I guess I might as well post about my own experiences, even though I’m probably not a typical game player:
I noticed myself developing the habit of seeking the dead ends first in video games, but I thought that it was just a bad habit that I developed, and that most other people don’t play like that. My brother doesn’t play like that. But I continue using this strategy even in games where there isn’t a reward at the dead ends. I deliberately choose the path that’s more likely to be a dead end first, just for my own peace of mind, to know that it’s a dead end, and I don’t have to mentally keep track of another decision branch that I might have to come back and try later. And I also apply this strategy in real life, in any situation that involves a branching set of decisions, where if I take the wrong branch, I’ll need to go back to a previous branch, and there is some cost involved in backtracking, even if the cost is just a trivial amount of time or mental bookkeeping. And I’ve found that this is actually a good and helpful strategy. Or maybe it just feels helpful, despite often being counterproductive. If, for example, you’re trying to track down a bug in your source code, and… actually, rather than trying to explain in words, I’ll just link to this XKCD comic, which illustrates what happens you follow the opposite of this strategy.
I’m not afraid of spoilers. And I have the bad (or maybe not so bad?) habit of always playing to win, as opposed to playing for fun. If there is a guide for the game, I’ll read it. Unless reading the guide would actually be more work than figuring things out for myself, or if reading the guide would prevent me from learning or practicing a skill that’s actually important. Guides can save you from having to do lots of pointless searching, or experimenting, and can prevent you from making wrong choices early in a game that have big harmful consequences later in a game. And they can contain other important information that you wouldn’t have had much chance of figuring out on your own. Also, I often find reading the guide to be more fun than actually playing the game.
I apply the same paranoia to games that I apply to real life. I err on the side of spending too much effort researching which choice to make, rather than risking making the wrong choice by deciding arbitrarily on a whim. And this is often necessary even in video games, due to imbalanced classes, or classes that just don’t fit my playing style.
Another example of this paranoia: I’m constantly expecting that at any moment, the game might contain a challenge that’s impossible, or that is only possible if I haven’t made any other mistakes or wasted any rare items until I reached that challenge. And this is sometimes necessary even in video games.
I also apply the same frugality in video games that I apply in real life, even if I know that the game’s currency inflates dramatically as the game continues, making this strategy counterproductive. I just can’t bring myself to act in any other way. I avoid buying any items I probably don’t need. I avoid using up nonrenewable items, often to the point where it’s useless to keep them in my inventory because I never use them. And yet I still try to collect as many of these nonrenewable items as possible, even though I know I’m probably never going to use them. The problem with this strategy was illustrated in this 8-bit-theater comic. Specifically, the quote “I merely realized that my reluctance to sacrifice spell slots or use items for the express purpose of maintaining my peak level of versatility was a vicious cycle of stagnation.”
Actually, this strategy sometimes causes problems in real life. Usually with food going bad because I was reluctant to use it up… just because of some irrational inhibition about using up any resource that can’t be easily replaced.
I really hate playing “deathmatch mode” in FPS games, because the usual rules about trying to survive at all costs no longer apply, because you’re competing for the highest number of kills, not trying to be the last person standing. After years of trying, I still can’t get used to playing like that. And so I’ve mostly stopped trying.
I suspect that video games have made me more risk averse than I would have been otherwise, by constantly providing me with examples of ways that things can go terribly wrong. I’m still undecided about whether this has an overall positive effect. For example, when I’m driving, it makes me constantly be on the lookout for objects that could potentially move into my path or otherwise collide with my car. But sometimes it makes me panic, with dangerous results.
I guess I had better stop writing now, this comment has already grown too long.
I also apply the same frugality in video games that I apply in real life, even if I know that the game’s currency inflates dramatically as the game continues, making this strategy counterproductive. I just can’t bring myself to act in any other way. I avoid buying any items I probably don’t need. I avoid using up nonrenewable items, often to the point where it’s useless to keep them in my inventory because I never use them. And yet I still try to collect as many of these nonrenewable items as possible, even though I know I’m probably never going to use them.
I used to have some of the same tendencies when playing games but in an effort to improve my play (particularly playing competitive multiplayer games) learned that it’s often a bad strategy. I feel learning this actually helped me overcome an unproductive real life tendency towards hoarding or excessive caution. I have a much reduced tendency to do this now.
A related habit which I unlearned to some extent from games (particularly competitive RTS games) was the tendency to try and build up impenetrable defenses before engaging in any combat (excessive turtling) in RTS speak). This is another example of a tendency which can be ineffective or counterproductive in real life and I’ve found lessons from game strategy helpful in overcoming. This is I think a similar problem to how you describe your tendency to “err on the side of spending too much effort researching which choice to make, rather than risking making the wrong choice by deciding arbitrarily on a whim”.
