Oct price cap increase likely to push energy bill to over £10k... for a family of 4...

TheGardener

PennyForThem_2 said:

I am a gamer - at 70 - love it.  Got a moderate gaming laptop.  Kept me sane over lockdown.

Gaming has its upsides - a Minecrafter is possibly learning programming skills.  A gamer involved in warcraft is learning strategy and tactics.  Even a gamer involved in selling things to get virtual gold/game currency to buy items to enhance character is learning economics/selling techniques.

So beware of knocking gaming - limiting,yes.  Contributing to cost, yes.  But it is a creative and worthwhile hobby.  (Caveat: addictio is not good.)

Absolutely no problem with gaming itself - the problem is with the power consumption only 

Mstty

@PennyForThem_2 Nobody has said gaming is bad that I know of, they just point out the expense of running a gaming Desktop rig. 

If you can point out where someone has knocked gaming?

Krakkkers

You COULD argue that the heat is not wasted in winter.
I guess a 500w Graphics card is a 500w heater.

Sea_Shell

Mstty said:

@PennyForThem_2 Nobody has said gaming is bad that I know of, they just point out the expense of running a gaming Desktop rig. 

If you can point out where someone has knocked gaming?

It's not "gaming" that is going to be an issue in and of itself, it's likely to involve ANY hobby that becomes "unaffordable" that may start to cause problems.

Either due to expensive membership (golf/gym etc) or, as we're seeing now, power usage.

"Fun" just got a lot more expensive!!

TheGardener

Many hobbies are expensive - we have a climber in our family and what they spend on climbing gear is shocking!! My issue is that gaming PC's are quietly draining many a parent's bank account but they are rarely mentioned in the mainstream press/web articles about big energy users in the home. 
If parents were bankrolling tennis lessons or equestrian hobbies for their offspring - they know up front what it going to cost. Gaming PC's are probably a complete mystery to most parents - myself included. 

MariaAH

in my opinion it's about the 'bill payers' making a balanced decision about where the cut backs should be. My husband uses the PS5, but we pay the bills, so that is a conscious decision we need to make about how much of this 'hobby' activity is reasonable, and if it should be limited. This gaming console is visible and in the lounge.

I think the problems occur when the 'gamer' consuming the excess energy is not the bill payer, and particularly where the gaming activity is not so visible (i.e. in teenagers bedroom).

It has been quite a shock how much energy my son uses on his gaming PC but he will now be covering the cost. This may be more problematic when you have teenagers who are consuming more energy than their pocket/money and/or part time jobs can afford to cover.

Agree that gaming can have positive benefits as, pointed out by @PennyForThem_2, but with the amount of energy consumed, there may be difficult conversations up and down the country about where the cuts should be. 

MariaAH

TheGardener said:

Many hobbies are expensive - we have a climber in our family and what they spend on climbing gear is shocking!! My issue is that gaming PC's are quietly draining many a parent's bank account but they are rarely mentioned in the mainstream press/web articles about big energy users in the home. 
If parents were bankrolling tennis lessons or equestrian hobbies for their offspring - they know up front what it going to cost. Gaming PC's are probably a complete mystery to most parents - myself included. 

I agree that it is the lack of transparency about how much energy is consumed by gaming PCs. I was blissfully ignorant about how much energy my sons gaming PC was using. Now that the energy prices have gone through the roof, people will, I would imagine, become more aware of vampire devices!

Happy_Sloth

We are a family of gamers hence the stupid high electric consumption....  we are 3 adults we know what we are doing.  

However i agree with TheGardener it took us along time to realize that our insanely high electric consumption was due to the PC's.... it really is a hidden issue.  We honestly sat there thinking a PC used similar amounts to a TV and for a long time didn't realize our electric bill was abnormal.  

One of the big things we found was leaving the PC's switched on... at the time we had 4 Gaming PC's in the house and 3 of them would be left online overnight.  Some games particularly online games credit you with how long you are online so we would happily leave the PC's running when going to bed etc.  

I do wonder how many struggling parents don't even realize their teens leave their PC's switched on over night?!  i know i was talking to my sister about it a couple of weekends ago (after our revelation) and she asked her 13 Year old if he left his on overnight. 

He replied   "all the time, i can't be bothered booting it up in the morning, it takes too long"  The result of this conversation was that she discovered her son had NEVER switched off the PC since he got it last Christmas, he instead simply turned off the monitor so it "Looked" off.  in his mind the 60 seconds it took to boot up was too long to wait when he wanted to check facebook in the morning... same thing when he went to school "why bother switching it off if i'm home in 8 hours?!" 

  

MariaAH

Wow @Happy_Sloth..,you don’t mention your sisters reaction when she found out…I bet it was priceless!

QrizB

Happy_Sloth said:

However i agree with TheGardener it took us along time to realize that our insanely high electric consumption was due to the PC's.... it really is a hidden issue.  We honestly sat there thinking a PC used similar amounts to a TV and for a long time didn't realize our electric bill was abnormal. 

I'm really glad you found this, I remember back in the spring (this thread) we really strucggled to understand why your electricity bills were so high!

Did you manage to get your gas use under control too?