Five Bad Video Game Habits I’ve Finally Broken After Playing for 20 Years

UM writes: If you’ve played video games for practically your entire life as I have, you’ve probably developed a few bad habits over the years. Recently, as my time to game grows shorter and my OCD gets less severe, I’ve tried to break a few of them, and have had some degree of success.

After twenty years there are “bad” things I’ve done while playing games that I finally, finally no longer do. I talk about what I mean by that below, along with discussing the game that inspired the change in my behavior. Just read on, you’ll see what I mean and probably can relate to a few.

[xYLeinen]

This was an very interesting article, and different from all the other crap that get posted here. I felt it was fresh, I could easily understand the points made..

+1 for a good read. Thank you.. Bring us more that is worth reading..

[christian hour]

Agreed, I definitely enjoyed this article, especially found it very relatable as there are a few gaming habits I've broken free of myself after 20 odd years of gaming.

The one I'm most proud of, is overhyping stuff for myself, though that habit extended to movies, comics, music and tv shows. I'd spend the months between official game information dreaming up what I might be playing, paying attention to every detail in a trailer or screenshot and reading theories of what this might mean for the games story/gameplay come release etc.

And then after x years/months of hypetrain, come release day I'd breeze through the singleplayer, dabble in the multiplayer and end up feeling somewhat disappointed.

Years of hype amounting to one day of enjoyment.

Now I just check a trailer if it happens to come in to my knowledge, and I rarely bother with screenshots these days. And its great, I'm at a stage where I know what games I will or won't like from just a few tidbits alone, and then come launch day I can enjoy the game 100% unspoiled(somewhat) and then get a shit tonne of replayability from it. But then thats just me, for some people the hypetrain can enhance the experience I guess.

[brodychet]

We can all relate to this.

[levian]

This was a great article, one written by someone who is very clearly someone who plays and enjoys games.

I still do most of these things. In Final Fantasy, I NEVER use my Elixers or Max Elixers. In any game with a stealth option, I always choose to do it and restart if I get spotted.

The worst (and best) for me is doing every single side quest. I CAN'T do the main quest when side quests are available. If it's a liner game with two paths, I know one is the right way and one probably leads to an item. If I accidentally go the right way, and if it doesn't let me go back I'll restart. That's why Xenoblade was so hard for me to play. Too... many... quests...

[3-4-5]

Me:

1.) Quitting when something becomes frustrating. Back in the day, you would just start over and over until you got it right or you beat the "bad guy/level/world/boss".

The past few years I would just become frustrated and quit and pop in another game I had and enjoy that.

I found that I wasn't finishing games as much as I used to though. We don't always remember the 50+ deaths or restarts we had to go through when our Nostalgia kicks in and we think about how great a game was.

2.) I figure out plotlines and stories really quick and if it's "too predictable" then I can't enjoy it and sometimes quit.

Like character A will do something so Obviously dumb, it's like " really? you guys just did that?".....

Story could be going along perfect and they always throw some stupid cheesy, easy to figure out cliche that pulls away all the excitement that it was building up.

I also just play on Medium difficulty now and just try and relax and enjoy the game. If you try to be the best it becomes not fun until you do it long enough to get really good.

By then though, I'm usually sick of said game and just move on.

[Pozzle]

I'm the same with survival horrors. By the end of most Resident Evil games, I'd have a bunch of rockets, magnum bullets and acid/flame/etc rounds that I never used, because I didn't want to waste them. lol

[ArchangelMike]

Excellent article +1 from me as well.

Another one for the list, is obviously Trophies/Achievements. When I get a new game, I can't look at the trophy list cos it just ruins the game for me.

When I finish the game however, I then decide if I'm going to platinum the game based on the trophies. If the trophies are simply unachieveable (usually multiplayer trophies like be first on the leadserboards or something like that), I somehow can't bring myself to play the game again :(

This can ruin the replayability of games for me, once I complete a game and look through the Trophy list, if it has some impossible trop

[grailly]

another one for me would be starting to play every game on max difficulty, sometimes it's just more fun to play on medium/easy

[mochachino]

Great list. I do all of those and it really detracts from the enjoyment of games.

I still remember hoarding all my mini-nukes in Fallout, you know for something really tough, then never even ended up using them.

Same with online MP too, with full-time work (and overtime) and life I only have time to play games at most 5 hours a week so I always start off doing reasonably well in MP then after a few months get smoked every match, which turns me off of the MP naturally.

Hopefully this new push with Co-operative online MP in games like Destiny and The Division will bring the joys of online MP to the massess.

[Kenshin_BATT0USAI]

I used my mininukes when I had to fight the giant super mutants only, and frankly, that was fun.

[isa_scout]

There must be a disagree troll prowling N4G today. Everything you said was spot on, and I can't wait to play Destiny and The Division.

[joab777]

All of this is me. I have broken some but not others.

[vickers500]

in reference to Fallout 3

Did anyone, after a long FO3 session, right when they were about to quit the game, just nuke the hell out of everything in the current town you were in just to try out those mini nukes and have fun with them, or was that just me?

