I MAY have a rage quit problem...

[Legendairy314]

So, for as long as I've played games I've always had a tendency to get a bit angry when the odds weren't in my favor. Whether it was 3 crits in a row from the elite 4 champion in Pokemon Yellow, or the current conundrum of stacked teams in Titanfall; if something shouldn't be happening, I lose it. Often times its a random scream, followed by a full 10 minutes of explitives. Others, I'll just leave the game and, if there's a multiplayer component, look for another match until the situation is fixed.

I used to think I never had a problem until a few years ago. I'd play some matches of Halo and, as my friends heard me yell at both other players and the game for its ludicrousness/unfairness/WTFness they'd tell me to calm down. But I COULDN'T. I recognized that it's just not in me. If my perspective says "That shouldn't be happening" I'm, more or less, a raving savage who will no longer be satisfied.

So I stopped playing multiplayer games. I'd get a bit angry at other games but, because it was a much more controlled environment, nothing too serious happened. Overall, I think I was on the right track.

And then Titanfall came out. Generally, it's a well designed game that even lets you have fun if you're losing. But this last night, too many things went wrong. Deaths that made no sense, a team of newbies versus an experienced team with TWO max leveled players, and connection lag made me rage quit and swear even worse than I had done before. I even kept quitting out and logging back in only to get matched with these over leveled players 10 times in a row.

And I felt TERRIBLE. I apologized to the friend that was listening in on Skype and tried to explain that, when Murphy's law comes into play, I just can't physiologically deal with it. And, if that point has been reached within a competitive setting, I become a person I'm not proud of.

So Fellow Escapists, am I Terrible Person/Gamer? And have you had any similar experiences? I'd love to know that I'm not the only person that flips out to such a degree.

 

[haiku]

well, i have yelled to a computer and thrown a mouse once and hit a keyboard sometimes....i have played little multiplayer games and i can be calmer there, so i don´t yell to other people, just to my computer.
i would say you are doing it with passion, but maybe ypu have too much passion for just a game, try to take it more calmly...indeed its not real life and these games are made for fun, and not to wreck our nerves. Its easy to say though...

 

[RJ 17]

Pfffft, you're not a rage-quitter until you've broken controllers and punched holes in the wall. THAT'S how you know you've got a problem. The yelling, cursing, and gnashing of teeth is like, Stage 1 Rage Quitter. I've got a friend, lets just call him Matt, and he has literally thrown his TV out of a 2nd story window. =P

 

[Liquidprid3]

I have mini rages. I probably threw my controller at least 50 times playing Dark Souls, but none of it was hard enough to even scratch it. Maybe I'll take a five minutes brek or whatever. I've never snapped a disc or broke a controller, but I do yell a little bit sometimes in difficult single player games. Multiplayer wise, I never rage cuz I really only play multiplayer with friends. Only GTA V makes me rage because of all the assholes.

 

[weaselswizel]

u might wanna learn how to channel that energy of yours into positive things

in some moments more then i could count i get frustrated in difficult moments in games and as a result quit playing for a while,like as in just yesterday in age of wonder 3 i had a battle with high tier dwarves and the whole battle went in favor to me until a lone enemy dwarf survivor somewhat managed to kill my hero and completely queered the course to my victory and i lost,thats the kind of moments that are more really nerve wrecking and frustrating,to me its more frustration rather then anger.

as for titanfall im quiet surprised to hear u getting infuriated at this game,the game made really with the AI enemies to be less frustrating,and also its respawn time await is instant so no frustrate in there as well.

i myself have got in titanfall k/d ratio of 4.4 so i cant really complain about dying...,but i guess when it comes to these kind of things and anger its everyone's each to his own

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I guess you just want to assess whether or not the game is worth it, if it sends you into fits of rage all the time.

I for one, 'ain't got time for that sh**'.

I personally get very angry when playing sports, when I mess up. Normally because I know, in myself, that I could've done better and should've too. I get very agitated, but it's only meant to be directed towards the standards I expect of myself and thus raging at myself. People have taken offence to it though, so it is something to be aware of - but you seem to already be aware of this and apologising/reasoning with the people affected. So that seems fine.

