Topic: Does your anxiety affect how you play videogames?

@Blitzenexx I could relate to the backlog thing. And the UI that previous user mentioned. Years ago I had a huuuge collection of physical games and hardware (back to the wood grain 2600), but it started to get overwhelming. I didn’t find it fun or neat at all, and even though I had ample space to display and/or store everything it felt oppressive. So I sold it all. Now I have a very utilitarian mindset on things like that and I’ve felt quite a bit healthier. I’ve got just my 2DS, WiiU, and Switch. I only have about 25 physical games total, I kept a few rare sentimental ones from the collection (Earthbound, Eternal Darkness, SM Sunshine, Luigi’s Mansion, Robotech Battlecry), the rest are digital and I tend to delete thing I haven’t played in 4 months.
It extends to my books and movies, too. I’d say I could fit those with my game stuff in a single large moving box now.
It’s weird, but it works for me.

@bixente I’ll offer my two cents on the this thread topic and hope it helps. As many in this thread said, I feel that many of us feel some sort of nervousness or anxiety when something is on the line, like when you have only one bar of health left when fighting a final boss and it’s the farthest you’ve ever been — and this may or may not be further affected by other conditions as well. I recommend one of two things:

• Try to change your outlook on the game. What I mean is, I would sometimes get super stressed when playing a 1 v 1 match in Smash, and then sometimes I would do the same thing but not be stressed. I realized it was because, when I viewed the match as just a fun way to show off my skills against another player doing the same thing and have fun, I didn’t feel stressed if I lost or was losing. On the other hand, if I felt I needed to win, then I felt more stressed.

Basically, what I’m saying is that if you view the sole point and purpose of playing games as to have fun and make you smile/relax, you can change your viewpoint on matches and games to reduce that stress. For example in the aforementioned boss battle, just realizing it’s a part where you get to put your skills to the test, and if you lose the game is subtly telling you to improve and practice so you can get better and win next time, really reduces stress IMHO.

• If after trying the above the game still causes stress/nervousness/anxiety in you continuously? Honestly, it may not be the right type of game for you. There’s nothing wrong with that — as I said above, I feel the whole point of games is to have fun — as Reggie said in the E3 2017 direct, “If it’s not fun, why bother?” If it’s not fun for you, and instead hurting you by making you more stressed out, then it’s not worth playing for you. Video gaming is nothing mandatory, so if you can play another game or do another activity that gives you fun or pleasure, do it. This is why I’m avoiding games like Dark souls and Hollow Knight — continuously losing and struggling to improve would only make me more stressed, so I decided not to play those types of games and play other ones instead. This isn’t permanent — maybe In a few days/weeks/months/years you would change your mind. But if playing the game isn’t fun for you, play another game or do another activity since your free time is far too valuable to be used up on a game that stresses you out or isn’t fun. This applies to parts within a game too — if you’re trying to complete a game but the endgame or last part is too difficult and not fun, at that point there may not be much worth to playing the game, and in that case I’d take a break for some time before coming back and seeing if it’s worth trying again or not.

Hope this helps! Sorry for the rambling but I do hope it helps.

Yes I suffer from depression and anxiety and it’s affected my gaming in two ways. Although MMOs have been one of my main genres of choice for over a decade now, I usually avoid group dungeons because it stresses me out, not helped some of the people who play MMOs. And then there’s a less easy to pin down problem. For example after playing Diablo on switch quite regularly for a couple of weeks I felt sure it was making me nervy and gloomy so I stopped playing. On the other hand I know immersive and creative games have definitely helped me over the years.

@JackEatsSparrows: I have started a small pile of games that I intend to sell. I went through my physical collection a couple of months ago and weeded out the games that I don't think I'd ever play again. They're still sitting in a closet until I haul them off for trade-in at GameStop.

I've found that budgeting my purchases and regulating how many games I buy a month really helps. The problem lately is that the after-Christmas sales have been really good.... I'm seriously thinking about enforcing a complete buying ban on myself over the next couple of months.

Games make me anxious >_<

I honestly can't play any game where you can permanently miss or lose a character. (Unless it's an unavoidable part of the story).

Or I can... Until that happens!

