http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiPoopSocking

Master Miller, Metal Gear Solid "It's also important to be able to control your bodily functions. You never know when a long demo is about to begin, so make sure you're prepared to sit in front of the monitor for a long time if necessary. If you're feeling drowsy, you should get some sleep."

Advertisement:

"Poopsocking" is when a video gamer is so engrossed in his game, he won't stop playing for any reason, even to go to the bathroom — so he'll poop in a sock. It's not the only manifestation of this kind of behavior (a common variant is a gamer who drinks a lot of soda and then pees in the cans, and the term "catassing" derives from a player whose house stinks because he's neglected basic chores like cleaning his cat's litter box), but the principle is the same — a gamer plays so long, he starts doing bizarre and unhealthy things. Therefore, Anti Poop-Socking is when a game has a built-in function that rewards the player for taking a break from the game.

There are several reasons for a game to want the player to take a break. One of the biggest is that not doing this leads to bad publicity. There are real dangers to poopsocking; it's clearly not healthy to be playing video games for that long, or to surround yourself in your own waste products. The media will usually bring out the rarest and most horrifying cases, like players who literally play themselves to death because they neglected basic needs like food and water, babies who died because their parents were too preoccupied with playing video games to care for them, or players who have allowed their own messes to turn into literal piles of garbage; games which are commonly associated with this sort of thing might implement anti-poopsocking measures to disassociate themselves from these extremes. Games with a particular risk of eyestrain after long sessions (often using 3D effects, like the Virtual Boy) may implement anti-poopsocking for this reason as well.

Advertisement:

But there are also practical reasons to do this. From a pure gameplay perspective, it discourages players from Level Grinding too quickly and disrupting the ability flow of the gaming population. Furthermore, long video game sessions can lead to burnout, and burned out gamers are less likely to pick the game back up again, so by encouraging gamers to take a break every now and then, games end up becoming even more addicting.

And one of the biggest motivators is money. Online games have limited bandwidth, and so game companies prefer less frequent players, especially if they pay monthly subscription fees (and thus would pay the same as a hardcore gamer, so no loss there). Ad-driven games want to prevent burnout because repetition is key in advertising; companies get more value out of a gamer who sits through several short gaming sessions than one who plays a single marathon session.

Advertisement:

There's one big hole in the anti-poopsocking mechanism: there's nothing preventing a gamer from playing multiple games, staggering them so that he's playing one game while racking up the anti-poopsocking elements of the other. Some people will not be helped.

See also Just One More Level (the phenomenon that leads to poopsocking), Hikikomori (the kind of people who would poopsock), and Anti-Grinding (a related phenomenon that tries to prevent gamers from Level Grinding and can have incidental anti-poopsocking rewards as well). Contrast Bladder of Steel (when you can't take a break even if you want to) and Guilt-Based Gaming (where the game tries to guilt you into not taking a break). And compare and contrast Play Every Day (you get rewarded for taking a break, but also for picking right back up the next day).

Examples:

open/close all folders

General Platforms

The Game Boy Player - basically a Game Boy Advance that uses a Gamecube and a TV as its input/output - had a special timer feature, settable up to 99 minutes. It was never really explained why it's there: it can't be a parental control, since the timer doesn't stop the game, and can be turned off at any time from the menu without even a password. So, it seems like a voluntary APS, possibly to avoid arguments over whose "turn" it is in households with young players. It's also useful as a timer, in the case that you are playing for a bit but need to do something after a bit of time. Every gamer knows that time is bendable and speeds up when you're gaming.

Many games for the infamous Virtual Boy have an "Automatic Pause" feature, which pauses the game after 15 straight minutes of play, though this is mainly due to the Virtual Boy having the potential to easily cause headaches and eye damage. Indeed, Nintendo refused to license games that did not have this feature.

The Nintendo 3DS has Play Coins, which can only be obtained by walking around. More importantly, there's the StreetPass function which collects data from people nearby - but mostly only if you have the system closed, not while playing. The Play Coins are also limited to 10 coins earned per day, which is most likely to encourage players to take a break from all the walking they did. Then again, considering that 1000 steps, which is the amount required for a maximum of 10 coins, is barely a 10-minute walk, you'd think they would've either eliminated the limit or increased it one way or another. That, plus considering the rate at which some of the games consume those coins, most people who want to play said games that require a lot of them to play for any extended period of time and don't have a consistent source of StreetPass hits which is usually the preferable alternative have to resort to shaking the system to get enough coins and change dates periodically until they have enough.

