Anybody had a long gaming hiatus?

Anybody out there ever gave it all up, the gear, the games only to regret that day years later?

Was it financial reasons, were you forced to, or perhaps you just felt exhausted from gaming?

I myself quite literally gave it nearly all away. This was after a move from my hometown (Goole in Yorkshire) to Hull with my Mum at the age of 16 after finishing my secondary school education to start college in a new city.

I was on a massive downer about games at the time, believing all the negative bull-shit I'd been fed by my parents and friends spouted over the years that video gaming was a waste of time, and was told I'd have to get rid of a lot of stuff due to downsizing. All my old stuff was either lost in the move or was sold, my MD/32X/MCD, Super Nintendo, NES, Master System, Gameboy Advance, N64, Saturn, Gamecube (didn't miss that one!).

Man that read like a real pathetic sob-story!

Anyway, finally bought a Jap Saturn after all the years craving one, and recently added an asian Pal Megadrive to the collection after a long Hiatus...

Any similar stories out there?

I have not seriously played anything in a long time, but now its been "you want wang wash you or you want to watch wang wash wang ?"
that game is so beyond awesome

I never gave up gaming completely, but I gave up my Mega Drive for quite some time. We moved to
another country and for some reason I thought I'd never need the whole gear again so I sold it to a
friend. What a dumbass move that was, I regret it until today. Soo many rare and expensive games,
Boogerman, EWJ2, UMK3, Sonic 3D and lots of other games that were in my collection are now more
expensive than the price I sold them for (console and controllers included not to forget).

I even wrote an entry for the book of Genesis concerning this, once the main site is back up it'll be
accessable again.

I stopped playing a little after going to college. Last memory I have is playing Super Street Fighter II and Road Rash 2 with the college mates.
When college appointments started to kick in I shelved my MD, only to dust it off more than 10 years later. Still working flawlessly, and soon began the collecting spree!

I gave up consoles in 1994. I played PC games until I unboxed my Genesis in 2000, and spend a good 4 years doing all I could.

I'm thinking my major collecting years are done. A small apartment learned me that having shit you don't use takes up valuable space.

I've played a sum total of 3 games for 5 minutes each in the past 2 years. Started a new job and writing a PhD thesis means I have no time for Sega goodness.

more than once

never agian

2008- early 2010

I sometimes force myself to "fast" from gaming. Sometimes I'll go a week or two without so much as an emulator.

On and off, depending on what else I'm doing. Never for real long periods (years etc).

Up until the Dreamcast era, I would give away (or sell) a previous generation's system and replace it with the newer one. My Sega Genesis/Sega CD gear was by far the stuff that I most regret getting rid of. I've spent the last couple of years slowly trying to buy all that stuff back. I don't sell or give anything away anymore.

As far as simply not playing for a while, I've never actually stopped playing for long periods of time. However, the PSX/N64/Saturn gen is the one that I played the least. Those were my college years and my social life was simply all over the place. The PS2 would hook back into gaming a few years later though.

I'm thinking about stop playing video games for almost a year or so, but I will never throw them out, NEVER, even I don't touch them for years and don't care they take too much space! Only reason why I thinking about this because I have to work at some else that I won't have much time for gaming like I used to back in middle and high school.

pretty much up until mk9 came out, my brother got a 360 and well, you know what happens from then on.

I guess as of late I just haven't been into it, new generation of games are sparse in exciting me now days, a lot of games are just ok or pretty good nothing that I can call myself getting hyped over I can pretty much count on 1 hand how many games have me excited. Then again this can also be due to the lack of funds to even get a hold of said games.

As for older games I play them from time to time but I still consider this a major hiatus.

Hiatus yes, but I didn't give any of it away. After Ps2 was starting to wind down I just got really tired of games. Took up a new hobby (music), and didn't look back for several years. Bought a Sega CD in 09 out of random curiosity, came to this forum and my interest was rejuvenated, in fact I'm more into games now than I was before.

From 2002 until 2008, my gameplay came down to almost zero. I also kept all my stuff.