What are your hard limits on that game you’re playing? How many hours per day? Max levels beaten? Loot box budget? How will you know where you’ll stop unless you know when you want to stop?

Video games give us so many incentives to continue playing: countless new challenges, many more outfits, a few extra characters, one more level, one more spin of the wheel. They’re engineered to take and seize onto our full attention. It’s no wonder that we can struggle to stop playing them.

Set some limits. Plan accordingly. Add friction to more game-play if it helps, be it overlapping commitments, physical locks, or selling off the game. If you find the limits that you are content to follow then stick to them. A few hours on the weekend or a few dollars here and there are a small price to pay for some consistent joy. As long as truly enjoy it, keep at it. Just limit yourself to games worth playing.