The 3DS also has periodic messages about taking a rest after about an hour's worth of play in 3D mode. Some games (such as Star Fox 64) will display the message even when 3D mode is turned off.

The 3DS' camera app will advise you to take a break if you keep it open for 10 minutes.

The Wii tracks how much time the system has been in use per day and which games were played, which gives parents information to enforce anti-poop socking.

Some arcade games have a "shop close" setting, which prevents new players from starting a game after a specified time. Usually, the shop close time is close to the arcade's closing time, as a way of preventing players from attempting to start games very close to the end of the arcade's business hours, as that is comparable to a diner customer trying to get seated right as the kitchen's about to close.

Action Adventure

Action Games

Battlefield 2142 gives an 'away bonus' in extra points to this effect.

In the PlayStation video game adaptation of the film Independence Day, you are tasked with flying a fighter plane through various stages. The final level takes place onboard the alien mothership, and it is equal parts frustrating and difficult. After you beat the game, a message at the end of the credits tells you to "go outside and get some sunlight". Real useful advice, that.

A rather subtle one in Space Quest V: The Next Mutation, among the lethal tests made to test the resilience of a certain organism: "Placing a petri dish of the bacteria behind a computer monitor for a period of hours will expose it to hard radiation conditions similar to those on an uninhabitable class D planet.Later, we will repeat the procedure using a safer type of radiation, such as a Gamma ray source ".

The game Eat Lead: the Return of Matt Hazard (which is basically just a parody of action games) has some silly trophies/achievements. One of them is an achievement called Take Five acquired by pausing the game.

Before an update to Team Fortress 2, the game's Random Item Drop system was tied so closely with playtime that, statistically, the best way to guarantee that items would drop at all was to load the game, join one of the numerous "Idling" servers, and ignore the game for hours on end. With the updates, playing more than about 10 hours a week doesn't give you any more items, but in compensation the drop rate was increased and, later, the in-game Mann Co. store was added. Another update to the drop system in 2013 required the player to both play on a Valve Anti-Cheat secured server as well as acknowledge receipt of a new item by clicking on a pop-up window before the system would allow another item to drop, which seems to have finally killed the notion of unattended idling.

to Team Fortress 2, the game's Random Item Drop system was tied so closely with playtime that, statistically, the best way to guarantee that items would drop at all was to load the game, join one of the numerous "Idling" servers, and ignore the game for hours on end. With the updates, playing more than about 10 hours a week doesn't give you any more items, but in compensation the drop rate was increased and, later, the in-game Mann Co. store was added. Another update to the drop system in 2013 required the player to both play on a Valve Anti-Cheat secured server as well as acknowledge receipt of a new item by clicking on a pop-up window before the system would allow another item to drop, which seems to have finally killed the notion of unattended idling. A rare instance for an online game, Left 4 Dead and its sequel let you pause and return to the game at any time: when you're away, a bot will take control of your character so that it does not hinder the team.

After you beat the video game adaption of the first Spider-Man movie, Spidey will tell you to "go outside and play." Despite this, it's still a good game.

As a forced variation of this, the The Angry Video Game Nerd made fun of the fact that there is no pause function in one of the early Ghostbusters games. It's like tough shit if you wanna take a shit, you gotta do turbo-turds!

In Planetside 2, for every two hours you don't log in with a character, they generate Certs, which are the game's non-premium currency. However, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from simply logging in with another character and playing with them while the other's bank Cert for you. Also, the first five badges of the day give you extra experience. Additional badges will still yield some experience, but the big rewards will have to wait for another day.

Honkai Impact 3rd, like many online game contemporaries, has a "stamina" system to prevent the players from doing too much in one sitting. Many gameplay modes cost a certain amount of stamina to play, and it regenerates at the rate of one unit every 6 minutes. The stamina limit is increased by upping the captain's level. You can buy more stamina by spending crystals, but the more you buy in a day, the more expensive it'll get. In a later update, the Valkyrie you set on your bridge may sometimes tell you to stop playing and go to bed.

Adventure Games

The Stanley Parable has an achievement called "Go Outside", earned by not playing the game for 5 years. It first became legitimately possible to get on October 17, 2018.