Note that in certain circumstances both of these tendencies can be good winning strategies. If you have a personality type that inclines you to overuse this type of strategy even when it is not a good approach it can be detrimental to your success. I personally found games helpful in appreciating this.
hmm, I just realized that this confession that I deliberately use a strategy that inefficiently uses in-game currency… kinda conflicts with my previous claim that I always play to win.
a random thought: am I playing to win, or am I playing to “not lose”?
also, sometimes it turns out that I actually did need to save up the in-game currency for an important item in the next town, and so I shouldn’t always just spend all the currency as soon as I get it, with the excuse that inflation makes frugality counterproductive.
I also have a tendency to turtle. If there’s ever a choice between offense and defense, I choose defense. Or maybe higher speed, for better dodging. Or better yet, the ability to heal. I usually pick the class with the best healing ability. My overly defensive strategies kinda make me no fun to play against, but they generally result in me losing less often.
And yes, I have found games to be useful for showing me when my strategy is suboptimal, and I’ve been making some attempt to change the bad habits. Though I don’t seem to have made much progress at this. I have at least allowed myself to go on a big spending spree when I’m at the last town, and the currency has stopped inflating. And I’ve allowed myself to use all those rare items in the battle with the final boss, since there’s nothing left to save the items for… except maybe later in the battle with the final boss...
So I know that my strategy is suboptimal, and I’m trying to change it, but I’m failing to actually make any significant changes, due to… psychological inertia?
But I still make sure to buy stuff that is actually necessary, or that is obviously a good deal, and I actually do use items that are obviously a good idea to use. And my strategy does work well enough for me actually win often enough, so maybe I’m being too critical...
When I start playing, it’s because I don’t feel like I have the energy to do something more useful, or if I just feel like I need a break. And so my original purpose for starting the game is just to fill time, and maybe even have fun, or recharge energy. But once I start playing, I almost always end up taking the game way too seriously, and I end up burning energy I didn’t think I had, and ending up more tired when I’m finished than when I started. Once I start a game, I have a really hard time stopping. That’s bad. And yet playing games is still my default activity, when I don’t feel like doing anything else.
hmm, I just realized that this confession that I deliberately use a strategy that inefficiently uses in-game currency… kinda conflicts with my previous claim that I always play to win.
This can be a manifestation of a lost purpose. Money / one-use items are useful to accumulate for the purposes of beating the game (or your opponent) but focusing on maximizing them is to lose sight of your goal (winning the game).
And my strategy does work well enough for me actually win often enough, so maybe I’m being too critical...
It’s not clear to me whether you are primarily talking about single player games or not but I have generally found competitive multiplayer much more effective than single player for encouraging winning strategies and punishing losing strategies. Good human opponents often also devise creative strategies which can be educational in themselves.
Another example of this paranoia: I’m constantly expecting that at any moment, the game might contain a challenge that’s impossible, or that is only possible if I haven’t made any other mistakes or wasted any rare items until I reached that challenge. And this is sometimes necessary even in video games.
The reason I hate Final Fantasy Tactics.
The problem with this strategy was illustrated in this 8-bit-theater comic.
I’ve had the same problem. I basically came to an epiphany similar to Red Mage’s. It applied to both my behavior in life and in RPGs.
I guess I might as well post about my own experiences, even though I’m probably not a typical game player:
I noticed myself developing the habit of seeking the dead ends first in video games, but I thought that it was just a bad habit that I developed, and that most other people don’t play like that. My brother doesn’t play like that. But I continue using this strategy even in games where there isn’t a reward at the dead ends. I deliberately choose the path that’s more likely to be a dead end first, just for my own peace of mind, to know that it’s a dead end, and I don’t have to mentally keep track of another decision branch that I might have to come back and try later. And I also apply this strategy in real life, in any situation that involves a branching set of decisions, where if I take the wrong branch, I’ll need to go back to a previous branch, and there is some cost involved in backtracking, even if the cost is just a trivial amount of time or mental bookkeeping. And I’ve found that this is actually a good and helpful strategy. Or maybe it just feels helpful, despite often being counterproductive. If, for example, you’re trying to track down a bug in your source code, and… actually, rather than trying to explain in words, I’ll just link to this XKCD comic, which illustrates what happens you follow the opposite of this strategy.
I’m not afraid of spoilers. And I have the bad (or maybe not so bad?) habit of always playing to win, as opposed to playing for fun. If there is a guide for the game, I’ll read it. Unless reading the guide would actually be more work than figuring things out for myself, or if reading the guide would prevent me from learning or practicing a skill that’s actually important. Guides can save you from having to do lots of pointless searching, or experimenting, and can prevent you from making wrong choices early in a game that have big harmful consequences later in a game. And they can contain other important information that you wouldn’t have had much chance of figuring out on your own. Also, I often find reading the guide to be more fun than actually playing the game.
I apply the same paranoia to games that I apply to real life. I err on the side of spending too much effort researching which choice to make, rather than risking making the wrong choice by deciding arbitrarily on a whim. And this is often necessary even in video games, due to imbalanced classes, or classes that just don’t fit my playing style.
Another example of this paranoia: I’m constantly expecting that at any moment, the game might contain a challenge that’s impossible, or that is only possible if I haven’t made any other mistakes or wasted any rare items until I reached that challenge. And this is sometimes necessary even in video games.
