Overstimulated/Burnt-out from video games?

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Does anyone else experience some kind of burn out or overstimulation after a few hours playing video games with friends? I noticed I get to a point where I start to feel a bit sick and really kind of lethargic to a point where I have to leave for a break to recharge. During this 'recharge' period I prefer to have no one around me or talking to me at all, I just sit and watch cute animal clips or read about stuff online.

I used to. I don't play with friends anymore unfortunately but I think that most of us on the spectrum burn out through general social interaction. Do you ever feel like conversations are a concerted effort? If so, you're probably like me. I attribute it to my ASD, my 24 on the HSP test, and my INFJ personality.

Depends on the game.

If I'm playing a game that involves keeping track of many things at the same time and having to react instantly to them, as well as having to keep track of many of my own abilities at the same time, I often find myself feeling light-headed during the game and mentally exhausted after. If it's something that doesn't involve stuff like that, I can play for hours on end and be fine.

One thing I've noticed with video games is that I tend to have difficulties having too many controls. I was much better off when controllers only had 1-3 buttons on them. It's hard for me to deal with keeping track of which button does what when there are 8+ buttons on a controller. I'm wonder whether that's ASD related.

I think Mythos has the right idea; first you need to work out how much of the burn-out is caused by the social interaction, and how much by the gaming itself.

This might sound odd, but when I used to regularly visit friends who were keen gamers, I spent nearly all of my time just watching them play. It's not that I didn't like gaming, because I played single-player games a lot at home, but somehow the combination of trying to play a game and socialising at the same time was just too much, and I'd end up enjoying neither, even if the game was a favourite. I really quite enjoyed watching them play (especially as they slowly got more drunk as the evening wore on), and got to have quiet little one-to-one chats with people when they were sitting out waiting for a controller or off to the kitchen for drinks. I'm the same with board-games and cards; playing the game while other interactions are going on is too much - like my brain can't work with two different sets of rules at the same time.

I too only have online friends but we use vocal communication when we speak and I'd say around 75% of the time I'm exhausted from conversing and socialising even when over the internet. I think the combination of team play and social things causes me to burn out really quickly. I think 80% of the issue due to socialising and 20% from intense gameplay.

Well not quite, I just play so much of a video game I burn myself out on it. That happened with Skyrim it was the only console game(PS3) I actually sat down and played pretty much all the way through(there are a lot of things you can do in that game so I didn't do everything just completed the main story) then I got the extended addition for PS3. I still have not completed all of that, but I ended up being all excited about that game than played so much I got burnt out on it. I haven't even touched it in months, I mean I have been following a skyrim redditt which kind of makes me want to get back into it a bit. But if so I'd have to limit the time I spend on it a lot more.

I only voice chat with people I know in games, no strangers or randoms because I find I end up getting pissed off so its problematic. Though for me I play alot of one player games so I don't have the issue of having to be bothered with people all that much

I don't enjoy playing video games with others, so that's not an issue for me. I play entirely on my own.

But I do get overstimulated by games where stuff happens quickly.

I used to love beat em ups and racing, and I used to dislike turn based games because I would always lose some life each turn ( and might not in real time), and regaining SP/PP and HP could be hard or expensive, and back then, I didn't have the patience quite frankly.

These days I find real time (racing, hack n slash, short quick mini games etc) to be exhausting and nothing I keep up over time like I did, so I have grown very fond of forgiving RPGs like Pokemon, Rune Factory and Dragon Quest. I like being able to regain health without ruining my character, and I like being able to take some time to decide on what to do as I can in turn based games.

I also like games that makes it easy to save, so I can quit when I feel like it.