an hour or so a day, if I can, more on the weekends.

My seriousness in gaming is inversely proportional to the presence of Jobs, Classes, and Women.
So it tends to wax and wane.
(Also I may never look at a screen for days if I find an interesting book, though I have an odd scale for that)

Roughly in the middle. I visit a couple of gaming sites (including this one, obviously) daily and play a lot of videogame music on the piano. I'd say I play an average of about an hour and a half a day. Some weekends I play much more than that, some weekends I play much less.

I used to be really into video games when I was younger but now I only play the occasional game. Most of which are games I played when I was a kid. I rarely go out of my way to buy a new game. Though if I need a decent/fun way to kill time I'll power up the old SNES or Gamecube.

While I don't like to label myself as "Hardcore", and will shoot myself if I ever find I've become one of those "Games are srs bznz" Pro gamers, I'm very into games, I dig them a whole bunch.
I love what they can achieve as a story telling medium, I love the immersion that they and no other medium can give, and well, I just love escaping into other worlds.

I play games everyday for at least a couple of hours, listen to loads of video game podcasts, and I'm even starting to have dreams about video games. I'd say I'm getting into the territory of the hardcore gaming fan.

I get stuck into games now and again but haven't found anything I am really interested in since I completed Mario galaxy. So I went and bought myself some classic games from the virtual console and they are alot of fun, but my friends are not really interested in the oldies or they just can't play anything that hasn't got super amazing graphics.

On the other hand, if Nintendo would pull their finger out and make some good games, I would be having a ball!

I'd say I've finally stepped away from gaming, mainly. I used to be Captain Hardcore of the HMS Gamerprise (Or some other analogy), but I've found that a combo of a crappy computer and the fact that games today don't seem to be as good as they were, I'm starting to leave gaming as a lifestyle behind.

Ah, the sad stories of ex-hardcore gamers...

im not hardcore when it comes to difficulty, but im hardcore when it comes to how long i play a day. once, in the end of november, on a saturday, i played from 8am to 2pm, playing only WOTLK. only pausing for food thrice and toilet a few times.

i might sometimes sit down and see some tv/read a book something like that. but those power-level weekends. im not really doing them anymore.

I play game for some time everyday and I read articles from most of the gaming related sites.I'm not a hardcore gamer and besides my laptop cant run many of the new games at a consistent frame rate.

I'm pretty into it, but I don't let it get in the way of homework or other commitments. Because of that I haven't played nearly as much as I'd like to this year.

I don't account for the hours I spend gaming, but it's a lot.

I'm very interested in games. I play a lot of games, but I'm not a hardcore gamer in the sense of being ultra-competitive. I spend more time reading about games than I do playing them.

Casual. It beats boredom, but I'd much rather be doing somebody else.

Frybird:
I read more about gaming than i actually play.

Same really, I discuss, talk and read about games a lot more then I play them. Especially since I discovered the Escapist. That's why I would label myself as casual as well, sometimes 2 hours of Mass Effect, a campaign of L4D every now and then, an hour of Oblivion on my 360 (wich I barely use) and that's it. I used to be a real hardcore gamer, playing as much games as the hours I spend going to school. Then it dropped to 'normal' levels, about 10 hours a week (wich is fine I think), now it's even less. I don't know why, I don't like it as well. I want my old life back :( That said, I still am very interested in the medium games, how it developes, the latest news, things like that.

Major_Sam:
A minimum of 1 hour of play a day on a work day and a minimum of 2 hours on a weekend day but get get a lot longer on holidays and such which can be much much longer. But it depends. I check the bigger gaming gaming sites daily. I quote games only when the time calls for it. But I do get very very excited about a game I've been waiting for so I'm going to say I'm in the middle.

Pretty much, but for week days its usually around an half hour and weekends is about a solid 3 hours.

Very I am the very definition of a hardcore gamer, mostly cause video gaming doesnt require other people or miniatures or boards to game on :D. From the age of 8(ish) when I found a copy of 'Operation Warboard: How to Fight World War II Battles in Miniature - Wargaming WW II Battles in 20-25mm Scale' by Gavin and Bernard Lyall printed by Pan Books. I was amazed that I could take my toy soldiers and give them rules with which to determine their actual chances of survival and tactical dispositions. Then when I was 10 I found Warhammer (2nd Edition) and started painting miniatures, at the same time computers were entering the market and I could play games on them, not as nice not as complete (I still cant I can count on one hand the amount of accurate good wargames, and the first 3 all start with Combat Mission, and the last two start with Breach and StarFleet Command.)

Videogaming only exists because of the individuals need to play. Play is a very ignoble word for the flexing and testing of tactical decision making in a speculative enviroment.

Even Cowboys and Indians (Desite not being PC) is in effect a training simulator for firefights, moral positioning, justice and human give and take interaction.

In these game we not only entertain ourselves, cathartically flex our base desires for violence, speed or gain but we form common refrence points with our peers and now with the online community and broadband other peers in different countries. We relieve stress and tension by immersing our consciousness in a psychologically pleasing insular and individual enviroment that can be expanded into a 30000 man orgy of frenzied Tritanium trading. MMO's provide you with a massive time sink of shared lingua, purpose and mythos. The empowerment of having arcane knowledge that few others have is pyschology massive. This scales down to the solo gamer, finding a nook in the game with a gold coin or clip of ammo behind a box gives the sense of true discovery and ownership.

Games are frikken awesome. Its a shame that game companies much like TV companies (See Fox cancelling Firefly and Dollhouse) assume that all gamers are the dumb assholes that want simple games with no detail and no punishment and consequence. In pen n paper gaming we referred to this as power gaming AKA getting a +5 sword in the first dungeon your characters came to and you had to defeat a mouse and two chickens to get it. It works fine in a mindless FPS blast em up (Thats the purpose) but in games like SWAT 4 and Call of Duty where you have health bars it impacts on realism.

A real game based on the real world should have a real interface otherwise your still playing Cowboys and Indians.

Martial arts training and running occupy a good chunk of my time, but as far as sedentary activities go, gaming is my favourite. However, lately I've been engrossed in browsing the internet, for things like looking up things related to diet/fitness, as well as trying to learn Portuguese, and of course, the Escapist forums.

I usually get a new game every 3-4 months, or sooner than that if I'm buying cheap games for 5$ - 15$. I just happen to be damn good at gaming though. I am, according to one of my friends, the "Asian" of Smash Bros Brawl.