I don't wanna act like the conservative dude and say that gamers are addict. However i'm wondering more specially for people who are completioners rather than collectors if you had a period during which you played so much that it started to impact your personal life (family, work, friends, health...)

I think that this site may be addictive for people who wanna get some fame or become skilled at a plethora of games so i was thinking about if there were or are some cases of addiction or struggling. Don't worry, everyone here can share their own experience.

Personally i never was that addicted although i'm an autistic/add guy who wants to play as many games as he can and finish mostly pokemon games he couldn't beat before due to their length.

I would probably say I'm addicted, tbh. I got hooked on gaming as a very young child, but I don't think the addiction part started until I was blown away by Runescape circa 2003-4. Since then, gaming has been my #1 hobby. Runescape got me into the MMO market, which quickly steered me to Warcraft which, by that point, was pure cocaine to me. I'm sure it's affected me somewhat, but I assume most of that is due to mental illness (depression, ADHD, etc.), but I was very heavily involved in Band in grade school/college which kept me grounded and socialized.

Thankfully I've never been drawn to the fame side of it. I've never really had an interest in streaming, either performing or consuming it, honestly. I think my main problem is I trained myself to have some dopamine dependence on games, especially new-game experience and the collection aspect. I'm working breaking through those barriers and actually PLAY and/or COMPLETE some games before I die lol. I too easily get stuck in tinkering with Retroarch for hours on end, just to play 10 minutes of a classic game I want to force myself to play in the correct order, just to get burnt out from the whole process and go back to MMOs/live service games.

My current internal strife is due to trying to play online (for retroachievements) and also try to diligently keep track of the time I'm spending for completion times. Sometimes I feel like it inhibits me from actually playing, and sometimes I really like having that data later. Playing Tales of Symphonia has been great because it keeps track of your session time for you!!! But really, I just need to get better with managing my time and overcoming choice paralysis.

I’ve been playing games since I was six and my dad brought a PlayStation. But I don’t think I’ve ever been addicted. Sure I love playing games but it was never something I felt I had to do every day, more like something I did because it was a fun way to spend time, like my other hobbies. Even now, aged 32, I don’t feel I have to play a game every day.

My only game-related addiction lies in completionating games, including games that don’t have achievements built in. I’ll play until it’s not fun just to get the dopamine hit when 100% displays on screen. But, like I said, I don’t feel the need to play every day, so it’s not really an addiction.