As I said, it's just a matter of whether you really see it as worth it, if it does this to you. I gave up on FPS games and a lot of competitive multiplayer games, because of these aspects of frustration and I can't say I've ever missed them. I only ever play them casually with friends now and can't be bothered with the online tryhards. For one thing, I don't have the time to keep up with them any more.

 

[Savagezion]

Pfffft, you're not a rage-quitter until you've broken controllers and punched holes in the wall. THAT'S how you know you've got a problem. The yelling, cursing, and gnashing of teeth is like, Stage 1 Rage Quitter. I've got a friend, lets just call him Matt, and he has literally thrown his TV out of a 2nd story window. =P

That's hillarious. My brother was a hole in wall puncher and door breaker. he never hit the console though, so I was mostly ok with it. Just thought he was insane.

 

[bjj hero]

If youre a teenager then its understandable as your hormones are all over the place. You'll grow out of it. If you're an adult then you need to grow up, it is just a game and not worth getting angry with. Switch the game off and do something else. You say you cannot help it but we all feel anger and frustration, the main thing is what you do about it. Shouting and swearing at people over a game where everyone has chosen to take part and have fun is not nice. You seem to know this though as you apologised to those listening in.

Does this happen anywhere else in your life or is it just online gaming? Do you act like this with board games or playing split screen on the same couch?

 

[Entropywarrior]

Fellow video game rager checking in here, takes every fiber of my being not to flip my shit if I start losing. Not sure why, just always been this way, and I wish I could just not care like my friends but goddamn it's so damn frustrating and rage inducing. Punched a hole in the wall and broke a few controllers in my time, not cool at all but I just cannot keep a lid on my rage sometimes.

 

[krazykidd]

I never rage that bad, but i did swear a lot when i played UMVC3. Especially when things went horribly , horribly wrong. I don't mind losing. But when i lose 10 times in a row to different people i get heavily annoyed. I know i don't suck, yes i use underused characters which puts me at a dissadvantage, but i shouldn't be losing that much, especially to strategies i KNOW.

A couple of times i wanted to snap the disc, but never did. I played UMVC3 from the day it came out to the day my 360 died last november.

 

[sageoftruth]

What's really helps is finding out exactly why you rage about it. Were you denied a pleasant escape from a rough day? Is something unjust happening in the online community? Is there some anal-retentive side to you that insists that everything be as it should be? These are just random thoughts being thrown out there. If you have someone to talk to about it, or at least a journal to write about it in, it should make it easier to get to the bottom of it.

 

[freaper]

I had that with CoD:MW2. I stopped playing the game after a while and have never looked back since. I get a bit ragey with more competitive games, but these days I barely play any of the sort.

 

[sageoftruth]

I don't do multiplayer that much, so the game that made me rage the most was Infinity Blade for the iPhone. I'm sure most of you are aware of how sucky touch screen controls can be, and nothing made me rage quite like losing over and over simply because the game ignored my finger commands. I'm not much of a rager though, so the worst I've done is flip the bird at my my own iPhone. Word of advice, never play an action-based game on a mobile phone. Maybe I'll spare myself the frustration and get myself a real gaming handheld for when I'm away from home.

 

[Chrozi]

In general, I'm not a rage quitter, but there have been a few times where it got to me pretty good. In online multiplayer, those times when no matter how much you check your back, the second you turn around someone pops up behind you. 5 or so times in a row with that and I'm ripped.

There also have been a few times where I just flipped it over a game. The worst time is when I decided I was going to play through Ghouls 'n Ghosts on the Genesis. A hard game as it is, but you have to play through the game twice to get the real ending. I was on my second playthrough and got stuck halfway because I had the wrong weapon for the boss I was fighting. It was the big green slug thing. It took me forever to get that far and I wasn't about to let the game get the best of me. I got so frustrated my mom pretty much made me stop playing. (I was like 15 at the time). I don't think I ever attempted that feat again. Maybe...someday?

