It was a scenario that was going on intermittently for a couple solid hours today. The game was none other than Mirror's Edge. It was late into the game in a building with lots of yellow and lots of scaffolding. There's this one seemingly impossible jump that I just couldn't make.
The jump is one itself that not even the creator of parkour would try, probably because he knows better. Several stories up, you have to jump off a balcony and run along the wall a short distance before sharply and quickly turning 90 degrees to your right to jump off of the wall to grab a piece of scaffolding opposite of said previously mentioned wall. Out of, for example, the 200 attempts that I did, this is what happened:
Again, this is what my gaming experience has been like so far today. I know the problem isn't glitches in the game that make a ledge grab go unregistered and so on, the issue is that I'm just a fuckup. Either way, it's perfectly reasonable that I would get a tad bit frustrated. Yet after killing this poor girl Faith more times than I could keep track of and even turning off the game in anger on a few occasions, I continued to go back to it to try it again.
What, exactly, kept driving me to try to pass that same annoying little roadblock in the game over and over again? Was it the fact that I had just spend fifty dollars on it and didn't want to flush my money down the toilet by simply abandoning it? Perhaps, but there's got to be more to it than that. I think that it's the challenge itself. That jump wouldn't even be in the game if it couldn't be done, so by that logic I can do it if I keep trying (and I actually did on one occasion so far). There were several other parts of this game before this one that resulted only in a pathetically large number of deaths, and yet I kept trying and ultimately felt pretty damn good after finally besting it.
So this is the question that I'm asking all of you, one that dates back all the way back to the days of Super Mario Bros. to every game onward. Why is it that frustration in games keeps us going? Why does repeated failure while attempting challenges keep us playing a game despite it getting on our very last nerve? Is it the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finally succeed? Is it for bragging rights to make you feel better for failing so many times? It is simply so you can say you defeated the game's challenge so you can feel superior to it?
There probably isn't any one answer to this because everyone's personality is different and because of that they get motivated by different things. The only thing I am sure of is that everyone's reason for why they keep playing isn't so they don't feel like they just wasted fifty bucks.
~Van
P.S. ~ I am well aware that I apparently suck at Mirror's Edge, so don't even bother wasting your time by pointing it out.
The jump is one itself that not even the creator of parkour would try, probably because he knows better. Several stories up, you have to jump off a balcony and run along the wall a short distance before sharply and quickly turning 90 degrees to your right to jump off of the wall to grab a piece of scaffolding opposite of said previously mentioned wall. Out of, for example, the 200 attempts that I did, this is what happened:
On fifty of your attempts you die for various reasons before even reaching the above-mentioned seemingly impossible jump.
Out of another fifty attempts you die because you tried to turn and jump to the scaffolding before your feet even touch the wall across from it.
During twenty-three of your attempts you accidentally wall-run completely across the wall, missing your target completely and falling several stories downward.
On thirty-four of your attempts you hit the "turn around" button in an effort to turn fast enough to make the jump. Instead it makes you do a complete 180 in mid-air so you can watch the ceiling get farther away from you as you fall.
In twenty-six of your tries you successfully jump off the wall and turn, but miss the scaffolding completely and end up as a stain on the concrete floor below you.
During another sixteen attempts you again successfully turn and jump off the wall, but again miss the scaffolding. Instead you fall about a story before grabbing onto a pipe that is part of the scaffolding structure. Since there is nowhere safe to jump to from that pipe your hanging on, your only option is to just let go and welcome the sweet release of death.
Finally, during one attempt out of 200 you manage to pull of the maneuver flawlessly and get onto the piece of scaffolding. You then proceed to screw up the next part and fall back onto the story of the building that you were just on. The fall doesn't kill you, but the one from attempting to get onto the scaffolding again does.
Again, this is what my gaming experience has been like so far today. I know the problem isn't glitches in the game that make a ledge grab go unregistered and so on, the issue is that I'm just a fuckup. Either way, it's perfectly reasonable that I would get a tad bit frustrated. Yet after killing this poor girl Faith more times than I could keep track of and even turning off the game in anger on a few occasions, I continued to go back to it to try it again.
What, exactly, kept driving me to try to pass that same annoying little roadblock in the game over and over again? Was it the fact that I had just spend fifty dollars on it and didn't want to flush my money down the toilet by simply abandoning it? Perhaps, but there's got to be more to it than that. I think that it's the challenge itself. That jump wouldn't even be in the game if it couldn't be done, so by that logic I can do it if I keep trying (and I actually did on one occasion so far). There were several other parts of this game before this one that resulted only in a pathetically large number of deaths, and yet I kept trying and ultimately felt pretty damn good after finally besting it.
So this is the question that I'm asking all of you, one that dates back all the way back to the days of Super Mario Bros. to every game onward. Why is it that frustration in games keeps us going? Why does repeated failure while attempting challenges keep us playing a game despite it getting on our very last nerve? Is it the feeling of accomplishment you get when you finally succeed? Is it for bragging rights to make you feel better for failing so many times? It is simply so you can say you defeated the game's challenge so you can feel superior to it?
There probably isn't any one answer to this because everyone's personality is different and because of that they get motivated by different things. The only thing I am sure of is that everyone's reason for why they keep playing isn't so they don't feel like they just wasted fifty bucks.
~Van
P.S. ~ I am well aware that I apparently suck at Mirror's Edge, so don't even bother wasting your time by pointing it out.
