Has Gaming Changed Your Character?

[Balimaar]

Call of Duty changed me... and not in a good way.

In the Internet world before I bought the original Black Ops (Shut up! It was a Steam Sale! Half my friends were playing it and begging me to play with them!) I was what I would call a normal person.

Someone being a trollolololol to me? I just laugh at it and move on.

Someone on my team not playing well? Offer to help him/her to become a better player.

Things not going my way? Do what I can to fix it!

But , in Black Ops, during those player controlled chopper attacks on my teams spawn on nuketown (lets not forget the attack dogs the chopper guy would unleash as well!) I... started getting a little frustrated.... then angry... then finally I became a rager. I'd be dying as soon as I spawned or killed just before capturing Bravo and hurling abuse at my team for being idiotic and not helping me.

This carried on into other online games. If I die 4-5 times in a row w/o a kill on Battlefield 3 I will most likely quit the game and not play another round for a couple hours. In my Medal of Honor: Allied Assault days (naturally well before my first CoD) I would have laughed that off with a "Lol i suck at this game! Having fun tho!"

If, while playing Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, I come up against a Platinum / Diamond level smurf (I'm only top 8 Silver on my main server and silver league on all the others) I will rage my guts out. Ill leave the game with a ##@!ing smurfs or ill just send my probe to build a dozen pylons all over the map. God help my opponent if he 6 pools, cannon rushes or marine SCV all ins me.

Oddly enough it doesnt bother me so much in MMOs. But then again in most MMOs I have ever played I play by myself.

To sum up, Call of Duty changed my online behaviour in intense online MP experiences and I dont like how it changed me. I've gone from someone whod make a great respectable leader in any Guild/Clan whateves to someone like Idra - and I HATE the idea of becoming someone like him.

I've finally said no to buying another CoD and I am making process towards becoming a normal human being again.

So my fellow Escapists, have you ever found a game or series that has changed how you behave? Or changed how you see the world?

 

[Austin Howe]

I have been influenced by the politics of the games I've loved. My parents are both registered Democrats (and so am I) but those beliefs were definitely super reinforced by the political subtextual and contextual themes of games like FFVII and the Metal Gear Solid series.

 

[Maximum Bert]

Probably subconsciously like any form of outside interference but not a ding! im changed sort of way.

 

[chuckdm]

Politically, no, because I've been ultra-liberal since I was probably 11 or so. Hell, I'm a posthumanist. (That's the people who want humanity to upload into robots and thus achieve immortality.) Pretty much nothing in games has affected me politically because I already feel more liberal than most games.

I will say that shooters have changed my gaming habbits, though. I've never played CoD or Medal of Honor. I played Battlefield 2142 for a while, offline with bots, but never against any more humans than 3 friends in a private LAN party, and even then I insisted we play on the same team for this very reason.

I don't mind dying in games. I just hate dying at the hands of another human player. I expect the game itself to play better against me than me, at some point. There is always going to be a specific point in a specific game/story/mission at a specific difficulty level where the game is just better than me and I simply cannot defeat the mechanics themselves to win, and I'm okay with that - I just keep trying until I hit that point, then back down 1 level and play the game at that level from then on out.

And I also have no problem with the idea that another human player is better than me. It's not that I mind being beaten by someone else.

It's that I don't like playing games I can't win. And this is the grand problem with competitive multiplayer games: there may be thousands of players, but in the end, only one of them every really "wins." And that guy is never going to be me.

So, playing these games is futility to me. Since I can never really win, why bother?

So to answer the question...modern gaming has changed my gaming habits only to the point that I now always ask myself "am I going to be able to actually win this game?" before I ever begin. And if the answer isn't a definitive "yes" then I just don't play it.

And for the first 4-5 years I was gaming I never did that. Then a combination of games, most recently Planetside 2, changed me. Now I only play PvE MMOs, currently just The Secret World and TERA, and I no longer play shooters unless they are cooperative, period.

 

[CheckD3]

I've started using phrases that you shouldn't in public while playing games, and think them when upset. I don't use them on a mic, or outside the game time, but when I talk like that and really pay attention, it's upsetting to think that in today's world that I use that kind of language, even in private.

I do, however, find enjoyment in looking into what other brands of media do to bring out story pieces. I'm a fan of a strong story in games, and how they accomplish it. Now I like to look at movies, and see what techniques they use to craft their story. That's not much, but I like to think that gaming has bettered my skills to analyze movies.

 

[DSK-]

Not that I know of. I was pretty much brought up in an environment of game-playing by my parents who were seriously hardcore back in the day, and who now just play Facebook games because they think they're too old

I probably have an elitist point of view as to what constitutes a "good game" and a good "competitive game" but I can't really say anything else to be honest :/ I'm too hard to read lol

 

[jhoroz]

Yes. They've made my character self more obese.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Well I'm sad to say I have suffered from such a thing, too, by playing Counter Strike (not that I ever played the game competitively, but it can be fun to fight bots with some friends). And while my outbursts make my friends laugh, they make me cringe. That's the main reason why I hate "realistic" shooters like CoD and such, I find them too frustrating.

