One game at a time VS Multiple games at a time.

For more clarification on the title I mean; do you play one game through to completion and then start another one, or do you progress through multiple games at once? Which do you prefer?

I personally find myself favoring finishing one game before moving on to another. The few times I've had multiple things in my "playing" list I've still played through them one by one instead of progressing through them all. I'm not sure why I do this, but it just feels more satisfying to devote my attention to one thing at a time. I'll still play multiplayer/MMO/MOBA games alongside a story-based game, but I won't put story based games in my playing list together anymore because when I do I never actually play them at the same time.

For more clarification on the title I mean; do you play one game through to completion and then start another one, or do you progress through multiple games at once? Which do you prefer?

I personally find myself favoring finishing one game before moving on to another. The few times I've had multiple things in my "playing" list I've still played through them one by one instead of progressing through them all. I'm not sure why I do this, but it just feels more satisfying to devote my attention to one thing at a time. I'll still play multiplayer/MMO/MOBA games alongside a story-based game, but I won't put story based games in my playing list together anymore because when I do I never actually play them at the same time.

I'm in the same boat. I can't even imagine devoting my attention to more than one game at a time. I think some of it's because I couldn't handle jumping back and forth between a bunch of different control schematics, but I'm also a very fervent believer in finishing what I start, and if I had multiple games going at once, I know I'd be tempted to abandon one completely.

Mine is somewhere in between. Having a strict 1 at a time is a bit too restrictive, but I don't want to have loads of games on the go either - as I'll never get through them.

Generally I try to stick to 1 portable and one "big screen" (console or PC) game at a time. Though this has some leeway for things like co-op or multiplayer games, and potentially games that I want to take a break from and come back to, to see if I enjoy them more.

I usually play one game at a time, but sometimes I will add a "portable" game since I take the bus to work every day. I get 10-15 minutes of play time there. Perfect for games I can progress quickly, like Professor Layton or pretty much any Mario game. But so far, 95% of my 80 completed games were done one at a time only.

I'm a 2-3 gamer. I'll have my "main game" that I'll sink most of my time into, and then I'll have my side game or what I call a "bathroom game," i.e. a portable game that you can take anywhere and sink in a few minutes at a time and can either easily save or turn off/close the screen without losing progress, great for when your on a bus, your waiting for someone to arrive, or your in the bathroom. Sometimes there more then one main game or more then one side game, but one of each seems like a good balance so I don't feel overwhelmed.

I usually have multiple games going at once, its a rare occasion for me to focus entirely on one game (which I did with Breath of the Wild the first week I played it). This is probably mostly a product of me having to share systems with my brother (which I still have to do when I go back home), so I usually had one game going on one system and one on another so I always had something to play if I couldn't play one at the moment. Also some games I only play in short sessions, while others I like to for a few hours at a time, so I may choose one or the other depending on how long I plan to play. Also sometimes I can get a little fatigued from one game for no good reason, so I alternate to another game to take a break from that one for a little bit. Granted this strategy is probably why I often start some games and leave them untouched for a few months (even years sometimes) before I come back to them.

I used to play several games at a time, but inevitably I would never finish any of them. Eventually, I had to reassess my priorities and came to the conclusion I wouldn't play more than two games at once, but even after trying that, I still had trouble finishing either game. As such, for years now, I've had a strict one game at a time rule. I've made some exceptions here and there -- for example, I wasn't enjoying playing Super Stardust HD so I stopped and played Critter Crunch before reevaluating whether to continue with SSHD, and I'm technically not done with Disney Infinity 3.0 despite having put it on hold to address other games with time-sensitive restrictions (WiiWare, et al.) -- but generally speaking, I only do one at a time.

I'm a perennial plate-spinner when it comes to games, but I'll normally only be playing one or two of the games I have on the go at any given time.

I'm surprised at how many people focus on one game at a time.

