Well, not THAT old. I'm still younger than a certain someone who is an editor on this site. I won't say who, but her first initial is "O" and the rest of her name is "phelea".

But my birthday is next week. The 31st! Huzzah, and stuff.

It's kind of funny as I look back at my 30th birthday and forward to the 31st on how things have changed for me. There are the changes that have been obvious for anyone who knows me, but perhaps less visible are the changes to my gaming habits.

Going up to my 30th birthday I played a ton of games. I raided regularly in WoW. I spent a lot of time in Oblivion. I was my usual obsessed self when it came to a lot of games.

After 30 I started taking stock. I quit WoW, and despite a run-in with Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War addiction (which lasted only as long as the campaign) I failed to get really sucked into any other games.

I'd still play games - obviously, you've seen my reviews of them. But I was less likely to play games under my own power unless they were games that I could play at any time - Zen of Sudoku, Circle Popper, Brickbreaker, those kind of games.

Mobile games, mostly (though Zen of Sudoku was on my laptop, and one I could get away with at work).

I bought and got more games for my 360, including Guitar Hero 2, Crackdown - the only 360 game which really addicted me to any degree, and downloaded Catan. But especially after I moved the amount of play time I spent on them dropped and dropped.

There are various reasons. Traditionally, most of my gaming time has been during the week - but when I started working out every night, that cut into my gaming time. I shaved the goatee, got LASIK (which has made it uncomfortable at times to stare into a screen too long, though that's getting better), started going out more and dating more. All of those cut into that gaming time.

And I found that a game has to really do SOMETHING to get me involved. It can't just be "the latest and greatest" - there has to be a catch.

Crackdown had the open ended gameplay. If I wanted, I'd just log in and blow up bad guys on other rooftops over and over again.

Guitar Hero 2 could've had that hook, but the lack of a good tutorial (in my opinion), coupled with what felt like an unreliable (and bulky) controller has made it difficult to summon up the energy to deal with it.

What about games coming out?

Bioshock has been getting a lot of publicity lately. I've been reading up on it more and more - and that's ruining the experience for me. I find myself not caring. It's like they're trying to hard to be "something" other than just a shooter - and instead coming across as trying too hard, like someone being too clingy in a relationship.

I've got a write-up coming out about Warhammer: Age of Reckoning. Conversely to Bioshock, the more I hear about WAR the more excited I get. They understand that I don't have a lot of time to play, so they're at least attempting to make an MMORPG that can be played in short intervals. And I'll get to bash on other players, without the inanities of Xbox Live that make me hesitant to get online with random people.

Does everybody's gaming time go down when they get older? Of course not. If I lived alone, or if I was "settled down" a bit, perhaps I'd spend more time gaming. But I also find myself drawn more into other forms of gaming - I can actually afford 40K gear now!

Of course, I haven't had much time to do that, either...

But what about you? How's it different gaming as an "adult" and as a "senior citizen" (Ophelea - well, not *really* but it's funny to insinuate) than it was when you were younger (assuming video games were invented then)? Do you find that you have to make the trade-offs between being social and being a gamer? How do you decide how much to do with what?