The solution for me is to play as little of the games that make me react in that way as possible.

 

[Leemaster777]

It's hard to say exactly where I'd be without video games (since I've been playing them since before I could form complete sentences), but I can think of at least one game that's had an unquestionable positive effect on my life: Persona 4.

It all really boils down to the whole "I am a Shadow, the true self" business within the game. I asked myself "Huh, if I had a Shadow, I wonder what mine would look like?". And considering that Shadows are the physical manifestation of one's true, suppressed inner thoughts, this led me to take a deep, hard look at myself.

I'm not exactly at liberty to share these thoughts with all of you, but I really changed my outlook of myself after that.

 

[Pink Gregory]

I like to think my 'I'm not enjoying myself if I'm not losing' ethos applies itself to life.

 

[Hero of Lime]

I found myself being more helpful ever since I played games like Zelda as a kid, I like helping people similar to how you would help people in an RPG game or adventure game. By help others or doing things you can think of them as sidequests, or something silly like that.

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

I don't really think gaming has effected me at all... at least not that i know of.

 

[Psycomantis777]

Yeah, my character's levelled up...

...That was terrible I'm so sorry...

Otherwise, er, I don't think so, although I suppose I didn't want America to go to nuclear war with anyone 'til I played fallout just so things would look cooler...

 

[Evonisia]

CoD has changed my personality.

The biggest example is that I hate teammates with a passion. I'd go as far as to use 'teammate' as an insult. I can't play multiplayer games on my own (besides Gears of War 3 which is very solo-friendly) because of this.

In the Internet world before I bought the original Black Ops (Shut up! It was a Steam Sale! Half my friends were playing it and begging me to play with them!) I was what I would call a normal person.

Aw, Black Ops 1 wasn't that bad. But then again I hate MW2 (even preferring MW3), which amongst the fanbase makes me Hitler incarnate.

 

[Plasticaprinae]

In many ways I suppose. It usually has to do with heros though. If I see traits in a person I admire, whether they be fictional or real, I want to mimic them. I want to make the right decisions. Video Games, like many mediums, often reflect what people believe to be good. Helping people, saving people, sacrificing yourself in small and in big ways, what it means to be humble, when its time to be silent and when its time to be outspoken. Of course I don't mimic every character I like, I pick the decisions they make and try to apply them to my life and use foresight to understand if they would work.

 

[ASan83]

Nope. Still the same sarcastic, cynical, jaded, arrogant asshole I've always been.

Well, that's sort of a lie. Final Fantasy X made me realize the evils of organized religion, and pretty much turned me into an atheist.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Not really.

If anything, gaming has just sparked my creative side and my intellectual curiosity, causing me to develop several works of fiction and broadening my knowledgeable horizon.

 

[Psycho11Edge]

I used to be an angry little kid way back when. I would try to fight anyone who even looked at me wrong because of anger issues that run in the family. I got expelled from kindergarten for trying to beat up the teacher, and was kicked out of various schools and establishments until I was about 14. It was at this time I got an Xbox 360 with Assassin's Creed. Now, Assassin's Creed didn't have the biggest impact on my life really, it was just the first game that allowed me to vent my anger on virtual beings, especially after I've beaten the game and can kill and civilian I want (Though after my anger is vented, I feel really bad about it). After that, I started getting more games to play, and more access to play ones my friends would have as well.

I've been playing games since about the age of 4, but thanks to some misunderstandings and financial troubles, my only gaming system at the time was thrown out (by a stupid ***** landlord who shouldn't have been messing with boxes I was still unpacking in the first place) and I was unable to buy another gaming console until the Xbox came out and my family was in a more stable position (I had a PS1 but I had next to no games for it for the years in between).

When I finally got an Xbox, I played games like Assassin's Creed, Hitman Blood Money, Halo 3 and such, and would use those games to vent my frustration, shooting, stabbing and strangling people in various games. I became a much more likable person as I wouldn't explode at the slightest hint of someone being rude to me.

I became a much more fun-loving, yet relaxed considerate guy when I had other places to relieve the anger others cause. That's not to say I still don't get angry. I rage at video games all the time (mostly the other people in games, but that's because I just can't escape ignorant, irritating A-holes forever).

But yeah, games have allowed me to be a much more calm individual, and I am often characterized by others I meet as helpful, understanding, patient and nice, when I wasn't at all like that when I was younger.

Also, because of this, I resent it when people try to say that video games make people violent. Really? Because I play a lot of violent video games and I am a very calm individual except for when a game lags, they t-bag or I'm dealing with ignorant A-holes. The people who become violent from video games aren't always because of the games themselves. A lot of them were off in some way to begin with. Not every violent thing done by a gamer was caused by video games. That's just retarded. If they make you violent, then why aren't there more gamers out there murdering cheaters or something?

 

[Cranky]

I guess some games made me a bit more snarky, others a bit more thick-skinned. But it was all cumulative.