I'm honestly the exact opposite of that, with a minimum of about five or six games on the go at any given time. I think there a couple of reasons for this:

1. When I get home from work, my usual routine is to play 2-3 games for about half an hour each before reading or something. It's rare for me to play anything longer than 1.5 hours at a time and 3 hours is pretty much my absolute limit (even if I'm really enjoying the game).

2. Gaming is something I do to unwind, so the types of games I feel like playing will depend a lot on my mood. If I've had a good day I might play something challenging and if I've had a bad day I might play something more cutesy and laid back. Having lots of games available means that I'll always have something that I feel like playing. If I restrict myself to one or two games, I won't spend more time on those games, I'll just spend less time playing other games.

I tried multiple games last year. As a result I now have 14 games in "playing", and some unfinished games that went back to "backlog", so I wouldn't feel overwhelmed.
Nowadays I may rotate games from time to time, but I usually have up to 2 active games at once. I also have this rule that to start a new game I have to finish at least one other game, two or more being the optimal, that way I can have less unfinished games that I may never return to

I'm always playing multiple games, mostly because I have a horrible habit of starting games and not finishing them. Right now I'm in the middle of 12 games, reaallllly need to hack away at that number before picking up any new ones haha

I keep it at 2 games per system, and they must not be from the same franchise as I like to play games in the order they were released. So I'm currently playing 6 games: 2 emulated on my PSP, 2 on PC and 2 on the DS.

I keep it at 2 games at a time. I utilize GameFly, so whenever I have a game from there, I will prioritize that game over anything else, and once I ship that game back, I will have a side game that I will play until I either beat it, or the next game from GameFly arrives.

I like to have all my focus on one game primarily, so that I can get a better picture of just what the game is and what it had to offer when I ultimately review it, rather than spreading a game out over a few weeks or months, and forgetting some key components of what the game is all about

I’m all over the place when it comes to that! I might have a dozen or so games on the go, but tend to focus on 2 or 3 at any one time, usually of different genres and lengths - eg I might have a long RPG or survival game on the go as well as a story based game, and maybe 1 or 2 ‘quick dip’ casual, puzzle or indie games with short levels or whatever.

I represent this on the site by only adding games to Playing that I am actively engaged in. Games that I’ve started but that have taken a backseat I leave in Backlog, with the last total play time updated.

If a game sits there too long and I’m not all that bothered, I uninstall it and may move it to Retired, though sometimes might bring it out of retirement, either continuing where I left off if I still have the savegame or starting again from scratch. I’m not one to force completion of a game if it doesn’t grab me, which is why my stats show I’ve retired 33% of the games I’ve played!

It is depend if I love the game story or not. If yes, I will play that game more then the other games that I installed on my PC. If I don't like the story of the game that I am playing at that moment I will play it for 2 hours then I will change it to next game I usually have 4 to 10 game in same time but after testing them the number goes down to 2 to 6 and I finished them off then add 10 another game.

I used to be invested in multiple games at once but I never got around to finishing any of them. Mostly because my attention was spread across many different games which ironically made me not care about any of them. I got sick of this and when I joined HLTB I restricted myself to only playing one game at a time. Well, I'm not quite there yet since I still need to get some games I'm playing off the list before I can devote all my time to one. And besides, I like to have my "main" game, as well as a "portable" and "multiplayer" game. But restricting myself made me go from completing 2 - 3 games a year that I weren't that invested in, to completed 15+~ games a year that I am way more invested in and like a lot more!

I play multiple games but try to keep it only one per system. I also have usually one active game but depending on mood might play something else. Especially when playing visual novels without much gameplay, I often find myself wanting to play more "gamey" games where you don't have to focus too much on plot and can just press buttons.

I used to play multiple games at a time when I joined HLTB forum during I think 2019 year and I completed 23 games during that year. During that year though I literally rushed through all the games I was playing just to beat them. I would become obsessed and play for hours. When playing multiple games I would forget the controls, main-story line and things I did in the game. I was not enjoying myself at all. I also would become frustrated when I played a difficult parts in certain games. My preferred levels of difficulty was either Easy or Normal. Not to judge any other people who enjoy playing those difficulty levels but these were my to-go difficulties for years.

