Musicians need not apply. I'm wondering if there's actually anyone out there with callouses on their fingers or thumbs that developed solely from gaming.

It's just I read the phrase "blistered thumbs" or someone talking about thumb callouses in reference to gaming and I'm left wondering why they're moving their thumbsticks so furiously and pressing their buttons so hard.

In examining my own hands there is a stiff patch of skin on my thumbs but nothing advanced enough that I'd classify it as a callous, I've seen the fingers of long-time guitar-players, now those are callouses.

So yeah, are your thumbs encrusted in scaly skin or are they as supple as a newborn's skin?

I- aw.

*Leaves*

I'm a guitar player but I also suffer form what I call "Sega Thumb" which is totally unrelated. I first got it from NHL94 when the skin on the ball of the thumb on my left hand starts to peal off and the knuckle of the thumb begins to throb. I still get it from most platformers.

Given the vast amount of different input devices that we have today, nobody should be developing callouses solely from gaming. If someone does, then he's using the wrong device.

Now, playing "Decathlon" or "Summer Games" on the C64, with Atari VCS 2600 standard joysticks, that was a different story ... (at one point I managed to destroy _both_ the joystick and the upper skin levels of my palm ...)

Luckily, I stopped using this thing before any permanent damage was done.

I've played on consoles since I was less than 2 years old, and because back then there wasn't much ability to save, when you played you played a marathon. I've never calloused on my hands, but then I wash my hands pretty liberally too, so I couldn't tell you if I'm just weird or lucky.

I regularly get callouses on my hands from doing pull ups. Which reminds me, I need to go work out this week. With the move, I haven't had time in a few weeks.

I've gotten an achy thumb a couple of times after an intense session of Street Fighter or FIFA or something like that. Nothing that didn't go away within 2 days at the very most, though.

Na, as a teen, I got myself one of those programmable controllers that saves and replicate an input sequence.

That took care of the fighting game which was the main source of sour thumbs.

Some people considered it cheating, but for me, crazy ass input combos wasn't so much an important part of the game as much as a strange Japanese fixation.

Oh yes. I remember those. And the sinew inflammation thy gave me,

But, that is cheating. Otherwise they'd just use the Jaguar system with a million buttons and let you just type one key per combo.

BTW what sick bastard had the idea to put the engraved arrows on the original NES controller!? Oh how I'd love to kick him the family jewels just once!

My hands really hurt when i was playing Wii lately. I'm more of a pc guy, but i certainly have experienced the joys of game-induced pain and insomnia.

I did last year when I started playing my Dreamcast for 2-3 hours daily after not playing more than 1-2 hours a week total.

My hands should hurt considering how much Elder Scrolls i've played so far. We're talking about 10 AM-4AM here. Add a friend staying over who's also trying to finish all the sidequests (the best thing about TES) and constantly cursing at the game. I spent the most time on my first Elder Scrolls game, Oblivion. Can't believe i ever adjusted to Morrowind after that, but i did, and TES 3 has the best atmosphere out of all of them.

500 Hours at the least and i recently started playing it again intensively after 3 years.