Longest gaming sabbaticals

[Tokuda]

Hi all

I recently came back from my longest ever gaming sabbatical, where from around about July 2004 up to a couple months back, I barely played any games (apart from Pro Evo/Winning Eleven).

My gaming break started when I had just come back from spending time in China and was in a lot of upheaval trying to find a new job. Combine that with not being able to bring most of the gaming hardware or games back from Japan or China, as well as not having arcades for me to pop down to to have a quick VF4 challenge.... Christ, even in China, I managed to hunt out a group of hardcore VF4 Evo players, who despite speaking no English and me speaking no Chinese spent many an hour together loving games and the competition of gaming. Suddenly back in the UK I had no one to play games with and no Evo action!

Now I've been pretty settled for a while, XBOXLive and being able to play with my old Uni gaming friends has fired up my love for gaming again. I don't think I'll ever have anything as great as those cherished years in Japan. While I like playing adventure games or RPGs, my love for gaming has mostly been centered around skill based games like Evo or Dodonpachi.

So what has been your longest gaming sabbatical and why?

[Extra Terrestrial]

From the UK release of FFIX to the day the GT3 PS2 pack came out in Europe.

It must have been nearly 2 years, give or take.

[fatbatch]

I got into gaming late - started about six years ago, and I'm in my late 40's - and haven't wanted a break yet.

Good to see you on the forum again,Tokuda - you sorted out lots of games from Japan for me a few years back, for which many thanks.

[UrbanWolf]

Since the age of 5 (I'm 26 now), I don't think I've ever went more than a month not playing videogames, a few weeks maybe but not over a month!

But what has change is how long I play them, I could play between 8-10 hours a day when I was younger but nowadays it's about 2-3 hours a day

[The Glider]

I had a break when I started work in 1987 & didn't start gaming again until the late 1990's. So, nearly 10 years. I went from a ZX Spectrum to the PS1.