Ask Lemmy

Factorio. I blinked and a month went by the first time I played it. It ruins my sleep schedule like no other.

Absolutely love it

I spent over a decade addicted to World of Warcraft. Like, I would come home from work and immediately jump on WoW and do nothing else until bedtime.

Thankfully, Activision buying out Blizzard and then ruining the game made me eventually quit. I've tried to go back, but I can't get into it anymore. It's just no fun.

The last few expansions, I've spent a week burning through the main questline, then I walk away until they announce another expansion. Endgame content is not interesting enough to keep me after the main story is over. I never even finished the last two expansions; I checked out partway into the story. I think I'm officially done buying expansions for WoW and hoping I can get back into it.

Other games that I've been addicted to in recent times have been Satisfactory and Enshrouded. Both base building games that have no end, but rely on your creativity to enjoy.

I have ADHD (the hyperfocus type) and Satisfactory really scratches that itch. Focusing on minute details, trying to make a seamless, efficient, organized factory to produce an end product. And the sky's the limit (literally). You can build hundreds of factories across a massive map and get really creative about style, design, efficiency, etc. it's a really fun creative game.

Enshrouded is the same, except instead of efficient factories, you're building homes, villages, castles, etc. in a fantasy medieval setting. With questing and monsters and magic too! It's been loads of fun and my friends and I have been super addicted to that game for a while now too. I actually just posted a review about it in !games@lemmy.world yesterday.

On a side note, I find it interesting to see Minecraft mentioned a lot in this thread. That game first came out when I was in my 20s (I'm in my 40s now) and it was pretty popular when it first dropped. I played it a bit, but besides running around and digging (mining?) a bit, there wasn't really any direction or goals or anything, so I kind of lost interest. I found out years later there's a whole endgame to it, but without any in-game directions, there was no way I would've ever progressed in that game without online help.

Decades later, Minecraft got a resurgence of popularity with younger generations and now it's suddenly the game of Gen Z and Gen Alpha. One of my baby nephews is addicted to that game now and speaks of almost nothing but Minecraft. Crazy how it can continue being so popular across multiple generations like that.

I used to play Tetris on my OG monochrome Gameboy obsessively. I would go through stages where I'd put a fresh set of batteries in and play until they went flat in one go. The only limiting factor on my game time was the availability of AA batteries in the vicinity. It got to the point where I'd be dreaming about playing it, and when putting things away I'd stack things Tetris style and get angry when things wouldn't fit together cleanly.

Then one day I just stopped and never felt the urge again. Thank goodness.

Dota without question. CS along with some rts games like zero hour and CoH used to be up there but it's not even close. Got to a ranked immortal at my peak. Still, was a lot of fun playing with friends and family, so not like it was always a solo activity. Glad I quit though.

Minecraft, holy shit, I have a singleplayer, creative world that I spent hours every day building on for 8 years or so.

That map is gigantic, and I even saved it from a hard disk crash

AuDHD means every game is part of an addiction phase. I will binge a game for like 100hrs then drop it out of nowhere. Then return right where I left off anywhere between 6 months and 4 years later.

Another answer for me is Super Smash Bros. Melee (but could probably apply to many multiplayer games).

Normally I'd always engaged with it in person, at events. But when I started playing online, it was almost too much of a good thing.

On the Internet, your next match is always 15 seconds away. You get beat, you go 'I can do better, just give me another chance'. You win, you're on a high, you don't ever want to stop.

The game has that perfect push and pull (at least when you're playing someone anywhere near your level) that just builds compulsion. You're constantly engaged in decision making or quick button pressing each moment, and it just feels satisfying.

Warframe, I have more than 3000 hours on it but I haven't touched it in years

Path of Exile. And by extension Path of Building.

I've only played like 8 leagues (each league is around 3 months long) and I have almost 5k hours :/.

Usually if I decide to play a league, i will make sure I have no obligations for an entire month and then I will take the first week of the league off work.

I have 3000 hours in satisfactory and I refuse to believe it is an addiction

Factorio, Dyson Sphere Program, Derail Valley Simulator, Terraria, and Vintage Story.

Cracktorio

Nothing will ever hook me as badly as Kerbal Space Program did. If I wasn't at work, I was playing Kerbal for five years straight. No breaks, didn't play anything else during that time. Once I got RealSolarSystem and RealismOverhaul working, you couldn't pry me away from the computer. I put in aver 10,000 hours, easily.

Timberborn is my drug of choice right now. But every few months I have a No Man's Sky relapse.

Shattered Pixel Dungeon. Spent years on that one.

Mu online.

I remember one summer break I slept 2 hrs a day and played while eating. Basically my life revolved around that game. I got to top of the server and realized wtf am I doing. I kind of glad it happened because it was the start of breaking free from addiction.

I think most here are too generous with the term addiction.

I had to uninstall Hearthstone years ago, because I compulsively played it multiple hours every single day, despite not really having fun playing it anymore. It was either grinding to get cards or tilting on ladder. That's what I would call an addiction.

Edit: After Hearthstone I played a lot of Slay the Spire and after that Marvel Snap. Never more then I enjoyed it, so I wouldn't count those.

Right now I'm really hooked on Lucky Tower Ultimate. I've never been this into anything like it before, roguelites mostly bore me, but this game has such a goofy charm and - for an Early Access game - surprisingly deep explorability. It's my go-to game for picking up my Steam Deck and screwing around for 20 minutes or an hour. I'm still having a ton of fun with it.

For the entirety of high school I only played Team Fortress 2, League of Legends, and Melee. I have 2000+ hrs in TF2 and probably more in the other two. Then in college I was on the Overwatch team and played in the college league, I have a bit under 5000 hrs in that.

No games I have come close to that kinda play time and none probably will since I have less time to game and I’ve kinda been losing interest in gaming in general.

Terraria was like absolute heroin for me.

I probably have more hours in Diablo 2 than any other game.

I didn't buy the remaster because I value having a life now.

Dwarf Fortress.
I would constantly miss meals and sleep to keep playing. Sometimes multiple days at a time. Went like 36 hours without eating or sleeping until someone popped into vent and asked what I was up to and after hearing me talk about the Fortress the asked when the last time I ate was...

For a while it was Elite Dangerous. Reached triple Elite, then eventually Odyssey drops and I stopped playing. After Elite was Baldurs Gate 3. Bg3 was the fastest 1000+ hours I’ve ever dropped in a video game

Most of them? I have played hundreds of hours of Dysmantle, and before that I played hundreds of hours of Minecraft and before that Raft and before that terraria and before that vulcanoids, and before that ...

I was supposed to be working on a project the day terraria released on Steam. I ended up playing it for like 9 hours straight