2021-Play only one game at a time.

I got TLofU2 PS4 for my little sister; me and her loved the last of us for the PS3 so she loved it.

Limitations I placed on myself durning my Play-through of TLofU2.

-I couldn't change the difficulty to my comfort zone of Normal or Easy.

-Play this game only.
*The only exception of this rule is when my little sister is with me (she still hasn't beat this game-she dose not want to be spoiled.)

-If i got frustrated in a difficult part I had to take a break. "Me literally taking a month off to do other things, to be honest I just play when i feel like it or me being me forget I am playing a game."

-Time-Limit- Used to be 2 hours a day or when I feel like playing. But I changed the time limit to 1 hour.
*exception-when my hour is finished and the cutscene is still going let the cutscene finish.*


I found out durning my limitations of TLofU2. I have realized that I like playing on hard mode. I will also start playing all my games on hard mode. Once I beat the game; I can lower the difficulty to do a collectables/trophies run of the game. When I got frustrated and kept dying in certain parts I would just preserver and try again using different tactics- I started enjoying figuring out how to get over the difficult areas. Anyways I found myself enjoying my hobby a lot more when I put these limitations. Now I want to challenge myself with other limitations on other video games.

Until recently I ostensibly played 1 game at a time (ignoring fringe cases like multiplayer games). However, due to my limited time I found myself running into some issues: I didn't have much time to play the long RPGs I usually like to play, so I wasn't playing at all most of the week and was losing interest in gaming altogether because of lack of time, or trying to devote all my time to shorter games that I didn't want to prioritize over longer games and lost interest in those games and started too many at once.

In short, my gaming "schedule" was a mess.

So recently I've been keeping two games going: a longer game I play when I have long stretches of time to devote, and a shorter game that I play when I only have a couple hours to play.

Thus far this balance has been working for me and I'm making progress on games again. This month alone I beat 7 games so far, which is above average for this year. And most of all I'm having fun instead of mindlessly watching TV in all my free time.

I like to play multiple games at a time to keep things fresh. I do try to restrict how many I play at a time since it can lead to too many games going on at once, and also tends to bring me closer to retiring things. Right now, I am doing 1 PC game, 1 Nintendo Switch Game, and 3 games on my Playstation.

I always try to only play one game at a time (but, honestly, I usually fail that task and find myself later playing 2 or 3 simultaneously). I feel like I tend to rush the games when I have more than one started and I don't focus that much on em. Like when I focus on just one game, I usually tend to explore it more slowly, do more side stuff... and in fact, enjoy it more with a better pace. So yep, for me it's way better to focus on one.

Oh, one thing I like a lot to do is having one single player game and a coop that I play with my friend, both started at the same time. That way I keep sensations fresh while not having too many games started so I don't get the urge to finism 'em asap (since the coop will only be played when I meet with my friend).

I used to try and play games through end to end when I started my backlog, but these days I like to have multiple in progress (and in my playing tab) across a few genres so that I can dip in and out of different things depending on how I feel like.

I also feel like playing multiple at once (whilst I know it's slower for backlogging) just allows me to keep motivated with things a little more as there's a nice feeling of coming back to something if you've had a little break from it.

I am mostly a one game at a time person.

I get easily confused and I like to have one control scheme in my head at any one time! :)

I prefer to do one game at a time because multiple would get me very confused.

I basically have a set path for how many games I beat a month. I try to beat at least 12-13 games and I take 2-4 days to beat each one. Lately I have come to realize that me being this ambitious when it comes to my backlog is getting me nowhere since my backlog regenerates by the number of games I buy on sale so I am not really making a dent in it. Starting next year, hopefully, I just set a timer for how long I play one game and when the timer is up, I stop playing or get past the level or boss I am stuck on and keep doing this until the game is beaten. Beating games every 2-4 days really can drive me insane.