Why are gamers obsessed with playing games? 10 reasons

Gamers are obsessed with games, right?

I mean, there’s a reason we play ’em

but what about stuff inside
games we get fixated on?

Hi folks, it’s Falcon,
and today on Gameranx,

10 secret obsessions of gamers.

Starting off with number
10, it’s kill death ratio.

This might sound like a
no-brainer, but believe it or not,

it’s kind of different
than you might think.

Like there’s a good reason
a lot of multiplayer games

are moving away from constantly displaying

your kills and deaths on the screen,

’cause it’s really easy
to get obsessed with.

Obviously, yes, it’s something
you should care about.

Like we all want to get
better at that ratio

and it’s the easiest way to gauge

how well you’re doing in a game,

but for a lot of people,

it’s easy to go too far with the K/D.

Like there’s a lot of gamers

who exclusively focus on
their own personal ratio

above all else to the
detriment of their team,

like playing cautiously,
just sticking to sniping,

not pushing objectives

or really making a
major dent in the round,

they just hide in a corner
and camp the entire time,

picking off somebody when they can

and avoiding any real danger.

Not a huge deal when one
or two people are doing it,

but when everyone’s obsessing over K/Ds,

then multiplayer games
just get really tedious.

And yeah, everybody
pretends they don’t care

about the ratio, like they’re above it

and they’re more about having
fun or being a team player,

but when push comes to shove,

a lot of people start
getting scared the deaths

are gonna overcome the ratio
and the turtling begins.

And I don’t mean the bathroom related one.

There’s a ton of people out there

who will happily admit all they do

is obsess over the kills and deaths.

It’s kind of hardly

the most secret gaming
obsession out there,

but there’s a lot of people out there

who say they don’t care
and secretly they do.

In fact, they care more than anyone.

And number nine is game
performance, especially from people

who say they don’t care about graphics.

If you’re a PC gamer,

doesn’t matter how much
you claim otherwise,

in the back of your mind
you care about performance.

We all do, that’s just the way it is.

Let’s say you play games
on both console and on PC.

When you’re on PC, you’re
trying to make it work better,

when you’re on console,
you’re not, period.

When you’re on PC, you can tinker

and eventually you get
sucked in the rabbit hole

and you start watching benchmark videos

and clicking through the PC
game in Wiki for little tips

and settings you can integrate
into your little setup,

and at some point,

the obsession over
performance takes precedence

over actually playing the game,

and that’s when you know
you’ve gone too far.

Now I’m as guilty of this as anyone else.

When you get a new graphics card or PC,

you really want to test everything out.

Even if all you’re eventually gonna do is

play Stardew Valley,

it doesn’t matter.

This is another one of those things where,

yeah, obviously there’s nothing wrong

with caring about performance.

You want the best experience possible

when you’re playing a game, right?

But it’s not great when it
starts getting in the way

of actually enjoying what you have,

that’s when it’s gone too far, you know?

And number eight is multitasking,

also known as alt-tab mania.

So distractions are a big thing
in our modern digital age.

There’s so much craft out there to take in

that it’s kind kind of difficult to focus

on a single task at any given time.

Like it’s, yeah, fine,
normal to watch some trash TV

or something on a second screen,

or listening to a podcast
where you’re grinding an RPG

or something, just mindlessly
playing something story free.

But some gamers really take
things a lot further than that.

I’m talking about all the alt-tabbers

who are obsessed with doing
something else, wow, gaming,

you know the type, you
might be the type even.

You start a game up,
play it for five minutes,

then y’all tab out to check
Twitter, TikTok or whatever.

Then you come back to the
game for a few minutes

and it’s back to serving the web.

Like it’s impossible to
get immersed in a game

if you’re experiencing
it in five minute bursts,

but it’s an obsession,

and some people just
can’t help themselves.

For this type of gamer, it’s
difficult to finish a game

because of how easily distracted they are.

But hey, if they’re satisfied
with what they’ve played,

I don’t know if it’s right to complain.

Like unless it’s multiplayer

and like they get distracted
in the middle of the match,

that’s a problem.

But it seems like

this happens more single
player games anyway,

so I don’t know,

probably most of us do
this occasionally anyway

and maybe we’re all a
little afraid to admit it.

And number seven,

playing a game series
in chronological order.

It’s another one of those weird obsessions

that doesn’t really make
rational sense at times,

but for some reason,

a lot of people like
getting into a game series

and want to play ’em
in chronological order.

The game series may not be
chronologically in order

when it’s in chronological order too,

let’s just keep that in mind.

Like there are games that
are like Gears of War

where numerically the story progresses,

somebody starts at one and gets to five

but then there’s series like Final Fantasy

where there’s no continuity
between the number games at all.

