The Impact Factor

Binge Player Syndrome and How It’s Hard to Go Back (Or Stop)

Perspective

Abstract: I suffer from the self-coined “Binge Player Syndrome” (BPS). I feel the urge to ‘complete’ new games, learn their language, and do so as swiftly as possible. BPS affords some benefits, like the uncanny ability to see games to their end point and the psychological reassurance of getting tasks accomplished. The downside, however, is that BPS makes it exceedingly hard to return to games left unfinished while simultaneously making it difficult to stop playing until I’ve attained ‘mastery.’ What kind of gamer are you?

Hello everyone. I have a confession to make. I suffer from “Binge Player Syndrome” (BPS). I’m not quite sure how long I’ve been affected by BPS, but it’s certainly taken a stronger hold of me since entering graduate school. But what is BPS? Am I sure I didn’t just invent the term? (I totally did.) How does it affect me on a day-to-day basis and as a gamer? Fear not, you won’t be in the dark much longer. Let me explain.

I’ve been affected by BPS for as long as I can remember playing games, but it’s certainly intensified over the past six years or so. Let me describe a few of the symptoms. It starts with an initial hesitation to begin playing a new game. This stems from a fear, or maybe not fear exactly, but a dread for what looms in my immediate future. I know that once I start a game, I’ve invested a part of myself into it. I am there to fully consume the game. I have made a commitment. The commitment can be a bit fluid, but what it ultimately comes down to is this: I will not stop playing the game until I feel like I have ‘completed’ it. Completion can mean different things for different games, but when I dedifferentiate the specifics into a general list, I get these:

·       Finish the single player mode, if the game has one.

·       Gain a near mastery* of the gameplay systems

·       Understand what the game does well and where it fails

·       At minimum, spend adequate** time in all features / modes offered

·       [For recent games] Complete an acceptable*** level of in-game achievements (trophies, Steam achievements, etc)

·       Above all, play enough to form an educated opinion

*Able to perform all tasks asked of me by the game with decent-to-excellent execution

**This can range dramatically, usually dependent on how essential I feel the mode is to the game’s sum experience.

***This point is moot for games without in-game achievements, like those on Nintendo platforms or mobile. I’ll generally look at a list, see which seem fun and/or easy to accomplish, and plan to get those ones done.

The other critical element of my BPS is, as you might have guessed, achieving this ‘completion’ in as fast a time as possible. The ‘why’ to my rapid timetable is multifaceted. Without going into too much detail, it exists as a combination of my desire to have the time to experience as many interesting games as possible, to stay on top of the constant deluge of new releases, and to not remain stagnant in how I spend my limited free time. When I start up a new game I go all in and all at once. I tend to binge a new game start to finish, uninterrupted by other games if at all possible (though I have been known to juggle as many as three titles at the same time). It’s like a good burger or plate of sushi. As much as I may try to draw out my excellent experience as long as possible, it’s usually a quite short affair. I consume. Fast.

One month into 2016 and I already have a meaty list of played games.

Further, by looking so far into the future of my time with new games, often before I even truly start, I can get caught up in the work I have ahead of me. I’ll therefore approach it like all other work I do: by buckling down and doing research. First and foremost, I need to learn the language of the game. I need to understand what the game is trying to communicate to me and the way in which it is doing so. The process is often fast as I try to approach the problem from multiple angles: experimenting with the game’s systems, scouring the in-game resources, and seeking online write-ups or guides to serve as a foundation for my endeavors. I’m gathering evidence, making observations, and (as I play) synthesizing them to not only gain mastery but also form various theses on my experience. For every new game I attempt to transform myself into the player the game wants me to be. In my experience, this gives the game its best chance to show off its strengths. By the end of my time with a game, I want to be able to speak its language.

I just started PAD. There's so much language to learn.

So what does BPS do for me? What is it good for? Above all, it makes me pretty adept at finishing games. One of the most shocking gaming statistics I’ve come across in the past few years is how few people finish the games they start. It is remarkable and, if I’m being honest, a bit sad. Prior to this last generation of consoles, it was hard to quantitate completion percentages. You could survey people, but those can easily be impacted by confounders (who wants to admit they haven’t beaten The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, for example). Here is where the power of trophies / achievements come in. Most games grant an achievement for completing the single player content. For PlayStation at least, you can then look at the total percent of players that have earned the trophy for completion (measured out of the total number of individuals who have booted up the game). They are all so low. Here are just a few examples from PlayStation trophies. Only 17% of people have beaten Titan Souls. Only 22% of people have beaten Ni No Kuni. Only 10% of people have beaten Transistor. Even an easy, linear, 6.5 hour game like The Order: 1886 has only 43% of players reach the end. And the list goes on. By finishing a game, I place myself in a minority of individuals who have actually seen the experience to its conclusion.  

Transistor is amazing people! I know more
than 10% of you can beat it.

BPS is also quite good at making me feel accomplished (as superficial as it might be). I set out in the beginning of my time with a new game with a huge to-do list filled with unchecked boxes. Playing the game lets me check box after box. The credit roll lets me know that I’ve done something, that I’ve put in the work to see the game all the way through. There’s something psychologically reassuring about checking things off a list, about making gradual linear progress towards a fixed endpoint. This feeling isn’t why I play games, but it certainly enhances my time with them.

