Q: Do playing games lower my MacBook's lifespan?

Using any electronic equipment lowers its lifespan as they have all been designed for certain limits. For example your fans have an intended mean number of cycles to die.

If you kick up the fans for any reason will shorten the lifespan of the machine because it will inhale more dust which collects at the cooling fins and blocks the machine from being able to cool itself.

Since the MBP-R is non-user servicable, you can't even open the machine and clean out the dust.

Most Mac's if you open them up to reach the back of the fans will violate your AppleCare/warranty.

As you can see here on the left, the residue of caked on dust on my Late 2007 cooling fins which most likely prematurely killed it.

Depends on how much you use it. This is no different from playing games on a PC, driving your car, even a lighter.

If you are looking for an exact number there as no such thing as nobody has benchmarked the effect of playing certain games for a certain number of hours a day on lifespan of certain Retina Macbook Pros. It's just not possible.

If you're too worried buy a separate gaming Desktop.

I honestly don't have an answer for that.

Your laptop doesn't care whether its a game or Photoshop or web browsing. If it needs more resources it will live shorter.

With that being said, one hour of high performance usage a day should not reduce your MBP's lifetime by a year unless the machine was defective to begin with.

Electronics them self are NOT designed for a certain life span (poorly designed ones are).  They can last many years beyond there usefullness but.....and there's a very big butt.

Shorten life span equals:

1.   Heat

2.   Cold

3.   Over Current

3b. Under Current

4.   Neutron exposure

If the electronic part i.e.. transistors, resisters, capacitors, and more are manufactured under strict processes they can literally last many many years beyond the life of the end user needs.

Apple uses what they think are the best affordable electronics in most of what they make so the end user can afford it and enjoy it for a reasonably long period.

Once upon a time buying American meant high quality and buying Japanese or Korean (known as foreign) meant buying low quality.  Remember Digital Research?

Turning your computer on and off every day may shorten some components life like HDD, Fan, Power Supply, and Battery.

However playing games that increase the temperature of you computer to maximum design capacity shouldn't effect the electronics life span.  If the components exceed the design temperature(s) would effect the life span. And even at exceeded temperatures there are design safety factors which could be 1% to 10% of design?

Play and enjoy without worry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a reliability engineer, and I worked at Apple for 16 years, and I might be able to provide some insight.

"Does it effect battery life?"

If you're only running on battery power, gaming will discharge the battery quicker than normal and, therefore you'll have to recharge more frequently.  The battery has a limited number of charge/recharge cycles.  If you game with the power adapter plugged in, the battery life will not be affected.

"The overall speed of the machine overtime?"

Perhaps very marginally.  Heat will cause internal change to molecular structures in chips and electronic components, and they are subject to the electronic equivalent of mechanical wear.  Taking a brand new computer off the shelf, and comparing it to an identical computer 5 years old, there may be a 1-2% difference in overall speed.

The best advice I can give you is to use yourportable computer while it's on a flat, hard surface - a desk , for example.  Using it on a think carpet or on a bed can cause the internal temperatures to rise.  Another hint is to use a vacuum cleaner every month at the rear and side vents, to clean out the desk.  Under no circumstances should you use compressed air.  The air can cause fans to break, and push dust and debris into the computer.

Enjoy.

Electronics them self are NOT designed for a certain life span (poorly designed ones are).

Every electronic device, and in fact every mechanical device is designed to work wihin a certain lifespan. It could be number of spins for disk drives. It's number of read/write per memory unit on a SSD. Every bought a lamp? Check the number of hours on it.

****, even the chair I'm sitting on had in the manual standard life expected based on 8 hours a day workday and a certain weight of the user.

Same goes for your car tires, for the speakers on your desk, etc etc.

Any half decent engineer and engineering operation would put these together and test to make sure they are in fact real. Then when the salespeople go to after bid, they can claim their equipment can do X and Y under conditionz A, B and C.

If something outlives its specs that doesn't mean it was not built to spec. It just lived past minimum life expected of it.

Play and enjoy without worry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That I agree with.