Oh, another things again.
I completely don't like and will never like Soccer or any kind sport like soccer in different form like Blitzball or Quidditch or etc. 🙄

So, when i played Final Fantasy X, i have been forced to play that stupid Blitzball.
It was like pushing my disgust feeling to the limit.
I really felt uncomfort to play the sport i really didn't like at all.
I didn't care if i won or lost, as long i still able to continue the storyline. After the event finished, i will never ever play Blitzball mini game again. 😒

@Anti-Matter but but

We need a mario star striker supercharged

Achievements used to make me anxious when I was playing on my Xbox 360 and Xbox one. Just really used to mess with my ocd (undiagnosed).

For this reason I hope that either Nintendo never adopts them or if they do you can turn them off completely!

Those things genuinely used to adversely affect my enjoyment of games.

Keep flying the flag Nintendo!

Persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia) with obsessive-compulsive and avoidant pesonality traits here. Diagnosed and treated (cognitive behavior therapy) last year. Coping alot better these days.

My, um... disorder and video games have an odd love/hate relationship, I suppose. On the one hand, the anticipation of new games coming out has (among other things, of course) kept me from doing... stupid things. Some might say that's a bit kiddiewink, but if it keeps me chugging along another day I say it's a win.

On the other hand, when I'm down in the lowest of the low, I can barely muster enough energy to function like a normal, responsible adult human being throughout the day, let alone do anything 'fun'. Plenty of evenings when I could've had a few hours of fun have been wasted sleeping or staring mindlessly at a wall.

It's been going better, lately. I mean, I'm still in an episode more often than I'm not. That's kind of the thing with dysthymia, the episodes last longer than the respites. But the really, really bad days are far less common. And ever since I opened up about it to my girlfriend, I've been able to talk with her when it gets real bad. So far it's stopped me from flying off the handle too badly.

One other notable thing to mention is Night in the Woods. Playing that game was... cathartic. Can't really explain why, but I recommend it heartily.

More so OCD and feeling like I need to click everything.

@AlternateButtons That sounds terrible.

I can't imagine if I can't enjoy my favourite games because of something like that.

Isn't there a cure like therapy or something like that?

Do you feel like that all the time or just in certain situations.

Yep I do and it's a horrible feeling :/ I think the prime example of my anxiety affecting the way I play games is Splatoon 2 where I almost never play ranked battles because of the high risk of me losing the rank I was on and then having to spend either a few minutes or an hour depending on my luck trying to earn the original rank back. Also, since ranked battles tend to get extremely heated there is also the risk of me losing my temper and start smashing the Switch controller against my bed or cupboard resulting in it potentially breaking.
I also get anxious playing in normal turf wars since I'm someone who tends to treat weapon ranks somewhat seriously and I become really paranoid when a certain weapon I'm using reaches rank 14.0 or 14.5 since the outcome of that match will be the deciding factor on whether the rank of that weapon will reach 'Superfresh' or remain 'Fresh' but with a loss of 1.5 to it. Once a weapon reaches 'Superfresh' status, excluding Splatfests where the outcome of the match doesn't affect the status of the weapon, I will almost never use that weapon again due to the fear I could lose the match and have all of my efforts completely wasted.
Nowadays I'll play Splatoon 1 or 2 depending on my mood. If I just want to have some casual fun and not have to worry about weapon ranks constantly I'll boot up Splatoon 1 but if I'm in a competitive mood and feeling really confident in my skills I'll boot up Splatoon 2.

Definitely have to uninvest myself in Splatoon emotionally - at least from the significance of the rank meter - and just enjoy the experience of playing the game and trying to win. I don’t shun Ranked entirely. But I have to remind myself that what’s fun about the game is not winning, so much as the mental challenge of trying to win. If I get obsessed on the former, I typically get a few seconds worth of joy between five minute bouts of stress and frustration that things aren’t going absolutely perfectly. If I can largely forget about the ranked meter, and see it merely as a reflection of how I happen to be doing, then the bouts themselves are some of the most fantastically open ended and creative opportunities of any competitive game I’ve played.

I do get anxious about ranked anything because as I have gotten older my skill in vidya has gotten worse.

Splatoons ranked mode and Smashs quick match make me sometimes not want to play them. Depends on my mood.

@Anti-Matter you know Nintendo makes Splatoon right? Nintendo has published M rated games too. Including my beloved Perfect Dark.

I feel almost the same way playing VS online. Same with any kind of FPS game. If I’m not feeling it to be competitive enough I can’t do it. I find myself getting reckless and dripping my KD ratio. I’ve been more into single player games lately.