And then there’s Metal Gear Solid,

which yeah, you get the point there.

The obsession though, I mean,
it’s kind of commendable,

you gotta respect somebody

who really wants to
appreciate the classics,

but it can also inevitably
lead to a burnout,

see Final Fantasy.

Try to play that many
games in short order.

And especially when
they’re all pretty similar,

like let’s say Ratchet and Clank,

things start to get repetitive

and it can skew your
perspective on the series.

That’s when you start to see
the weird opinions from people

about how they didn’t like a game

that most people consider
to be the best in the series

because they were just barreling through

the entire series in a week and were

starting to get tired of the
whole thing at that point.

It’s kind of a damned if you do,

damned if you don’t situation

because you either rush through

and get bored or you
wait a year between games

and it takes a decade
before you finally sit down

and play the game

that you wanted to play
in the first place.

And number six, reloading.

Ooh, didn’t even have to
go anywhere with that.

You know what I mean.

Everyone knows what I mean.

This is an obsession that we all have

and it can only be broken out
of through intense practice.

Play any FPS game that has reloading

and you know I’m going to reload

whenever I don’t need to shoot.

Bam, all right, defeated that guy.

Reload.

Bam, bam.

Okay, he’s gone.

Okay, reload.

Doesn’t matter that there’s an enemy

right around the corner.

Doesn’t matter that the
K/D ratio is gonna plummet,

that guy is dead and I need to reload now.

It’s much worse than games

with realistic reload mechanics too,

like in games where if you reload,

you lose the entire magazine,

then you’re just actively hurting yourself

every single time you reload.

It doesn’t matter
though, I have to reload.

It’s one of the dumbest
obsessions, but we all have it.

The only people who don’t have it

are those who have trained their brains

with intense discipline.

That’s the only way they’re not doing it.

Yeah, sure, there’s probably
a few people out there

who just never cared about ammo,

but those people probably
suck at the game.

They’re not thinking about
ammo management at all.

So that’s probably rare

in terms of a long-term
player of the game.

And number five,

replaying a game and
doing nothing differently.

Like a ton of games out there
are all about player choice.

You pick your class,
good, evil, blah, blah,

you do whatever.

See how the story plays out.

A big part of the appeal
of these kinds of games

is the replayability.

You can go back and experience the story

in a completely different way

or it’s just a way where
you diverge in some respect.

That’s the theory anyway.

For a lot of gamers out there,

even when you do manage to go
back through a second time,

instead of trying out
something new and experiencing

if you know things change,

people just do the same thing
that they did the last time.

Pick the same class,
make the same choices,

pretty much do it all the same.

And I’m as guilty of this as anyone.

There’s so many games you can
pick a good and an evil ending

and I’m just not interested
in the evil ending.

I mean,

I’m not saying I’m never
interested in the evil ending.

Sometimes I’m interested
in the evil ending,

but most of the time I’m not.

It just seems like human
beings are creatures of habits.

So we stick to things that are familiar

even when it’s something as pointless

as picking your virtual
girlfriend in an RPG.

It’s one of those little obsessions

that’s a secret for a reason.

You’re basically admitting

that you like to waste
your time, you know?

And number four is item hoarding.

It’s one of those obsessions,

it’s super easy to admit
while you’re playing a game,

but when it’s a harder game,

it goes from being something
that’s kind of funny

to legitimately obsessive behavior.

Like if you’re saving elixirs
in final Fantasy Seven,

I don’t think anybody’s
gonna hold that against you.

You never really need ’em in the game.

It’s a pretty easy RPG overall,

so being a hoarder of
that isn’t really strange.

But being a hoarder in a
much harder game is weird.

Like imagine refusing to
use as (indistinct) upgrades

or upgrade materials in like a Souls game.

Obviously single-use healing
items never get used,

but all that other stuff,
it should be fair game.

Everybody holds on to resources in an RPG

way past when you need them.

It’s just so easy to say they
could come in handy later.

I’m planning ahead ’cause
I’m a big old smarty pants.

Look at my big old brain,

it’s only outsized by my inventory.

But when it is a little later

and you actually run into a
boss that gives you trouble

and you die constantly

and you still refuse to use those items,

that’s an obsession.

It’s like in a Resident Evil game

where you refuse to use
ammo during the boss fight,

it’s just counterintuitive
at a certain point.

But you know also everybody’s been there.

I know I’ve gotten a little
too precious about ammo

in a Resident Evil game and by the end,

it just made the game
way harder for myself

with no real benefit.

And number three,
starting the perfect game,

AKA restart syndrome.

