Do playing videogames make you stay up too late?

[mailman187666]

say during the week, you know you have to go to either work or school early in the morning but yet you end up staying up till 1 in the morning playing a game and don't even relize it and next thing you know you gotta be up in 4-5 hours and have trouble waking up the next morning. I have trouble with that quite often and I've even been thinking of setting an alarm so i know what time to go to bed and i don't get sucked into another game. Does anybody else do this or am I the only one?

[Andred]

I used to play Counter Strike religiously from about 6 at night until 2 in the morning and then try to get up for work the next day at 7. I did it for about a year and a half and eventually lost the job from being late too often. I don't let games keep me up anymore. It just isn't worth it.

[Funk Buddy]

Yes, but not always. It only happens when I get a new game or something I really like playing.

[suckerpunch5]

yes I do

[agbulls]

My wife and I have debated on and off in the last year about me going to bed at the same time as her. I agreed that it would be beneficial for our relationship---and don't read into this (if you know what I mean). It just kind of seems like the right thing to do.

However, she has realized that my 8-5 M-F job just doesn't offer me a whole lot of playing time. When I get home we eat, watch some TV and just generally relax. She doesn't play--so that option is off the table.

What does that leave me? It leaves me 10:30-12:00. I'm trying not to stay up past that. If I do, I need about 4 cups of coffee to keep going the next day. Any other married guys with a similar situation?

[FantasiaWHT]

My wife crashes well before me, but usually out on the couch while I'm playing. So we're sorta together lol.

Lately, Kingdom of Loathing has been keeping me up late... the rollover (new "day"- you get so many adventures per day) occurs at 9:30-10:00 my time, and I've gotten in the bad habit of waiting until it occurs and then playing... 'tis a bad idea lol.

In college I would always stay up way later than was good for me. Usually playing an online game. Not as much anymore though.

[Schenley]

I occasionally stay up waaaayy late. Like 6 or 7 am. Depends on what I'm playing. I have a severe problem with "Just one more game".

I have a 15 month old kid, and have to drop him off at school. Since he's around, the overnights have become less.

Before him, I used to do it twice a month or so...

[Snapple]

Short answer: yes, yes they do.

[Push Upstairs]

I'm a night owl anyway.

Sometimes they make me stay up late, but most of the time they don't.

[FaSCoRP]

Yes, too late. Itś really because I start too late, too :)

[Mayhem]

Sometimes I just get hooked on a particular point of a game and just keep playing and playing because it's so enjoyable. It happened most recently with ZTP towards the end, I think I finished that at around 3am though seeing as it was over Xmas, I didn't have to get up.

Before that... probably PW:JFA, I got through the entire game in three days, a total of about 15 hours gametime, with all three days finishing into the night...

[Chadt74]

Usually not anymore too much responsibility at work. Usually I will only stay up 30mins-90mins too much now-a-days if/when I do. Generally it will be something like a level that takes wayy to long or opening up a new area and not noticing the clock.

[PallarAndersVisa]

sometimes. I work at 8:30am a lot and I've been going to bed at 2am because of friends and videogames

[Hwj_Chim]

No I enjoy my sleep to much. But it helps that I mostly play my neo geo so I don't have to look for any save points. I can just turn it off when I am tired

[GM80]

My wife and I have debated on and off in the last year about me going to bed at the same time as her. I agreed that it would be beneficial for our relationship---and don't read into this (if you know what I mean). It just kind of seems like the right thing to do.

However, she has realized that my 8-5 M-F job just doesn't offer me a whole lot of playing time. When I get home we eat, watch some TV and just generally relax. She doesn't play--so that option is off the table.

What does that leave me? It leaves me 10:30-12:00. I'm trying not to stay up past that. If I do, I need about 4 cups of coffee to keep going the next day. Any other married guys with a similar situation?

What he said :)

[Tron 2.0]

Some times my brain is hardwire for the night these days...

[Lord_Magus]

I generally tend to enjoy anything I do much more during the (late) night. Whether its playing a game, listening to music, reading a book, watching anime, programming, or just doing homework (I'm a uni student at the moment), I often get carried away and stay up (at least) until the sun comes out.

Last night for example I played through some Final Fantasy III(DS) for a few hours, listened to some Machinae Supremacy, and watched the whole mini-series of The Lost Room (awesome show btw) - I ended up going to sleep just after 9am.

Of course, I'm currently on my summer holidays here in Australia and I'm not working, so I'm doing it now simply because I can afford to. Of course, if I'm working the next day I sleep a little earlier, but rarely before 3am or so :)

[njiska]

No so much lately, mostly because someone close to me has asked me to stop exhausting myself, but back in the daya yeah all the time.

I remember this time last year we'd start an online game of DOA4 at like 8pm. 12 hours later i'd be like, "What the fuck, where'd the time go?" Then the next night the same would happen again.

[Soviet Conscript]

yes, usually i'm up to at least 3 or 4 gameing. never effected me in grade school or for work but it was pretty bad in college. i missed alot of class gameing. i remember my roommate getting up at 7 in the morning for class and i would still be sitting there playing

roommate: "still playing that game. did you sleep at all?"
me: "yes, and no i havn't"
roommate: "well are you going to class today?"
me: "naaa"
roommate: "oh.....i suppose i won't either"

then he went back to bed. i guess i was a bad influence.
he used the deckard cane rap from Diablo II as his alarm clock to...good times.

as for the life at home with the GF. yhea its came up as an issue from time to time. altough i think the idea that if one partner goes the bed the other has to is extremely lame. i did find an solution though. bought anouther large television for the bedroom, problem solved.

[PapaStu]

Yes and no.

