My son loves video games and does spend a lot of time playing a variety of different ones both online and offline. He now monitors his own time spent on the games, however, is much the same way I regulate my own amount of time I spend on a computer or at any other unessential task. I don't think he spends an excessive or unnatural amount of time on these games and, to a degree, the online ones to give him an outlet for social interaction, particularly when his friends are not too keen on spending time with him elsewise (that is, he continually tries to go out with friends to various events and to do various activities but is often turned down and sometimes brutally rejected.) I still say this has more to do with his allegedly neuro-typical friends own social issues than his struggles with his autism. If he was not trying to socialize with other people, I would be more worried about his behavior as "withdrawing from people"; but since he is the one continually making the effort, I think the "problem" is all "in their court." As a result, I think at this point that at least the online video games are essential to his warding off loneliness and depression and the skill level he has developed over the years does give him some much needed sense of competitive accomplishment (which is something that he doesn't get generally from participating in sports where different issues issues gross-motor coordination get in the way).

Anyway, moving on to the second question... when he was younger, however, we did limit his time on the computer simply by ensuring and insisting that he spent time on different activities that were not related to video games in any way. Of course, we had several tantrums when we were trying to encourage a transition from a video game to another activity, but these lessened when we put up an actual schedule so that he knew well in advance of the changeover time that a change in activity was going to happen. So, yes, we set a time limit, but EVERYTHING in his schedule effectively had a time limit.

Unfortunately Marcel isnt interested in the computer...., unless you count wanting to destroy it ugh lol. I had my
husband install our computer in a closet in the hallway, that way when Im not using it I can safely lock it up out
of my sons reach.