Similar to the Metal Gear Solid example is the ending of The Secret of Monkey Island. After the credits have run, a message appears, reading: "Now turn off your computer and go to sleep." The sequel, Monkey Island 2 had the same thing, but every few seconds the text would refresh with a new suggestion for something for you to do. Watching them all takes an hour or so. The fourth game did nearly the same thing, only with a fake error message telling players to get back to work. The developers eventually 'fixed' this in a patch, since the player was there to play, not to work.

Free web-based adventure game Legends of Zork also uses Action Points, which regenerate at the rate of 20 a day; with a cap of 90. Half-averted, as items that grant additional Action Points can be purchased at the premium shop; and purchased action points can exceed the cap. However, there are restrictions on the number and frequency of use of these items, so there is still an effective limit to daily play time.

also uses Action Points, which regenerate at the rate of 20 a day; with a cap of 90. Half-averted, as items that grant additional Action Points can be purchased at the premium shop; and purchased action points can exceed the cap. However, there are restrictions on the number and frequency of use of these items, so there is still an effective limit to daily play time. Improbable Island has a Stamina gauge that runs out as you do things such as fight monsters and travel. Once it goes below 60% you start taking penalties to attack and defense, if it gets below 30% every encounter has a chance of you collapsing from exhaustion, which sends you to the Failboat, where you'll most likely have to wait for or use a New Day to get back in the game. However, Game Days have a cycle of about 4 hours. So it won't be too long before you can play again, and if you're logged off long enough, you can "Save" New Days for use later. The saved day system also notably avoids the issues of such a system by making it so that you don't have to log in ever 4 hours to get the max adventures for each day.

Flower will give you a trophy for waiting ten minutes between levels, and another for going for a week without playing. Journey, developed by the same company, has the same trophy for going a week without playing.



Augmented Reality

In Ingress, after hacking a portal four times in a short period, it "burns out" and you have to wait four hours to be able to hack it again. The Multi-Hack mod can be installed on the portal to allow additional hacks, but the four-hour burnout still applies.

Driving Games

Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune can be configured to turn off the card reader after a specified time. Like the general "shop close" example above, this can be done as a way of preventing new players from joining in so close to the arcade's closing time; sure, you can play a round without a card, but many players who use cards won't enjoy doing that. It's also helpful if the arcade powers off its machines at closing time; you don't want to start a round only for the machine to power off in the middle of the game, leaving your card stuck without staff intervention.

Gran Turismo's B-Spec mode play with this trope in that the players is assigned as a director instead of a driver, and the driver of player's car become an AI directed by the player. While the game series averted this trope by itself (or inverted if the players decided to go for A-Spec mode in a Marathon Level), B-Spec mode secretly and actually encourages this trope since the player isn't required to control the driver in full. An update in 5 included the option to exit an endurance race in A-Spec mode while saving the progress done in that race during a pit stop.



Educational Games

On one screen in Logical Journey of the Zoombinis, the Narrator might say the player has done enough for today, telling them to relax, turn off the computer, and go get some fresh air.

Slime Forest Adventure encourages good study habits by limiting your health refills if you play too long, and taking your gold if you wait too long between games.

Fighting Games

If you play Dissidia Final Fantasy for too many days in a row, the Moogles will stop sending you letters until you take a break.

Super Smash Bros. Melee keeps track of how many rounds have been played, displaying messages at milestones such as 100, 1000, etc. The message for 50,000 rounds is "You've played 50,000 VS. bouts! Enough! Take a break!" whilst the 100,000 rounds notice is "You've played 100,000 VS. mode matches! Go outside!"

Idle Games

MMORPG

Platformers

In Sly 2: Band of Thieves, the absolute end of the credits congratulates you on your victory before quite plainly telling you to "go outside."

Cuphead has this in the form of an acapella song, A Quick Break .

. In Super Mario Galaxy 2, if you play for a long time or die several times in the same level, you'll notice that Lubba has an exclamation point above his head once you return to the Hub Level. Talk to him, and he will tell you "Gee, you've been through a lot lately, Captain. Maybe it's time to take a break?" He'll tell you something similar if you get a Game Over. Lubba also has a text bubble over his head saying "So...sleepy..." if you play the game after 1 a.m. When you talk to him, he complains about how early it is. Similarly, Super Mario 3D Land will also suggest that you take a break after playing for awhile.

Freakyforms does it in two ways: the Nintendo standard "let's take a break" message after playing for a while, and the Formee Hearts. You start with five hearts, and you use one every time you make a new creature- if you run out, you can't make any more until they regenerate, which takes time. While you can still go ahead and play the exploration and scenery creation parts of the game, accessing new areas of the map requires you to make more creatures and thus wait for hearts to regenerate.