Both my Fiance and I do it. We then that night as we're climbing into bed grumbling how we can't do that anymore and how we wake up really tired and grumpy the next day. My most recent 'issue' with staying up too late was being up til almost 1 last night playing Metal Slug Anthology and then some Castlevania PoR while she was surfing the net for something before we went to bed.

It just takes will power that we seem to be ignoring for some stupid reason, cause I really hate waking up so tired in the morning.

[joshnickerson]

I recently was up until after 1am playing Twilight Princess, though it was a Saturday night so I didn't have to worry about getting up for work the next morning. The latest I ever stayed up playing a game was Super Mario 64 back in high school. I remember I was in the Dry Dry Desert pyramid when I looked at the clock and saw it was nearly 3am.

I generally don't play games late at night anymore, cause I tend to have a hard time falling asleep after a big play session. Either that, or I'm just getting old *L*.

[kainemaxwell]

Happens sometimes if I get really into it I'll stay up till 1 or 2 in the morning. I only do that on days I don't have to open at work the next day though.

[Overbite]

Nope. I stop playing around 8pm whenever I get to a save spot. On weekends when I play I stay up later, but not past 10.

[ROBOTNIK666]

No, not on school nights. However, on weekends when my friends come over, this equation usually sums put the night: Early evening movie+Buffalo Joe's Meal+Runescape+Adult Swim=Staying up until 10:00 the following morning.

[SEGA-SAMMY]

I'm a night person at heart so i'm always up super late, my job and school scheduale allow me to do this for the most part, so I guess i'm lucky. Whenever a new Metal Gear game comes out i'll stay up way, way past when I should though. It's almost become a tradition with MGS games. Some good memories watching MGS3s endiing at 7 in the morning with the sun coming up back in the day.

[slip81]

not really. I think the latest I've ever stayed up playing a game was 3am or so on Resident Evil 2.

Next closest was around 2am with Xenogears, but that was mainly due to no save points and very long text heavy cutscenes.

[Bassgrabber]

ummmmm... I lack the discipline to get offline OR stop playing games OR reading a good book when I should just cease and desist and submit to the Sandman's droopy eyelid syndrome. Used to be easier to pull all-nighters.. or almost-all-nighters when I was about 20 years younger... but I still get away with it. And yeah, I DO pay for it LOL Willingly.

I just sleep in on Sundays...

[videogameking26]

Yes I do it quite often but I don't have to work till the evening so it's all good, usually only play till around 4-5 am on most nights and go to bed around 6 am on work days, non work days I game almost the whole night and sleep the day away...lol.

[john_soper]

I'm echoing the previous poster, having a baby pretty much stopped my gaming cold. You learn to go to bed early in case they have a rough night.

Always wondered what those latenighters were costing me healthwise. When they interview people over 100, one common theme is they mention getting plenty of sleep.

[Richter Belmount]

Trying to kill wizards in zelda at 4am is no easy task. A harder thing to do is play metal gear solid 2 with no break from cutscene when you got to go the freakin john.

[bangtango]

Only when playing portables, like Game Boy Advance, since I can play them in bed while lying down. It is usually stuff like the Zelda's or Pokemon's that "get" me.

[Keir]

Almost every day this week, unfortunately! With 2 toddlers I pretty much have no free time, so if I want to play a game it means missing sleep. Having received Guitar Hero II for Christmas, I couldn't resist (I actually did wait until last Thursday to try it out). I always say I'm just going to play 1 or 2 songs, and next thing I know it's midnight. Sadly, I can't keep doing this so I'm going to have to put it away for a while so I won't be tempted to play.

[Kamisama]

Usually not. I was pretty addicted to some mmorpg until 9 months ago which made me skip sleep from time to time ;) Now its pretty normal again

[ave]

Yes, it does. I just played a Doujin Shoot'em up and as you can see - I'm still online. Gotta get up in 6hrs >_>

[Schenley]

Well, let's see... Here's what I played tonight:

about 4 hours of Viva Pinata
about 2 hours of Gears of War
about 1 hour of Lost Planet
about 3 hours of Burnout Revenge

I just wanted to do 1 or 2 Crash Junctions on Revenge, and ended up playing all night...

Bedtime

[insinion]

World of warcraft was my cocaine addiction.. Sometimes i stayed up till 6am then i went to take a shower and got on the bus to school. So glad i've been clean for over 6 months now. :p

[calthaer]

I love video gaming, and it is probably tied with reading for my #1 hobby. Maybe a little bit below reading, actually, but still.

Even so, hobbies are just that: hobbies. Side-activities. There is real life, there is work, there are real relationships with real people, and etc.

When I was in college, I stayed up late gaming (of course, last semester my EARLIEST class was 1 p.m.). Not any more, though. It is simply necessary to develop the self-discipline to keep the side stuff to the side. Going to work with too few hours of sleep is hell - I can't be the best worker to my employers, friend to my friends, etc. when I'm dead tired.

So I don't stay up late.

[vintagegamecrazy]

Once in a while it keeps me up but I can usually draw the line, if I don't have anything going on in the morning then I will play till 3 or 4 in the morning too often

[Streetball 21]

I try to wrap up playing games early, but I always end up staying up late. And usually, I'll pay the price at work the next morning.

[Golden Bear]

Yes, as a matter of fact, they do.

[incubus421]

Yes, I have stayed up all through the night playing on a few occasions. Most often with World of Warcraft. About this time last year I was finding myself still up on my days off while my younger brother and sister were getting up for school (6-7am).
I have since got a handle on it and the latest I have stayed up recently has been 4am...but I try to keep it down to 2am-2:30.

When I was a bit younger I found myself staying up until eventually I would fall asleep sitting in front of the game (had a nice bean bag chair to help). Games I can remember doing this to are: Front Mission 3 and Star Ocean: The Second Story.