I generally feel the same way about online games, unless I'm playing with people I know personally. The fun in many online games comes from the personal interaction with and banter between real people (oh, the fun I had with Call of Duty: WaW Nazi Zombies), and it gives you something to talk about even outside of the gaming environment. You don't get that with games played with complete strangers. When I play Street Fighter 4 online with a total unknown, I might as well have just played the single-match mode for all the satisfaction I get from it.

Same with Mario Kart 8 at the moment. I've played it online and I just get no enjoyment out of it. I'd much rather play it with my girlfriend and some mates on the couch/beanbag, where you can hurl playful insults and personal attacks at each other.

True, but I fear that also takes away my freedom, ie. I have to arrange the gaming time together with online friends. I want the ability to enter and exit games whenever I want. Works for single-player games of course, and online games on public servers where I am not liable to anyone. Like on Saturday, I stopped playing TF2 in the middle of building a sentry gun, when I heard my wife came back home, and I needed to help her with the groceries. No need to inform anyone or offer my apologies, I just quit the game and that's it. I don't think e.g. World of Warcraft would be for me, I always decided to stay out of it (especially as it has a monthly fee to play, no thanks).

That, and I don't really have real-life gaming friends. None of my real friends are similar gamers as me, in fact they consider it a childish past time (well, except one maybe, for some reason I haven't seen him for some time though, maybe we have both been too busy gaming?). My wife, on the other hand, enjoys completely different games than me. We played some racing game and Virtua Fighter 4 together at some point, but at least I wasn't that thrilled by it. :) She likes her Candy Crush Saga, I get bored with it.

If I want, I could play 8 hours every night after work on the weekdays and whatever hours I want on the weekend

This has been the case with me pretty much, lately.
But I guess in normal conditions I could manage to free 2-3 hours a day for my favorite hobby. I usually spend the weekends hanging out with friends so it doesn't change much, I just replace work time with socializing time.

Good point. I've also had the problem that it's difficult to be interrupted in online games without disrupting everyone else's experience, and it's a problem that will only get worse when we eventually have kids. At least with single-player you can just hit Start/Escape and tend to whoever needs you.

The most consistent online experience I've had is with the PlayStation Vita, but that's because I mostly play it on the toilet, and nobody dares disturb me while I'm having a shit (fellow Germans will know the expression "Fünf Minuten scheißt ein Hund, ein guter Deutscher scheißt ein Stund'") :-)

I'm lucky to have a girl with more refined tastes then :) Sure, my gf doesn't like strategy games or RPGs all that much (she enjoyed Skyrim to a degree, but hated Oblivion and Morrowind), but her Candy Crush/Facebook game days are behind her. She doesn't even like Angry Birds all that much these days. She plays on the Wii U a lot of the time, especially Mario games, Kirby and Donkey Kong Country.

But yeah, PC gaming is a dead trend in my social circle nowadays. In part that has to do with PC gaming being generally in decline here in Germany - many of my old friends only game on consoles now - but is also partly due to with me moving away from home and not finding any other PC gamers to link up with. If I was still an active PC-only gamer, I'd probably struggle to find real-life friends with similar interests as well.

If I'm lucky have once or twice a week 2 hours to play in the evening (9PM (kids asleep) to 11PM (getting ready for bed, 6AM the night is over). On the weekend I half of the time have one day when I cam 3-4 hours into gaming. So it's zero to 8 hours per week.

I'm a student, so during the week, gaming time can be sparse, depending on when my lessons end, when I get home and what work I have left to do. In the weekend, I can game most of the time, but there are other hobbies and some social interactions (and I have to study, off course), so as for time left: it's not a lot. Strangely, I think I managed to play and complete more games during the two exam periods this year than during the rest of the year, especially when also comparing the exam time/rest of the year time. But during the exam period, I always reserved one hour a day as a pause to game, and there was also some time left after the studying to game :)

But it's summer now, so all that doesn't matter anymore. I hope to complete at least a few games until the next academic year starts.

What he said. :)

I have nothing but oodles of free time for gaming and other forms of entertainment as my professional life consumes very little time. Funny how it works out. :)

To be frank, those friends of mine are not really console gamers either. One was still somewhat back in the GameCube times, but after that the only notes I've heard from him about gaming were related to iPad.

I know one kid (relative) though who still plays Minecraft on PC, and he doesn't even have any gaming console. Maybe he could become my PC gaming buddy, but for now he seems to enjoy Minecraft much more (even online) than e.g. online shooters, he feels they are too violent (go figure, a kid saying that?).

I have plenty of time for gaming (24 hours a day). It's finding time for my daily chores that's a problem for me :-)

I've usually got plenty of time in the summer, but the positive development of one aspect of my life has caused short-term difficulties in others. Hobbies are the first to give way; I've got little time for gaming, so I'm restricted to games that I can enjoy for an hour or so and then dismiss for days on end if need be. Anything story-driven is a no-go, as much as I like such games.

I think that right now I don't know which is the genre that I like the most, because I haven't read from all of them. But I'm sure that I like fiction!

Reading, another hobby I barely have time for! I'd strongly suggest fantasy fiction, maybe a classic like the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings to see what you think. But I can strongly suggest anything by Joe Abercrombie, Robin Hobb, Raymond E Feist or Katherine Kerr.

It's nice to know I'm not alone in spending more time reading and dreaming about gaming then actually doing it. Still, I'll keep adding games to my wishlists and chipping away at them when I can.

A lot of the time yeah, even if I have some free time I do tend to feel as if I should be doing something pro active instead of gaming, and then tend to just waste the time completely instead of doing either...

Me and my girlfriend / fiancée are the same, we sit on the couch together "watching TV" while really both playing games or reading articles online or whatever else. That's why I've started PC gaming again after a long break, it seems a lot easier to boot up a game on my laptop (since it's on anyway) then to start up a console and game on that.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll try to read something from those authors :)

Hehe, I've also asked when people got to play their games in a giveaway, most people just do!

I got some other projects this summer, so my backlog won't decrease, sadly...but in autumn, I do hope! :D