It’s Monday and it’s time for Ask Kotaku, the weekly function where the Kotaku-ites deliberate on a single burning question. So we ask for your opinion.
This week we asked Kotaku: What is your worst gambling habit?
Lisa Marie
My worst gambling habit is never finishing games. I have played a lot of games, but have finished very few. It doesn’t even make sense. Sometimes I just drop one game and move on to another or something completely different. I will try to return to my salvation, but then it will fade forgotten.
But other times, I just burn it all up. I’ve removed so many saved Pokémon with seven or eight badges just because I felt like it. Maybe I’m a little dissatisfied with my party and want to start over rather than just switch Pokémon. They are also other games. Maybe I decide, 100 hours later, that I really don’t like the farm map I chose in Stardew Valley. Maybe I really want to play Fallout again, but this time I’m evil and then I realize that I hate playing this way and I want to erase the evidence.
It is a compulsion. I can not stop. This is a cry for help.
Riley
I have this problem where I simply speak in whatever game I’m playing: yelling at the AI, sarcastically responding to dialogue, narrating my actions. To be fair, I have this problem with everything. It has caused a lot of confusion for roommates, who often thought they had someone when in reality they were just talking to a pet or to the music they were playing or to some furniture. (A former boyfriend and I actually had to come up with a keyword to indicate when I was talking to him rather than just talking.) In video games, it often means that close people think I’m playing an online game when I’m not. Sometimes I’ve recorded video clips for work only to find that I forgot to turn off the mic and am just aimlessly narrating over them, rendering them useless. It is especially concerning when I am playing an online game, as my talk can confuse and annoy my teammates. I’d like to say I’m working on it, but let’s be honest: the times of the pandemic have made it worse, and now I’m pretty sure I’m doomed to mutter to myself forever, surrounded by people barking “what? ! »With increasing levels of discomfort.
Ari
Do you want to kill me in a shooter? Here’s a tip: wait until I’ve eliminated one of your teammates, then shoot. I have this horrible habit in shooting games where every time I get killed I reload my gun. No matter the game (first person, third person, competitive, cooperative, “cooperative”) or the circumstances (I am surrounded by four other people), I will do it anyway. The habit has become compulsive, as natural as covering your nose when you sneeze or saying a lot “That’s not my responsibility” when you become an elected official.
This is especially egregious in Halo. That doesn’t mean you feel worse in the land of the Master Chiefs; dying because of my own ingrained habits feels equally bad across the board, but because some Halo games have a special “Reload This!” award point. medals to those who kill others while reloading. I’m not sure how many I have won over the years, but I am sure I have helped others win a lot with my madness.
Fahey
Well shit, Riley stole mine. I have exactly the same problem. I can’t play a game without making my own racing comments. I could hold onto a supporting character, give them a voice, and spend hours chatting with them or narrating the game like them. Destiny 2 has gotten so bad that I can’t play without spending half an hour with Devrim Kay in the European dead zone. I have made it an important part of the game in my head.
If it’s not an uninterrupted commentary from the character, you’re making up words to the music in the game. This started in my teens while playing Tiny Toon Adventures for the NES. “They’re little, they’re toony, they’re all a little crazy, it’s Tiny Toon Adventures where everyone goes QUACK!” I played Plucky Duck a lot, what can I say. That is the song he would sing as he played. Just repeating it for hours. Maddening.
This is why you should stream more games on Twitch. It’s also the reason why you should never stream games on Twitch.
Alexandra
I have trouble resisting the temptation to be a finalist in many games, particularly open world adventures or RPGs. Are there side missions? Other people will recommend skipping them, but me? Unless they are obviously algorithmic or something like that, I have to do them. Then I almost inevitably burn out cleaning up all the secondary junk before I get to 20% on the main plot, resulting in another game added to the “will probably never end” pile. (Final Fantasy XV is currently close to succumbing to this fate, but you should see how many citizens I helped with their purchases!)
Let’s call that the micro level. On the macro level, I sometimes get weird with a whole series of games, where I feel like I have to “see how it started” before moving on to later posts. That’s fine in theory, and suits my general interest in gaming history and retro games, but keep in mind that we all have access to more games than we’ll ever have time to play in 10 lifetimes. You may never get to play that first game in a timely manner, and in the meantime, the aftermath begins to pile up. Why haven’t I played Skyrim yet? Well, you see, I have to give Oblivion a chance first. It looks totally boring and I’m not thrilled about it, but hey, I don’t make the rules. My brain does.
It is not like an iron clad thing. I can get past it in specific cases, but this is the general pattern that I tend to experience: games pile up around me and I know I’ll never be able to dig. I think this points to the need to re-evaluate how I think about all these things, but obviously I haven’t done all the homework there yet.
In other words, I am the anti-Zack that is warned about in the holy books.
Ash
I have the same problem as Lisa Marie in that I never finish games, but more than that, I don’t try hard enough to keep playing. I hate repeating content, so I’ll happily abandon a game for minor inconveniences, even games that I traditionally enjoy. I have not gone back to my replay of Dragon Age because a bad attempt to modify it resulted in the loss of only one hour of play. We are talking about Dragon Age. I will not play the game that I love more than many real people I know from the loss of a miserable hour. It is bad. There are exceptions – I have no idea how my non-repeating ass went through Bloodborne of all games, and after fighting Oddworld: Soulstorm I’ve reached the point where I’m determined to end the game, multiple reboots (and I I mean multiple) to the devil.
John W.
God, it’s so hard to choose. The way that I disconnect during any opening scene in any game and then get mad because I don’t know what’s going on? The way I find myself compulsively mowing grass in Zelda games instead of, you know, playing them? How will I spend the massive amount of money a console game costs on something new and exciting, and then play the same roguelite that I have already played 800 times?
But I think my worst gambling habit is similar to Riley’s, only louder: yelling at them. Part of this is being on the other side of the review process, the garbage filter is not there, because I am. And part of that is that I’m generally an irritable person. My frustration comes out as bellows, screams of “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” and “Really?” Then my wife will call from downstairs, concerned, “Are you okay?” Which, of course, only makes me more grumpy because I have to say, “Yes!” but not! No, this stupid game just screwed me up and wasted my time!
I’m not a yelling person, otherwise. I don’t yell at people (other than other drivers from within the safety of my car), I prefer to complain quietly. But sheer exasperation at a game provokes outbursts. Ugly behavior.
The hideousness of this was made clear to me by seeing the same behavior reflected in my son. He is six years old and has learned the worst, roaring his disapproval of a game that is letting him down. “Really?!” scream, exactly like me. And my God, I feel ashamed. And my wife looks at me and says nothing. And I shrink.
Wow, that got too confessional. But then, it’s your fault for asking.
And you?
Kotaku has confessed, and it wasn’t pretty. So what is your vice? Give your opinion! We will be back next Monday to deliberate and debate another nerdy topic. See you in the comments!
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