There isn’t all upside to my syndrome, of course. With good comes bad. And the worst is how BPS affects my ability to go back to old titles. Once a game has slipped out of the bubble of fervor, it is usually lost forever. Life can intervene, a new title I’ve eagerly awaited can be released before I finish, I can get bored, etc. There’s no end to the factors that can take me out of the experience. As I keep moving forward, distance rapidly grows between myself and the game I’ve been meaning to complete. And coming back is rough. It’s like being dropped in a foreign country, unclear of where to go, how to go, and how to communicate with the locals. I suspect this is a feeling shared by anyone trying to get back into a game they’ve put down for a while, but my exasperation feels so much more intense because I’m keenly aware of what I lost. I used to know the language. I used to know my way around. Further, my BPS mandates a certain level of mastery for my enjoyment. It feels awful hopping back into a game, deep into it’s content, totally unaware of what to do. So much so I’d rather just leave it be. It’s hard to go back.

Though I have left many games unfinished, a few stick out in my mind as particularly painful. One that still haunts me is Baten Kaitos on Gamecube. I loved that game. The immersive world, the card-based battle system, the cast of characters, the stunning visuals. I couldn’t tear myself away from the game. Until, for some reason , I just stopped playing. At the final dungeon. Yep. By the time my guilt for leaving Baten Kaitos incomplete finally reached its boiling point, I had totally forgotten what I was doing and how to play, stranded in story’s toughest area. I attempted on a several occasions to pick it back up to finish, but I never got my foothold. Baten Kaitos remains unfinished.

One day I'll finish you Baten Kaitos. Probably. Maybe. The chances are slim.

A more recent pair of examples are From Software’s Dark Souls II and Bloodborne. Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve finished both games. I’ve also completed all in-game trophies, earning myself the platinum. What I refer to here is their respective DLCs. As much as I love both games, I consumed them like I consume all games: all at once and as completely as possible. I specced my ideal characters, beat all bosses optional or not, maxed out my upgrades, etc. But for both games, I was done within three weeks. Thus, when the DLC for each of the two games was released upwards of 6+ months later, I had lost my mastery of the Souls language. The DLC’s barrier to entry was extraordinarily high, because it meant relearning what I had binged so long ago. Again, while I’m sure I would pick it back up again, the feeling of having to do so is unpleasant (for me). Once I’ve crossed a game off my list, it generally stays crossed. Bloodborne’s The Old Hunters DLC was a huge inspiration for this piece. I own it and I’m so excited to play, but my BPS is putting up a huge wall blocking my re-entry.

Even though I am incredibly excited to play The Older Hunters DLC,
I haven't been able to get past my mental barrier to re-entry.

A final game I had originally slated to write about here was Ni No Kuni. I recently said on TIF podcast that Ni No Kuni is easily the best classic JRPG from the PS3/Xbox360 console generation. It’s a game I bought at launch in February 2013, and played for 54 hours in 2.5 weeks. It’s also a game that, until earlier this month, I had not beaten. For one reason or another, I stopped playing just before the final dungeon. Despite how much I loved the game, and desperately wanted to finish it, I couldn’t get back into it. I expected to write in this article how shameful I feel that it still sits incomplete in my gargantuan backlog. But no. Three years later I’ve beaten it. And it’s all thanks to my fiancée. Justine began playing the game in the New Year and in the process of doing so retaught me the language of the game. She helped reteach me the ins-and-outs of Familiar training and battles. She refamiliarized me with character motivations and the world’s story. Justine got me to the place where I felt comfortable jumping back in, which allowed me to get past the limitations of BPS and finally see the credits roll.

Stuck in Ding Dong Dell no longer! It felt sublime to finish Ni No Kuni.

Hand-in-hand with difficulty going back to an old game, it’s also incredibly hard to stop playing the titles I’m currently working on. I played Bloodborne non-stop for nearly three weeks. From early morning to the late hours of the night, I didn’t feel satisfied until I had ‘completed’ the game. In Bloodborne’s case, that meant beating the story, all dungeons, all bosses, and obtaining the platinum trophy. The list of things I wanted to accomplish in-game was stress inducing at times, and a clear unwanted symptom of BPS. Fallout 4 is another title I binged until I had finished. I played Fallout 4 and only Fallout 4 until I had done all named side quests and seen the game’s ending from all factions’ perspective. And I did just that. The downside, however, is now that I’ve officially ‘completed’ the game I feel no urge to go back. Fallout 4 is huge and diverse and interesting, with plenty more for me still to do, but because I’ve ‘completed’ it I imagine I will not be going back any time soon. BPS can also affect games without clear-cut endpoints, too. Take Spelunky and Nuclear Throne for example. It was hard for me to stop playing these games, even after 100+ and 60+ hours respectively. While the main reason was that I was still enjoying these titles, it also lingered in the back of my mind that I hadn’t mastered them yet. A small part of the reason I kept playing was because I wanted to gain a more nuanced understanding of their language; I wanted to be an expert. It is also the reason I figure I’ll never stop playing Spelunky or Nuclear Throne. There’s always more vocabulary to learn.

So what am I left with? I own up to having Binge Player Syndrome, for starters. It’s important for me to admit, and important for my audience to know. It colors the way I play, think, and speak about games. It comes with strengths and it comes with limitations. But hey, it’s me. What kind of player are you?