In the console versions of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, after completing the game and watching the ending cutscene, you get a closing statement from the show's narrator Tom Kenny, who tells you to "go outside and get some sun, you look awful pale".

One of the loading screen messages in LittleBigPlanet Vita suggest that the player go and get a cloth to clean their screen of any accumulated smudges.

The unlicensed NES game Koko Adventure has an internal timer that ticks up while you're playing. If this timer reaches 50 minutes, a blank screen with the word "rest" will pop up, prompting you to take a break. While you can skip it immediately, if you actually take its advice and spend 5 minutes away from the console, it'll reward you with a 1-Up!

has an internal timer that ticks up while you're playing. If this timer reaches 50 minutes, a blank screen with the word "rest" will pop up, prompting you to take a break. While you can skip it immediately, if you actually take its advice and spend 5 minutes away from the console, it'll reward you with a 1-Up! Daroach in Kirby Mass Attack may, on occasion, give you a reminder to take a break now and then when you visit him on his airship.

Puzzle Game

The original version of Snood for the Macintosh had a "Just One More Level" option which would automatically quit the game after the next session.

Much to his confusion, the titular Barbaros of Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure said that his mother used to tell him that pirates should "always play for about an hour".

Rhythm Game

Downplayed in BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!. Live Boosts simply multiply your rewards, but aren't strictly necessary to play songs. If you run out, you can still play, just not with the reward multipliers.

RPG

Shoot-em-ups

Triangle Service's consumer ports of their games Shmups Skill Test, ΔZEAL, XIIZEAL, TRIZEAL, and EXZEAL each have a "Long Time No See" achievement for taking a break for a few days.

Simulation Games

In Black & White the divine advisors will pop on if it's late at night, saying things such as that even gods should sleep from time to time.

While not likely to be poop-socked, Animal Crossing has real-time based shop opening and closing times - that is to say that Tom Nook's store will close at 8PM (Wii) or 11PM (DS) and not open till the next. This is especially annoying if you are somewhat older than the "intended" child demographic. The opening times depend on what building Nook is using. The convenience store building, Nook-N-Go is open from 7:00 AM to 1:00 AM, while the largest store, Nookington's is open from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. However, the only game that gives you direct control over which building Nook has is City Folk; on the other games, Nook will always use the largest building available. After midnight, animals often tell the player that it is really late. In Animal Crossing: Wild World, the cute ones state that cool kids go to sleep early. Inverted in the original, where you can try to catch Wisp the Ghost between midnight and 3AM, which will initiate a minigame. Win and the ghost will reward the player by removing weeds from the town, painting the player's house's roof, or even award the player with rare furniture. In New Leaf, every few conversations with your villagers, they will suggest you take a break every once in a while and rest if you've been going at it for a long time. Also, New Leaf subverts the initial problem of closing times by allowing you to make a town ordinance that shifts the open hours of stores either earlier or later based on which is more convenient for you. In New Horizons, the Custom Design Portal, which lets you upload and download custom designs made within the game, is located inside the Able Sisters' shop, which means you cannot transmit custom designs outside of their store hours.

In Pilotwings Resort, your instructor advices you to take a break after about an hour of playtime. Same thing happens in Nintendogs + Cats.

Satisfactory: Starting with a minor update deployed on July 24th, the game will display a prompt suggesting players take a break after being played for 2 hours straight.

Seaman is a game that advances on its own time: the eponymous creature will only feel like talking for so long before it decides it doesn't wish to converse anymore, and trying to coax it into talking will only make it irate. Starting the game multiple times in one day will even cause Leonard Nimoy to think you obsessed or lacking better things to do. In any case, the only thing to do is wait until the next day in realtime before talking to Seaman again (or bumping the Dreamcast's internal clock forward a day, if you don't wish to wait).

The Tamagotchi digital pets, much like real-life pets, go to sleep at night (as late as 11 P.M.). Thus, there is no point in checking on it until morning - good thing too, because the Tamagotchi handhelds are known to be quite addicting to the point that they have a form of The Tetris Effect named after them called the "Tamagotchi effect".

The Truck Simulator series requires drivers to periodically find a rest stop and sleep; in Euro it's every 11 in-game hours (about every 30 real-life minutes), and in American it's every 14 hours (40 minutes). There is an option to turn fatigue off if you'd rather play without these interruptions, though the stops do provide sensible places to save and quit your game.

