I would offer a bribe. If both boys leave the gaming systems at home and either avoid or severely limit other gaming for the first semester, I’d offer them something they would want or need. An incentive. Kind of like when an adult promises themselves a new pair of sneakers if they lose 20 lbs or a new wardrobe for losing 50. Just something to remember when the urge hits to game. If he can break the habit of gaming for hours at a time for a few months, even if he starts second semester the hope would be that he has found new, healthier ways to balance his time. Not everyone would do it this way, and what the incentive/bribe that works often varies by person. I just know my kids love making deals. They often will even write out their own contracts for us all to sign. That kind of thing works better with them than forbidding.
My kids like Steam so much it’s on my computer!
Not all laptops are capable of running games with decent performance. Something like a core i5 with 4GB RAM and intel integrated graphics is plenty for running MS Office and all school stuff but would choke on most games with semi-demanding graphics.
My computer won’t run LoL anymore without overheating. So instead I play other games.
If you want to game, you will find a game and you will find an addicting one. I stopped playing LoL and now am addicted to Hearthstone and Summoner’s War (phone game). Hearthstone barely runs now that my laptop has upgraded to Windows 10 (UGH!) so it’s on my phone. Where there’s an electronic, there’s a way.
As I said before, you’ll need a computer that can run engineering and math programs so getting a very old and/or not powerful computer may not be doable.
I am a gamer surrounded by other hardcore gamers. My grown spouse has a gaming room in our basement and one of my best friends used to be a pro in e-sports (while he was going to, and almost flunking out of, Purdue as a CS major). I absolutely, 100% promise that there is nothing that can be taken away that will prevent gaming if the son wants to game. It is not hard to overcome any barriers.
It’s perfectly reasonable to say, leave the PlayStation at home. It is also perfectly predictable that kids will be on STEAM on their laptops. The main issue my daughter saw was the boys did not leave their rooms other than to go to class and to eat, so gaming curtailed their social lives at school. The other issue was the kids with the gaming system become the go-to room, meaning there is always someone there. That may not work for kids who want to study in their own dorm room. Maybe have the two roommates and all the parents meet and discuss this issue?
Has anyone been to the Hunt Library at NC State? It has a Gaming “Lab”. (https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/spaces/game-lab-hunt) Our high school robotics team visited NC State and found this room. The team obviously didn’t play any games but they still hung out there for a good 45 minutes just spinning around in the chairs. There are time limits but I was definitely awed by the setup and furniture. Is this a thing at engineering schools?
One thing I learned about my kids is that they usually do what I expect them to do. Most kids who fail at college are smart enough to succeed but lack the ability to self regulate some aspect of their life(absent medical problems). Perhaps you need to help him develop a plan for his first semester instead of trying to forbid something that will accessible no matter what you do.
I should clarify: I don’t really care or have an opinion about whether the PS should be forbidden. I’m just saying that you’re kidding yourself if you think that keeping a PS from a gamer will prevent or curtail time spent gaming. It’s just not realistic and it will not happen.
I’m just trying to warn the OP of this fact. There are other threats that may or may not work such as requiring x GPA in order to continue receiving financial support or to remain in their chosen college (as opposed to being pulled out and sent to a local CC or other commutable school).
Intel integrated graphics, core i5, 4 GB of RAM…a configuration which would be the stuff of hardcore gamer nightmares if that’s the only computer he/she could access/use. 
A couple of weeks ago, found a desktop gamer rig a hardcore gamer tossed out which had far more RAM and graphical capability than that. And from examining the motherboard and specs…it’s 2 years old.
A bribe? My kids are getting a college degree if they do what they need to do, not a game system. By the time they get to college, there has to be some degree of self motivation to get the work done.
Gamers gonna game.
However, they don’t need to game in my kid’s room.
Everyone is correct in saying you can’t control the gaming. If someone wants to, they will.
However, with nine “kid years” of college under my parental belt, I will state, without a doubt, that the room with the gaming system is the room where everyone hangs… It is NOT a room where the people who actually live there get homework or studying or much sleeping done.
If your kid has problems limiting his own gaming time, that is one issue.
You don’t need to add to it by installing a gaming system in his room. His own ability to limit himself is hard enough without adding four “friends” in his room at 2 AM who promise they’ll leave soon. Pretty soon. Maybe. Or not.
You don’t want your kid’s room to become “that” room.
My son was an RA for two years. He told me that he saw more students flunk out because of gaming than because of drinking. The reason is drinkers tend to study hard during the week and party on the weekends, but gamers tend to play everyday. Of course there were exceptions - drinkers who flunked out and gamers who were highly successful students - but in general he saw gamers having more academic problems.