Lol, I'd just shoot random mini nukes up into the air in megaton and kill everyone I possibly could, just to see the effects of them. Obviously I wouldn't actually save the game after doing this, but it'd be pretty fun just to see how quickly I could wipe out the town by doing it.

[sdozzo]

Fun article. Nice job.

[DragonKnight]

Lol, I still do 3 out of the 5, especially the "Restarting After Failing Stealth" one.

This was an excellent article actually. It shows how many gamers actually play the same way and we all don't realize it.

[Tetsujin]

#6 Reloading after firing 1 shot

When I quit; Fallout New Vegas

[I_am_Batman]

That's actually not bad habit but a good one in most shooters when you don't lose ammo. However I had to quit this habit when I played Cry of Fear cause you lose a whole magazine if you reload.

Never played Fallout New Vegas I guess it's the same with that.

[3-4-5]

I still do it and it's the cause of 40% of my deaths in FPS games. I usually get the drop on people, but I still try to reload even when there is like 3-4 guys around me.

It's a habit that started when I would run out of ammo playing goldeneye back in the day and I refused to ever run out of ammo again so I would always reload.

[dreamoner]

Nice article. Tho I've been 10 year of a gamer and still havent broken any of those things, prolly my OCD is worse.

For #3 tho. If the game gives too much bullshit to do I simply dont do any of the side things and focus the main story; deliberately avoiding any side thing cos I think If I wont do the whole thing I shouldnt do it at all. But with a good RPG(like Kotors-new vegas) I always do the side quests and all that shit and I enjoy them also.

I hated AC2-brohood for #3. Doing all those side shit with the clumsy-heavy controls of gameplay.

[byeGollum]

Nice, informative and relatable article. I can definitely relate to number two. These habits can ruin your experience of a game if not careful. Im glad I became aware of some of mine much, much earlier.

[isa_scout]

Awesome article man, and a real good read. I'm getting so tired of the, "my console is better than yours" articles. I'll take more articles like this any frakin day.

[Sketchy_Galore]

I always stick to my choices in RPGs, hardly ever play multiplayer because I've accepted that I suck (my goal when I do play is to not place last) but yeah, I still occasionally curse and reload when I fail stealth.

My biggest problem though, the one thing I cannot get over, I am a virtual hoarder. The chest by my bed in Skyrim is a sea of semi-interesting and individual items that I'll never use, that I have often dropped useful items to free up the room the carry them back home, just like I did in Fallout, just like I do in any game that lets me. I never use any weapon more exotic than a basic rifle because I'm saving all of that precious fancy ammo for the moment I really need them, which is usually halfway through the end boss fight when I use one of the super super rare powerful bomb things I have fifty of.

[N2NOther]

Eh, with the exception of number 5, I still enjoy doing all of those things.

[CommanderWTF]

I agree with number 4. Skyrim also made me stop trying to complete every quest. Once I had about 70 side quests in my log, I said screw it. I decided to just beat the main quest, and then play something else.

[GUYwhoPLAYSvideoGAME]

i still am fighting my issues with basically all of these

[Jagsrock]

I can relate to most of these, especially the stealth and hoarding ones. I have a knack for hoarding my fictional money or xp not wanting to spend it always waiting for something better to buy.(I think it's a Zelda reflex where I question whether i'll get the item for free later on.)
I've gotten better but I still hesitate to spend sometimes.

[longcat]

I also had to break these habits because I have so many games and so little time

[mydyingparadiselost]

This is a great article and I think it not only brings up problems with players (I'm one of those by the way-playing Kingdoms of Amalur and 22 hours in still just doing side quests, hoarding too much crap and such) but also in game design itself. Games may offer too much choice, open world options and couple of use items to hoard in the first place. Are these really factors of a person not playing games the right way to make them enjoyable or is it the game design not making the game enjoyable because of the way these things are presented in the first place?

[H0RSE]

I still do all of these but one, and probably always will - I've been gaming for over 25 yrs.

#5 is something I never do, gaming or otherwise. The author relates this to a phrase from his childhood, “I want to be the very best, like no one ever was!” Whereas I relate to a completely different phrase from mine - "there's always somebody better than you."

I really wish more gamers would take a more humble approach to gaming, and realize tat regardless how serious you take it, it's not a fucking contest. Ego and pride really are a plague that needs to be cleansed from MP. They're either trash-talking and/or being unsportsmanlike (teabagging) or quitting because they can't have fun unless they're winning.

[tweet75]

not just rushing through the game s like i used to enjoy the ride. New super mario games always do this to me but i now I try to slow down find secrets and enjoy the levels as I go.

[_FantasmA_]

When I played Half Life about 10 years ago, I would try not to get shot. If my health and my armor went down by more than about 15 points each, I would reload a save. I would save after every successful battle. Took me 2 weeks to beat the game this way. The reason I play like this is because you never when a boss is coming and you need to be fully prepared.

I remember sometimes getting to the bosses in Resident Evil and not having enough ammo or herbs and having to restart the game or from a previous save from hours or days ago and being pissed. Thats why played cautiously on Half Life, Deus Ex, and Bioshock. And strangely those 3 are my top 3 favorite games ever. I don't know if they became my favorites because I played them slowly and like a careful professional, or because they are just that good.