My wife is complaining I play too much of this PC game.

You can't. Grow up.

Joe(yeah. Just that.)Nation

Pull the computer plug out of the wall. You have your priorities all screwed up. If you are indeed addicted to the game, you need to quit, "cold turkey". If you can't, your wife may decide that she wants to quit "cold turkey" on you.

You are clear about your priorities.

Unfortunately for your love life, you wife is becoming clear about your priorities.

I hope she finds a good divorce lawyer.

Just set aside like an hour a day where you get to play the game (and 10 minutes to rubbing her feet).

Hey!

Why don't you answer the call to duty and join the military?

I'm willing to bet you would quickly learn to appreciate your wife and that you would get over the "fun" of playing war.

Problem solved!

That was great

The simplicity of your question is over overwhelming. Break it down. Game or Wife. Personally I would choose the game.

This is just pathetic. If I were here, I'd throw your sorry ass out.

Hey, it's an addiction, folks.

Video games today are quite immersive. If you haven't spent time playing the newer ones, you may not realize how easy it is to fall into patterns which are unhealthy to your overall lifestyle.

Most of the online multiplayer video games, for example, work the risk-reward center of your brain to the max.... it's hard to stop playing.

I had to give 'em up, just like the cigs... sigh

Cycloptichorn

Drop both your wife and "Call of Duty".

Dedicate yourself to posting on this wonderful site.

Soon you'll be "Guru in Training".

Ain't that mega-cool?

watching from afar - guilty
40 plus hours a week

At least I don't cheat on her. I'ts better than gambling because you hardly lose money.

And the most important thing of all....the PC game doesn't talk back, yell or nag at you like an old battle ax..

Jeremiah - my game is interactive and it talks back in real time.

just break it up into equal spending times....i know what its like when to come accross a good game, it turns the balance of your life upside down you absolulty love it and you want to play more, till somthin happens you dont realize you have to have room for everything else, just dont allow yourself to play anymore then 2 hours or so or just only on your days off from work, other days you spend time with her when you get off work.

I had a similar problem with the first person shooter Unreal Tournament. The game is great fun as a single player against robots (Bots), but this game includes the interface which puts you up against other live players world-wide. I was hooked, sleep was minimal.

To make matters worse, UT ships with a Level Editor, which lets every user create and design the playfields (maps). You get to carve rooms, texture walls, create ambient sound triggers & colored lights, place items, weapons, player pathnodes ... making an infinite number of possible places to play. I was addicted. The wife was not pleased with this.

However she understood this as a creative outlet, the building of the levels as opposed to mindlessly playing the game, and she eventually offered suggestions like, "That room is too dark," or "those textures don't work." She would never actually sit down and play, and sounds like your wife isn't into the game you're playing.

As my priorities shifted from late-night gaming to late-night bottle feeding, I not only stopped making maps, I quit playing the game altogether. Sounds like you have two options:

1) Ignore the problem, hope she doesn't up and leave (this would not be an option in my mind)

2) Sit down with her, explain this is something you truly enjoy, and work out a schedule you're both happy with.

I'm fully aware how you can wrap your head around one single thing for months, how hard it is to think of anything else. Make sure you put your wife, or any other person in your life, before anything as simple and unimportant as a video game.

Good Luck T

I enjoy creating missions/levels for a game called Thief, it's purely a single player game though (made up of 12-15 individual, story driven missions) and the missions you create are released for people to download and play as stand alone missions using a cool piece of software. I love fashioning great stories and intrigue to go along with the level design itself, the game engine you use for this game is also very beautiful, emphasis and the dark and gritty, even if it's somewhat dated now. It certainly is a great creative outlet though.

I've also enjoyed playing Call of Duty online in the past but I can never go too long playing online with other people before I become fed up of "team killers", outright cheaters (this seems rarer to me) and just the generally charming attitude of people when they're beaten...

So yes, great fun but people first...real people.

Well, I've regressed briefly into my past ... I reinstalled UT and got all the latest patches, and I was online fighting until after midnight. I even downloaded one of my old maps (which was at the top of the map list at Fragged Nation) and I was reminded all the hours I spent building that one.

My alarm gets me up at 6:20, so the call came too early. I did have good fun jumping around my favorite maps, and I connected to a couple servers that were running new maps and mods. The three hours went by quickly. The wife did poke her head in the office to say good night, and I thought of this post. Fortunately, we share one PC, so I can't let myself fall deeper into cyber-wastoid-hell.

Just wanted to note there is a middle ground between enjoying yourself and ruining a relationship.

Now I know why her closets are full of clothes with the tags still on them.

Good advice, timberbranch. Balance is the key to most things in life.

heh. my fiancee does this with world of warcraft. it go to the point where i had to sign on to call him to dinner. so, i figured "hell, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and when he was out, logged on to his wow account, created another char. it was very addicting. wanted to know what it was like being a high lvl char and signed on to his char. less than two minutes on his char and i start getting whispers from these girls saying "last night was amazing, you said you live in detroit? when is ur GF leaving for vaca? we'll hook up" and "I love you baby" and "so, I give you 20G and we cyber kay?" the bastard had been whoring himself out on the internet. it broke my heart. i checked the aim logs on the rest of his computer and he had many intimate and sexual relationships on the computer, covering it up as "roleplay" i confronted him about this and he said "I've know these girls longer than you, it's depper than just sex" scared the **** outta me. roleplay ends when they start having a real relationship and asking each other what positions they like etc. few weeks later it got worse, he'd cyber with me right in the room and expect me to finish hm off. which i did, beceause i love him and am easily seduced almost broke up with him....had a big tirade and nuked his hard drive evrey day for a month straight. he still plays wow alot but i set up a sysem where he spends at minimun 2 hours a day or two days a week doing stuff ith me or something else other than games. it's worked for the most part...but i was godsmacked yesterday when he told me he wanted to go to chicago to meet up with one of his internet girls QQ