 

[Happiness Assassin]

I realized recently that I have some seriously unresolved anger issues. I got an old alarm clock after my mom dropped the old one in a bucket of water (don't ask) and I couldn't figure out how the damn thing worked. The set-alarm function is incredibly unintuitive and the alarm itself can't actually be turned off. So the first morning I had it, I kept trying to turn the damn alarm off, fumbling around in the dark, smacking blindly. Finally I got so angry that I just brought my fist on top of it like a fucking hammer. To my amazement it worked. Sort of. Turns out I broke it. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, as I have broken multiple headsets, thrown controllers, etc. Hell, the closest to a fight I have ever been in, I was the only one to throw a punch. Me and my family have always joked about the fact that if someone were to push me far enough, I would probably wreck whoever got in my way. But I do sometimes worry about whether I might injure someone eventually. Luckily, I can remain fairly composed under pressure, letting the little stuff slide. I generally don't rage quit games and when I do, it usually takes quite some time and a lot has to go wrong, not just in the game itself. As my dad always says, "You pretty much have to work all day just to piss me off."

 

[Legendairy314]

If youre a teenager then its understandable as your hormones are all over the place. You'll grow out of it. If you're an adult then you need to grow up, it is just a game and not worth getting angry with. Switch the game off and do something else. You say you cannot help it but we all feel anger and frustration, the main thing is what you do about it. Shouting and swearing at people over a game where everyone has chosen to take part and have fun is not nice. You seem to know this though as you apologised to those listening in.

Does this happen anywhere else in your life or is it just online gaming? Do you act like this with board games or playing split screen on the same couch?

21 here so, yeah, I recognize it's not something that should still be happening. Though, if other things go wrong in my life (flat tire, oversleeping on an important date, forgetting something important etc...) I start to rage a bit too. For me, if the world is out of place in some fashion and the circumstances are targeting me I tend to get a bit whiny. Doesn't matter if it's my fault, I'll still lose it. I have been owning up to my mistakes more often though. At least there's some progress...

 

[Maximum Bert]

used to rage pretty hard sometimes when I was a kid but stopped when I was about 19/20 I just thought why bother? now if a game really pisses me off I just turn it off and chill luckily I have only had to do that twice in 8 years or so.

I get annoyed occasionally I think almost everyone does at some point but a small amount of swearing is as far as it goes before I chill out. I dont get mad that often anymore but fighters still have the capacity to take me to those highs and lows lag is what brings out the worse in me online though and losing to things that you know you can beat easily offline but due to the lag they can do ridiculous stuff like keep you in blockstun thus making winning almost impossible and even if you do win its not very satisfying. I have always had enough control to stop myself destroying my stuff even when I was at my worst, came close a few times though.

 

[L. Declis]

If you seriously can't control your emotions, maybe you should play video games until you can get it under control. Or have a girlfriend either. Learn some self-control, dude.

I've played with some friends in both video games, board games, roleplaying games and tabletop games who rage uncontrollably. You know what happened? They didn't get invited back because we shouldn't have to tip-toe around you in our spare time because you can't handle losing or whatever.

If the game sucks, then move on. We have a fast paced industry with literally hundreds of classics and fantastic games. Go play one of those. And learn to calm down, or just to not get angry in the first place.

Seriously. It's just a game.

 

[RJ 17]

Pfffft, you're not a rage-quitter until you've broken controllers and punched holes in the wall. THAT'S how you know you've got a problem. The yelling, cursing, and gnashing of teeth is like, Stage 1 Rage Quitter. I've got a friend, lets just call him Matt, and he has literally thrown his TV out of a 2nd story window. =P

That's hillarious. My brother was a hole in wall puncher and door breaker. he never hit the console though, so I was mostly ok with it. Just thought he was insane.

No joke: my friend would actually punch holes in the wall to form a design Specifically a kind of angry face. It was 100% his house, bought and paid for, so it was his to do with as he pleased, but yeah...he had some anger issues when things didn't go his way.

He ended up filling in and patching the holes that made up the angry face, but when he repainted it, he painted it red so it stood out against the beige color of the rest of the wall.