balancing family and games

[Emilie Autumn]

So i was a 2 year veteran wow player hardcore when my daughter was born, don't get me wrong i love her sooo much and i wouldn't trade her for anything, but having her around has cut my time on wow down from 7-8 hours a day to maybe 3 hours a week if lucky. and that prefectly fine with me i like playing casual better.

my 2yo like to play games to shes only little so doubtful she actually comprehends it but she has fun mashing buttons on her ds,which always makes me laugh =P.

but on the topic who here was once a full on hard core gamer and due to life commitments has had to seek a lesser form of gaming, how do you all balance's games with reality now?


personally id say in my week 10% rest, 35% work, 45% family, 10% games. how does ti fit in with everybody else?

[[Ichigo]]

50% school.
50% games.
Summer :
60% games
40% beaches - pools - fun wtih friends

[Remahlól]

5% social networking
70% enjoying the outside
15% time spent in the gym.
10% 4chan, games, other random shit..

[Emilie Autumn]

sorry to sound rude but i was aiming at those of us who have gotten married/ had children and how it impacted gaming in your lives =P

[ingrey]

I was a hardcore gamer... used to play 8-10h+/day lol but after getting married I think family > all. I still play WOW and Warhammer but only 1-2h/day

[Mr Barbeque]

sorry to sound rude but i was aiming at those of us who have gotten married/ had children and how it impacted gaming in your lives =P

There are like 5 pepole on this entire site that are married, most members are virgins that live with their parents.

[Emilie Autumn]

There are like 5 pepole on this entire site that are married, most members are virgins that live with their parents.

so your married? if not you backed yourself into a corner didn't you now heh heh heh.

BTW figures prove that most gamers are married men with family's NOT the stereotype 50 year old living in a basement propitiated by media to make us look like social outcasts.

[Hunterplay]

I think the best thing to do is have days where u play games for a longer time.....And then spend the other days with your kid...Works out a lot better.

[Demon within]

Well if anyone finds it a problem to get less and less time for WoW, then just wait for patches. Every patch since 2.3 or something has nerfed hardcore and dedicated players and made life easier for casual players. (lol)

[Emilie Autumn]

yeah Ive noticed that its nice IMO, most people don't have 2the time for 40mans(and i can bet a good proportion don't have the latency for 40mans on vent =P), I'm glad too see the game being casual =P

as for days for gaming and days for my kid, i couldnt do that i love my lil' angel too much 2 spend whole days away from her =P

[Tikarra]

So i was a 2 year veteran wow player hardcore when my daughter was born, don't get me wrong i love her sooo much and i wouldn't trade her for anything, but having her around has cut my time on wow down from 7-8 hours a day to maybe 3 hours a week if lucky. and that prefectly fine with me i like playing casual better.

my 2yo like to play games to shes only little so doubtful she actually comprehends it but she has fun mashing buttons on her ds,which always makes me laugh =P.

but on the topic who here was once a full on hard core gamer and due to life commitments has had to seek a lesser form of gaming, how do you all balance's games with reality now?


personally id say in my week 10% rest, 35% work, 45% family, 10% games. how does ti fit in with everybody else?

When I had my daughter it was rather hard really. But more of because she was a special needs child. Not in the sense that she had mental disabilities but her heart was pretty messed up and needed a great dead of work to "fix" it. It was nothing really life threatening at the time but she had two hole's in the middle walls of her heart (one at the top and one at the bottom) that separates the right and left atrium and ventricles. This was causing her oxygen rich blood and the oxygen depleted blood that was coming back from the body to mix. In return her heart was only pumping out half re-oxygenated blood. She wasn't getting nearly enough oxygen to her body as she needed to keep up with her growth and just being awake. She had a blue hue to her skin, lips and under her nails. As you can imagine she was a very tired baby. Just feeding her wore her out.

Then on top of that after she was 2 weeks old she stopped sleeping all the time and would just cry for hours on end no matter what we did so we took her to see her pediatrician and came to the conclusion that she had colic. She was put on a special formula that helped and throughout the day she was a very happy content baby but the closer she got to bed time the more upset and cranky she would get and getting her to sleep was a real challenge. I would hold her till she fell asleep but as soon as I would put her down she would wake up and cry her little head off. We were told to not let her cry because of the stress her heart was already under so I actually ended up staying awake about 20 hours a day catching only small naps during the day when she would nap.

I stopped playing. It was my only solution till she got past the colic and had her surgery and recovered from said surgery. Even then I would of never imagined trying to play more than a few hours in the evening or trying to do events. (I was playing Final Fantasy online at the time)

I don't really have much advice for you because I am assuming your situation is somewhat different but for me it was easier to just forget about gaming for a year and focus on other things. I have never been much for TV but I watched TONS of TV during that year while holding my little one and playing with her and despite all the chaos it was one of the most enjoyable years of my life.

[yrref]

Well, me myself.. I'm not married, but I recently made a huge swing in my life, from internetgeek (O yes, that's right, i said that 'bout myself), to a social, kind, caring person. I used to play games like 2 hours a day, and now I play like 1-2 hours a week, it was quite a change for me. Although, I really like who I am now, and prefer it over my other self.

-Just my two cents

[Slikker]

FrostCore (and other parents) just wanted to say that when ur kid gets a little bit older if s/hes a boy they will LOVE the fact that you like games and it could be the thing that bond you together.... my step father and i didnt really like each other till the days were me my older bro and him LANd CS: 1.5 and since then i've been freely talking to him about everything and were both looking VERY happy about the release of Diablo 3 which is awesome cuz we go halves in every game we buy with eachother (i got CoD4, CoD:WAW CE ,WoW (he doesnt play but likes to watch) , Warcraft 3 FT, Red Alert 3 and tiberium wars) its f**king sweet and we both crave it lol anyways enjoy

[Tikarra]

FrostCore (and other parents) just wanted to say that when ur kid gets a little bit older if s/hes a boy they will LOVE the fact that you like games and it could be the thing that bond you together.... my step father and i didnt really like each other till the days were me my older bro and him LANd CS: 1.5 and since then i've been freely talking to him about everything and were both looking VERY happy about the release of Diablo 3 which is awesome cuz we go halves in every game we buy with eachother (i got CoD4, CoD:WAW CE ,WoW (he doesnt play but likes to watch) , Warcraft 3 FT, Red Alert 3 and tiberium wars) its f**king sweet and we both crave it lol anyways enjoy

I am looking forward to starting my daughter on the small cutsie games when she figures out there is more to a keyboard than smashing random buttons just cause they make a clicky noise lol. She will definitely have some gaming influence because her dad likes game, I like games, my boyfriend likes games etc...

[miLl3niUm]

I would quit wow if I had a family and was over 25 years old. Though I am not any of those, so I can't say for sure. I hope you do what's better for your life and family