Breaking the loop
Where the fun stops and why you should consider not finishing a game
Video games are a great medium. They can entertain you for hours, sometimes even years. And there is a game for absolutely everyone, if you look hard enough. It’s my favourite pastime for almost 30 years by now.
That being said, studios have become better and better to keep our attention. Some try their best to use ethical methods, others… take the easy road. If you are interested in spotting those techniques, I highly recommend you to look for articles about operant conditioning if you want to know what kind of tactics exist out there. It’s fascinating and a little terrifying, honestly. I will briefly mention a few common strategies later, but this article is about why it can be healthy to step away from a game at times.
If you never intend to finish a game, why do you play it in the first place?
This question used to pop up quite often when I told friends about my hobby. Their line of thinking was more aligned to experiencing a movie. You spend money and get entertainment for a few hours.
It’s a fair comparison on the surface, especially since the playing games can cost quite the amount of money.
But in reality you cannot really compare those two different kinds of mass media. One of them a passive activity, the other one only progresses its story by actively participating.
For the outsider my personal decision to keep trying to find a game that’s worth from start to finish but dropping a vast majority of them seems to be unreasonable. “Burning” money they say.
And to that I answer: I’m not burning any money. A game can still be enjoyable if not completed. The end screen alone doesn’t necessarily give the player gratification. A single session of a good game can give you all the satisfaction you need. But we most likely want to continue having that good experience and spend more time playing. It’s fun, after all.
Operant Conditioning and other psychological traps
Can you recall moments in your gaming life where you played a game past it’s point of it “being fun”?
Grinding levels for days in a Role-playing game, just to be able to beat the overpowered, final boss.
Continuing to queue for Ranked matches because you don’t want your ladder points to decay before the end of the season.
Getting out of your way to enter a timed event, just because you might play again, even though you haven’t actively played for months?
It’s very common. Often you are conditioned by the game to keep playing. It rewards you with meaningless items, experience, or points to make you think you got your time’s worth for the moment.
And it is just as common that people will look towards their pasts selves, asking themselves “What was I doing, spending 10 hours on grinding to see the ending? That was totally not worth it”.
We decide to continue playing because we think that those actions are meaningful. When often, they are just drip feeding us tiny pieces hidden behind mindless tasks to pad play time. And I am not okay with that anymore.
Be self aware
It sounds like some generic advice, but it’s true. If you know what you want from a game, it is that much easier to decide when a game is still worth your precious life time. The moment you know what you want, the game is unable to take advantage of you, for as long as you remember, that is.
I personally enjoy interesting or uncommon mechanics as well as story arcs that let me relate to characters on a personal level.
It could be something entirely different for you and that’s also valid.
Maybe you seek an ever rising challenge. Or you love to explore every part of a map. The possibilities are endless. It’s just important that you are aware of what you want.
Knowing this allows us to ask questions like:
- Does it satisfy me to see the conclusion to the story that is presented to me?
- Do I really want to see what’s behind every icon on the map?
- Do I want to spend 10 more hours into something I don’t enjoy?
- Is the dealing with the playerbase worth the reward I get from queuing up?
And many more…
The Benefits
Time is the most valuable resource you have at your hands and it does not replenish.
Knowing what you want from a game allows you to focus your time onto the things you like. Other games, family and friends, other hobbies or just even to have time to take a walk in the park.
At the very least it helps you put down games you are not interested into anymore.
For me, thinking about my play habits and asking myself if I’m still enjoying myself allowed me to not get too attached to games that have a unsatisfying mid- to end game. It also helped me to figure out why I play certain games, even though they seem dull and repetitive at times. I’m benefiting by being able to pick the games I really want to spend my time on.
Of course this does not mean to rush through the games to see what you wanted to see. Even then best experiences most likely have something you just “deal with”.
Sometimes all you need is a change of pace. In that case temporarily dropping what you’re playing, just to come back to it at a later point, feels also very rewarding.
It all sounds like games are bad and trying to fish for your attention. And they are certainly doing that to some degree.
But we wouldn’t be continuing to play if all they are doing is wasting our time and money.
I just hope that realizing what is happening to you will help you to either enjoy your favourite titles even more or help you to put down games before they drag you down into a cycle of unhappiness.
