Not really. I prefer gog and the Playstation not keeping track of my playtimes. I don´t really care about knowing that.
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I was thinking about 80s/90s side-scrolling platform games so I will go with Action.
Most “platform games” are “action adventures” today.
Actually u asked a great question… I would not be playing 2D Pixel art games… had I not got to play TWP. I came to know it through XBOX’s YouTube channel… I just saw the trailer and thought I should check it out… And voila! I became deeply intrigued by Pixel art and PNC games.
OK… Let’s be honest… I tried the game after watching the trailer but I was like what the heck is this?? I didn’t like it at first… I deleted the game… Then saw that everyone started talking about it and you know it became quite famous… Then tried it the second time… That’s when I really understood what a gem this game was.
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Except we didn’t stay up until 2 AM chatting on the schoolyard.
Well, so either you spent a lot of time trying to beat a game or even a level (case D)
Or you really liked it (case C)
One doesn’t imply the other.
But if you keep playing a hard, bad game for hours and hours (as was the question) you’re just a masochist. 
That’s the reason why my top 3 are Simulation, Strategy and RPG. If the OP had asked about the number of games bought per genre, it would look quite a bit differently. (Though, then again, some of the categories seem overly broad. All things considered, I did buy a heap of strategy games of quite different nature.)
For me it clearly falls under simulation. If it’s sport, I’d have to reconsider my votes, given how much time I spent with the first three F1 racing sims made by Geoff Crammond. Later switched to the more US-centric Papyrus titles, which I’d also consider simulation). By sheer hours, I guess I played racing sims the most.
When combining that with Flight-Sims (F/A-18 Interceptor or Gunship 2000, later Comanche, though perhaps latter was more of an action-y game?), not to mention economic simulations, it’s by far the genre I played the most in my life, but nearly not at all in recent decades.
There’s likely a tie between Strategy (Populous, Civilization, Dune II, The Settlers, Command & Conquer, Warcraft 2) and RPGs, though these days I hardly play former any more.
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Yes, you’re probably right. That’s an interesting observation, that could help looking at videogames more from the developer’s point of view (number of copies sold, different categories and so on). That’s why I want to share this:
According to some analysts, the count of each broad genre in the best selling physical games worldwide
which is probably matter for another thread, like this one.
If you go to the page from which I got the table, you’ll get some interesting articles on the matter as references.
Frankly speaking, I don’t know if such a table and its references can be considered highly trusted. Anyway it shows the topic under a different point of view.
Interesting to see adventure game sales decline just as Shooter games rise in popularity. This confirms what we’ve suspected was happening after Doom came out.
Wow- this got longer than I expected. I usually don’t get to geek out over games with most people in my life, so bear with me.
At I young age, I really enjoyed Flight Simulators (my first being Flight Simulation by Psion for the Timex Sinclair 1000 (ZX81), my first computer), then later Flight Simulator by subLogic for the Apple II, then later Microsoft’s Flight simulator on PC. This also is responsible for my first brush with Lucasfilm, as the flight simulator genre got me excited by what was accomplished graphically in Rescue on Fractalus. I also enjoyed racing games in these years, first Night Driver and then especially Pole Position. I also experienced my first adventure games, starting with Adventure on the 2600, and then some very simple text adventures on a Tandy machine my cousins owned. In high school, I got really hooked on Infocom Text Adventures, and then early Graphic Adventures (Sierra mostly King’s Quest, Space Quest - I know, boo). Then for a while after graduating from college, I was into strategy games (Age of Empires, Warcraft, Starcraft). I had a strong period with FPS games as well, especially Doom, then Hexen, then Quake. Both the Strategy and FPS genres were encouraged by coworkers who would arrange Starcraft and Quake LAN parties after hours for multiplayer competition. I got back into Point and Click adventures later (after having kids), initially thanks to Telltale games (which got me into Monkey Island). About this time I realized I had completely missed the bus with respect to Lucasfilm Games and LucasArts titles back in the 80’s. So, I worked hard to make up for lost time by playing the (original) Monkey Island and Indiana Jones series. I also got into some great point and click series after this like Siberia and The Longest Journey. Nowadays, the games I enjoy are those with an engaging story, and it helps if there is good writing and good humor elements. I backed Broken Age and liked it although I didn’t love it. When TWP arrived, I realized this was the game I had been hungering for. I hadn’t enjoyed a game like that for a long time. It was so nice to play an adventure with enough depth, story, and puzzles to keep you engaged for many hours. I later sought out other quality adventures especially those I could play on a tablet and found great ones like Milkmaid of the Milky Way, and The Journey Down. I never lost my love for text adventures, and I’m always on a lookout for the winners of IF Comp and other IF competitions each year. I very much enjoyed (and backed) Thaumistry for it’s story, depth of interactiveness, humor, and writing.
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Wow, there´s some awesome polygon graphics for 1988 (if that date is true).
The Flight-Simulator that I have played most, it was FA-18 Interceptor (Amiga)
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No Falcon fans here? 
That was the most popular flight simulator of my friends at school. The only simulation game I played really often was Stunt Car Racer. 
I bought Falcon 4.0, but it was quite intimidating, especially compared to the likes of FA-18 Interceptor.
I first saw that on a friend’s Atari, and immediately became a fan (of the game, not the Atari). Another great title by Geoff Crammond.
Yeah, and weird one - I would never come up with the idea to put a dragster (-car) on a roller coaster…
One of the first/only/coolest race simulators I played was Street Rod on the C64. I mean, I played racing games before (enduro, pole position, grand prix,…) and afterwards (hard drivin’, Test Drive, Screamer, (the first)need for speed, carmageddon )
But they all lacked the whole peripheral part.
From the entire List of driving games, I probably enjoyed Screamer the most (at home, when the first steering wheel controls for PC came out) and Rad Mobile (at the arcades, you had to turn on your headlights, use rain wipes, you could take shortcuts on a train track, getting chased by a train!)
Doom is really basic when you look at it. Navigate through a Labyrinth, Shoot Demons and try to not get hit or fall in acid, get keycards and leave area. It´s perfect to zone out after a stressful day for many people, I guess.
I discovered that I enjoyed the most recent Doom game a lot more than the old ones. The reason is that I totally get lost in the old Doom games, the new ones give you a navigation system so you have at least an idea where your next stop goes, too. There are also classic levels available and they don´t have that, and what happened? I kept getting lost again. 
I wanna be honest about Farcry:-
For future reference, one of Doom’s improvements over Wolf3D was automap (tab). ECWolf adds an automap to Wolf3D.