If you ever play an RPG,

a strategy game or a city builder,

then things just don’t work
out perfectly at the start

so you just completely restart the game?

It’s normal up to a certain point,

but when people do it constantly,

it becomes restart syndrome.

Like you’re constantly restarting a game

after any minor setback.

These are the types who just
never finished a campaign

in a game like Total Warhammer Two

or finish building a
city in a Sim City game,

or at least when Sim City was
a tolerable thing to play,

or looking at it more from the RPG side,

this type of person

is never quite satisfied with their build

or the character doesn’t
look quite right in game

or you made some choice
early that they didn’t like.

Instead of just rolling with
it, they just start over.

The character creation thing

is a particular pet peeve of mine.

I have friends where I enjoy
playing single player games

through with them where you
just hand off the controller

and sort of experience the story.

But there are some of them
that do that specifically.

I mean, it drives me nuts.

It’s one of those obsessions

where perfect is the enemy of good

’cause you have to deal

with least a few setbacks in every game

and you just kind of have to roll with it.

There’s certain gamers
who take this even further

or like won’t continue
from a save file at all.

They have to restart all over

if they’re not gonna get
through it in one sitting,

which sounds totally
absolutely nuts to me.

But there are people like that.

I know whenever I start a strategy game,

it’s always a hurdle getting
past the first major setback.

It can be tempting to restart,

but it’s often better to just keep going.

Even if you lose,

you at least learn something,

well, most of the time anyways.

And number two, the fear of missing out,

also known as FOMO,

which no one really wants to
admit is real, but it’s real.

The thing about FOMO

is there’s so many different kinds of it

when it comes to gaming.

You could be talking
about just about anything,

from new games to graphics cards,

to more traditional application

of the term with stuff like battle passes

and limited time events.

All of it leads to FOMO.

Everyone says they don’t fall for it,

that it doesn’t bother them
and that they don’t care,

but the secret is that pretty
much everybody falls for FOMO

at least once in a while.

Maybe it’s a game you get overly
hyped about and pre-order,

only to get burned by day one bugs

or a battle pass skin
that actually looks cool,

but it doesn’t really
matter what it is I guess.

But you rush to get it even
when it shouldn’t matter

because you don’t want to miss out.

Like yes, Sonic the
Hedgehog is running around

in Sonic Frontiers for
me with the soap shoes

because I signed up for their newsletter

because I wanted the soap shoes.

Like you’re still gonna be
able to buy the game later

or that’s skin, even if
it’s really gone forever,

it’s just kind of a pointless
piece of digital content

that’ll disappear eventually
anyway so it shouldn’t matter,

but it does.

It’s natural.

It’s almost unavoidable.

Like we’re all gonna make stupid
decisions because of FOMO.

No matter how frugal you are,

someday a sale is gonna come around,

it just seems like it’s
too good to pass up.

But a better deal will come around.

That’s how it works.

It’s inevitable.

And finally at number one, the backlog,

AKA buying games and
then not playing them.

This one, perfect follow up to FOMO,

’cause a lot of the time FOMO causes it.

So when it comes to free games,

it’s easy to admit you
have a load to catch up on.

Oh, there’s a bunch of games
on Game Pass I want to play

because I have the game pass

and it throws all of these games at me.

That’s easy to say.

In fact, that’s even
the point of the service

to keep you subscribed

’cause you got games that
you haven’t played yet

that you can play

because you don’t have to
pay any more to play them.

But when it comes to a
lot of games you buy,

often at full price, there’s a chance

you’re one of the people
that never plays them

and that backlog gets embarrassing.

Basically this entire entry
boils down to impulsive buying.

You see something cool and you buy it,

even though you’re already
focusing on something else

and probably don’t have time to play it.

Sure you tell yourself,
you get around to it,

but by the time you finish
the game you’re working on,

the next big thing comes around,

the previous game you
bought gets pushed back.

You tell yourself you’ll get around

to it and then something else comes around

or there’s a sale, whatever,

and suddenly you got this massive backlog.

It’s one of those secrets

that is both open and like very secret,

and like for more casual gamers
is almost a point of pride,

but for more serious gamers,
it’s kind of an embarrassment.

At a certain point, I
had to admit to myself,

I’m not gonna play all these games.

I could probably stop buying games today

and not be bored for a long time,

maybe even the rest of my life.

I think about that for
maybe half a second,

but I’m still always
checking Steam releases

and also Steam sales.

I see something that it’s hard to resist,

the backlog grows.

In the grand scheme of things,

who really cares how many games you own

and how many you’ve actually finished?

But a lot of gamers can’t help
but obsess over the backlog,

it’s always there and
it’s never gonna go away.

And that’s all for today.

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