What he also saw was gamers who changed from difficult to easy majors in order to succeed in the classroom. Engineering, pre-med and STEM majors take a lot of time and some other majors don’t take so much. Many students will drop those majors because they realize it’s not a good fit and that’s a good thing, but sadly, many also drop them because they are hard and to be successful requires less time for fun.
Parents can’t control gaming or drinking, but warning their students of the dangers and pitfalls of both is wise. I think most young adults do listen to their parents when it is a mutual conversation that respects them versus a lecture. They need to be warned and to anticipate that college is hard. The really hard AP class they took in high school gave them a year to complete and lots of grade support with homework, quizzes and tests. In college that same class is a semester long and they have only a few tests to prove their mastery. I work with high schoolers, and even the best, hardest working students are shocked at how hard college is in comparison.
My son’s roommate at UT was an electrical engineering major who played loud games halfway through every night, literally. It was a disaster - my son couldn’t sleep and didn’t say anything to the RA or us. When he had his mental break in December, his doctor said the situation with the roommate definitely contributed to my son’s issues. Not that he wouldn’t have fallen ill at some point, but it probably wouldn’t have happened when it did. So parents should tell their kids that it’s NOT acceptable for roommates to behave like that - RAs need to be alerted.
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Gamers gonna game.
However, they don’t need to game in my kid’s room.
Everyone is correct in saying you can’t control the gaming. If someone wants to, they will.
However, with nine “kid years” of college under my parental belt, I will state, without a doubt, that the room with the gaming system is the room where everyone hangs… It is NOT a room where the people who actually live there get homework or studying or much sleeping done.
If your kid has problems limiting his own gaming time, that is one issue.
You don’t need to add to it by installing a gaming system in his room. His own ability to limit himself is hard enough without adding four “friends” in his room at 2 AM who promise they’ll leave soon. Pretty soon. Maybe. Or not.
You don’t want your kid’s room to become “that” room.
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I agree.
You want to provide some incentive for your child to leave the dorm room. From what my daughter says, the kids with the nicest gaming setup (TV, some system, fast gaming laptop, whatever) don’t leave their rooms. They don’t seek out clubs or other activities. I’m not even sure they go to class (especially if lectures are online). I guess they may come out to eat.
I had a college roommate whose addiction to electronic gaming was so bad freshman year that a Prof for one of our morning classes asked me to be a messenger notifying him that the Prof wanted to see him that afternoon to explain his being absent for several days in a row.
It also got to the point I had to put my foot down and pointedly ask him to game outside our room* after midnight so I can have some time to study**/sleep for my early morning classes. Fortunately, he got moved to another dorm halfway through the year as an opening came up with a friend who was also a gamer…though nowhere near as hardcore as he was.
- Yes, this involved taking out the machine when it came close to midnight. However, while it's his right to screw up his own grades/sleep.....I wasn't going to let him screw those up for yours truly.
** A lot of public study spaces including large sections of the library closed around midnight.
This thread suggests that the parents of HS students should be helping students control gaming. Once students are in college, no one is in a good place to intervene. RAs can’t do it all.
We have our game console in the main family room. Our rule during the grade school years has been that the system is only for use on weekends, Fri-Sun, for an hour each day. OK, so it crept up to 1.5 hours sometimes. But that was and is our rule which has worked well for us. We lost some control when the kids got iPods/iPads, but for us the console rule has kept things in check. Even during the summer when it can be used any day, we limit the time to 1-1.5 hours.
Some of these issues around video gaming addiction and the fact they can be a major time suck are factors in why most families in my old neighborhood or older relatives and likeminded friends either refused to buy video gaming consoles altogether or insisted the TV, gaming console, and computers must be located in the living room/public area where parents can keep a close eye.
Those parents also tend to enforce immediate consequences if a child’s grades/behavior suffered as a result of excess gaming.
One family friend related how when he was a child when his grades dropped in middle school because he spent too much time with video games/TV, his parents immediately sold the gaming console and locked the TV up in such a manner that only they could access it. That lock on the TV cabinet stayed on until he left for college.
OP - DS13 is at Georgia Tech. He has friends who have failed out because they spent too much time gaming instead of going to class or doing homework. This is a real issue for many kids. I think you have to figure out whether your son is addicted to gaming,just playing it for something to do or playing to avoid doing things they should be doing. If he is addicted or playing to avoid doing other things then I would not let the playstation go with him and I would try and figure out away to help him not be dependent on gaming. Gaming in itself is not the problem it’s just whether they can control when to play.
Addictions to video games isn’t just a problem with young people. I’ve been shocked to learn that many adults (often males) can’t keep jobs because of their gaming addictions. they’ll call in sick, or go to work late, and it leads to job loss. I recently heard of a guy who was abusing the Family Leave Act just so he could be home playing video games.