I also apply the same frugality in video games that I apply in real life, even if I know that the game’s currency inflates dramatically as the game continues, making this strategy counterproductive. I just can’t bring myself to act in any other way. I avoid buying any items I probably don’t need. I avoid using up nonrenewable items, often to the point where it’s useless to keep them in my inventory because I never use them. And yet I still try to collect as many of these nonrenewable items as possible, even though I know I’m probably never going to use them. The problem with this strategy was illustrated in this 8-bit-theater comic. Specifically, the quote “I merely realized that my reluctance to sacrifice spell slots or use items for the express purpose of maintaining my peak level of versatility was a vicious cycle of stagnation.”
Actually, this strategy sometimes causes problems in real life. Usually with food going bad because I was reluctant to use it up… just because of some irrational inhibition about using up any resource that can’t be easily replaced.
I really hate playing “deathmatch mode” in FPS games, because the usual rules about trying to survive at all costs no longer apply, because you’re competing for the highest number of kills, not trying to be the last person standing. After years of trying, I still can’t get used to playing like that. And so I’ve mostly stopped trying.
I suspect that video games have made me more risk averse than I would have been otherwise, by constantly providing me with examples of ways that things can go terribly wrong. I’m still undecided about whether this has an overall positive effect. For example, when I’m driving, it makes me constantly be on the lookout for objects that could potentially move into my path or otherwise collide with my car. But sometimes it makes me panic, with dangerous results.
I guess I had better stop writing now, this comment has already grown too long.
I used to have some of the same tendencies when playing games but in an effort to improve my play (particularly playing competitive multiplayer games) learned that it’s often a bad strategy. I feel learning this actually helped me overcome an unproductive real life tendency towards hoarding or excessive caution. I have a much reduced tendency to do this now.
A related habit which I unlearned to some extent from games (particularly competitive RTS games) was the tendency to try and build up impenetrable defenses before engaging in any combat (excessive turtling) in RTS speak). This is another example of a tendency which can be ineffective or counterproductive in real life and I’ve found lessons from game strategy helpful in overcoming. This is I think a similar problem to how you describe your tendency to “err on the side of spending too much effort researching which choice to make, rather than risking making the wrong choice by deciding arbitrarily on a whim”.
Note that in certain circumstances both of these tendencies can be good winning strategies. If you have a personality type that inclines you to overuse this type of strategy even when it is not a good approach it can be detrimental to your success. I personally found games helpful in appreciating this.
hmm, I just realized that this confession that I deliberately use a strategy that inefficiently uses in-game currency… kinda conflicts with my previous claim that I always play to win.
a random thought: am I playing to win, or am I playing to “not lose”?
also, sometimes it turns out that I actually did need to save up the in-game currency for an important item in the next town, and so I shouldn’t always just spend all the currency as soon as I get it, with the excuse that inflation makes frugality counterproductive.
I also have a tendency to turtle. If there’s ever a choice between offense and defense, I choose defense. Or maybe higher speed, for better dodging. Or better yet, the ability to heal. I usually pick the class with the best healing ability. My overly defensive strategies kinda make me no fun to play against, but they generally result in me losing less often.
And yes, I have found games to be useful for showing me when my strategy is suboptimal, and I’ve been making some attempt to change the bad habits. Though I don’t seem to have made much progress at this. I have at least allowed myself to go on a big spending spree when I’m at the last town, and the currency has stopped inflating. And I’ve allowed myself to use all those rare items in the battle with the final boss, since there’s nothing left to save the items for… except maybe later in the battle with the final boss...
So I know that my strategy is suboptimal, and I’m trying to change it, but I’m failing to actually make any significant changes, due to… psychological inertia?
But I still make sure to buy stuff that is actually necessary, or that is obviously a good deal, and I actually do use items that are obviously a good idea to use. And my strategy does work well enough for me actually win often enough, so maybe I’m being too critical...
To what extent are you playing to fill time?
When I start playing, it’s because I don’t feel like I have the energy to do something more useful, or if I just feel like I need a break. And so my original purpose for starting the game is just to fill time, and maybe even have fun, or recharge energy. But once I start playing, I almost always end up taking the game way too seriously, and I end up burning energy I didn’t think I had, and ending up more tired when I’m finished than when I started. Once I start a game, I have a really hard time stopping. That’s bad. And yet playing games is still my default activity, when I don’t feel like doing anything else.
This can be a manifestation of a lost purpose. Money / one-use items are useful to accumulate for the purposes of beating the game (or your opponent) but focusing on maximizing them is to lose sight of your goal (winning the game).
It’s not clear to me whether you are primarily talking about single player games or not but I have generally found competitive multiplayer much more effective than single player for encouraging winning strategies and punishing losing strategies. Good human opponents often also devise creative strategies which can be educational in themselves.
The reason I hate Final Fantasy Tactics.
I’ve had the same problem. I basically came to an epiphany similar to Red Mage’s. It applied to both my behavior in life and in RPGs.