Sports Games

Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games has a box that pops up after playing for some time, advising you to take a break. The Wii has made wearing out the player a viable strategy of this trope. WarioWare: Smooth Moves, for example, requires a good deal more physical activity than some real world sports.

Wii Sports periodically encourages players to take a break by pausing the game. While most of the games aren't tiring, the boxing game can wear you out if you keep playing without stopping. And by periodically we mean almost every time you change minigames. Wii Fit also recommends periodical breaks. A good thing, since some games can be very tiring. So does Kinect Adventures on the Xbox 360.

When you play Punch-Out!! on the Wii with the Nunchuk, it can be just as tiring as the Wii Sports example above (you know, boxing game). So when you win a match in Exhibition Mode, sometimes Doc Louis will greet you with this quote: Kid, you won! But you look mighty tired out there! Isn't it past your bedtime?

Stealth-Based Games

Strategy Games

When playing Dungeon Keeper 2 at night, you'll start getting messages like "Your nocturnal perseverance has earned you a hidden gaming tip: GO TO BED!" The thing is, the messages are connected to the system clock, so people who work a night shift and start a game late at night will get the same nag as if they'd been playing for hours on end. "Surely, even Dungeon Keepers must retire to a lair of some description." "You know that low, broad, downy-soft item of furniture in the next room? It has the power to cure fatigue and restore vitality." "Oh? Are you still there? The imps were about to lock up."

Anno 1404 voices its concern for you by having in-game notifications come up telling you that you've been playing for several hours straight, and should probably take a break. "How about a coffee?"; "Four hours at a stretch, it's too bad there's no medal we can award you."; "Six hours non-stop! My throat is getting dry from all this talking". Made even more compelling in the French version by the fact that the voice actor for Morgan Freeman provides the voice of the in-game narrator. Same with 2070, only with voiceovers from EVE. Anno 1800 continues this trend, displaying messages every 2 hours.

Civilization IV has a built-in alarm that can be set by the player to go off after a certain amount of time. And there's an option to have a clock displayed on the screen, which is handy when you're playing in full-screen mode so that the clock on your computer's desktop is obscured. The ZSNES Super Nintendo emulator has the clock option too. In a way, the turn-based nature of the game serves as a kind of anti-poop socking measure in itself: if you get up and go to the bathroom, fix dinner, watch TV, etc., the game will still be there for you exactly as you left it. And their "Civaholics Anonymous" campaign made fun of it too, with one of the fake testimonials featuring a former "addict" talking about how he didn't get up for three days. The interviewer confirms that he didn't go to the bathroom for three days, he responds that he said he didn't get up. Alpha Centauri inverted this; when you tried to go, it would sometimes say "Please don't go. The drones need you. They look up to you."

In the Stronghold RTS series your in-game adviser will make comments depending on how long you have been playing. "How about a snack my liege?" "You have been playing for a very long time." "Aren't you tired, sir?"

In Fire Emblem Awakening, if you visit the barracks late at night, your allies will tell you to stop fighting and go to bed. Groups of enemies and travelling merchants will also appear on the map if you leave the game for a few hours, giving you access to more XP, more funds, and better equipment. Lastly, Anna will sometimes appear on your bottom screen after completing a chapter, reminding you to take a break every once in a while.

Turn-based Strategy

In Miitopia, after every few stages, the game will ask whether you want to continue or quit. The lullaby music and napping Miis are meant as an unsubtle hint, but of course you can do what you like. If you choose to continue, however, the Miis will get shocked expressions on their faces.

Visual Novels

Yuri VN Akai Ito and its sort-of sequel Aoi Shiro reads system clock when they're started, and give cutesy, fitting welcome-back message such as "Good morning", "Good afternoon", or "It's a nice weekend, isn't it?". If you boot it in 3 o'clock in the morning, the message is something along the line "who on earth reads VN during such hours?". And sometimes the wondering-aloud is voiced by the respective (male) Big Bad. And before you wonder, no, they're not the kind of game people don't want to be caught playing.

In Hate Plus, your ship has only enough power to process a certain number of log files in a single game day. Once your power is near-empty, the day ends and you have to wait for the next day...in real time. Specifically, the next day will unlock in 12 hours; until then your save file will be marked with "WAIT". You can cheat the game and unlock the next day immediately, but you'll get called out on it.

Other

Non-Video Game Examples