Explosions of Gaming Anger and Rage

IMAGE(http://www.blogcdn.com/wow.joystiq.com/media/2010/10/smashedcomputerwow-sms-05091.jpg)
I heard a funny story on a rival podcast (One Life Left - UK).
The commentator told about a moment in gaming that made him so annoyed that he threw his Vita against a wall.

I strongly believe that there are two types of gamers...seethers and volcanoes.

Years back, I lived in a flat underneath a colleague from work who was addicted to Fifa football on his (original) X-BOX.
We could hear him playing, screaming and shouting, and regularly heard the controller being thrown at walls and the wooden floor.
Then one night the entire X-BOX went out the window.

I had always been a seether myself.
Calmly I turned the console or program off and walking away with Warner Bros style steam coming out of my ears.
However the other day my mouse started playing up whilst playing Minecraft.
It had been on the blink for a bit, and was on it's final gasp.
When the mouse finally froze up, causing myself to die in a Creeper explosion, losing a great deal of equipment I'd spent days creating, the mouse was ripped out of the PC, shortly to explode in fragments against the wall.
I didn't blame the Creeper...I blamed the mouse, and felt very silly afterwards.

*Are you a seether or a volcano ?
*What gaming moments have caused you to erupt ?

When I was working on contract at Microsoft, I was able to get one of their super-duper laser mouses for real cheap.

Then I played Battlefield 2.

Now I have a $10 Logitech mouse.

My father had a temper, and he passed it to me. I'm really aware of this, and don't like it, so I've gotten very good at never letting myself get angry directly at another actual person. Playing video games is where I vent all that. I never get physically violent, but man, do I yell and scream at the stupid developers making stupid design calls that OBVIOUSLY they shouldn't have made. The two women I've lived with, and whom I never raised my voice at, both said that I'm scary when I'm like that, which is why I'm very careful to keep that stuff directed away from people.

Lately, I've been playing a lot of Monster Hunter 4 on the bus ride to work. I'm starting to get to the point in the game where the challenge is starting to ramp up. Man, keeping my usual gaming rage mode under wraps when I'm playing in public is hard.

I don't think I've broken anything in anger in years, gaming or non-gaming. I get frustrated with games occasionally, but when that happens I just switch over to something else. I've got enough games to cycle through that I don't have time to waste on something I'm not enjoying at the moment. I'll enjoy it later, and it'll be waiting for me until that time.

I'm sure I threw some tantrums when I was younger, but I couldn't even imagine getting to that point now.

I spend too much money on my toys to break them just because a game isn't going my way!

SallyNasty wrote:

I spend too much money on my toys to break them just because a game isn't going my way!

Mmhmm. I broke a controller once when I was about 13. When I realized it was broken and I didn't have enough money to replace it the stupidity of it sunk in.

Haven't thrown/hit/whatever anything since.

If I feel myself starting to get genuinely frustrated it's either time to play a different game or do something else entirely.

Thin_J wrote:

If I feel myself starting to get genuinely frustrated it's either time to play a different game or do something else entirely.

This. I'll vent a bit, get to a stopping point, and then put it down and do something different. Sometimes that means coming back in a few hours and breezing through the thing that was driving me nuts. Sometimes that means never coming back. Either way, I'm happier.

Usually I'll just nope out of a game and stop playing it, either for a long time, or forever. Can't say I've ever damaged gaming equipment out of anger.

I've long been the volcano when it comes to dealing with my anger. I've never really dealt with it in anything approaching a healthy manner, and have suffered for it in numerous ways, including letting it spill out of gaming into my personal life. So for anyone, seether or volcano, figure out your earliest warning signs. When you notice them, just stop what you're doing and move on to something else. Meditate, read a book, do something to relax and refocus. Just don't wind up like me.

My father had a temper, and he passed it to me.

This is tangential, but anger isn't hereditary. It's something you learned from him, not inherited from him.

The two women I've lived with, and whom I never raised my voice at, both said that I'm scary when I'm like that, which is why I'm very careful to keep that stuff directed away from people.

Even if you're not directing it at people, it can still absolutely have an impact on your relationships with others. The fact that they find it scary strongly implies that they were probably afraid of you doing that to them as well, even if you never did.

Only reason I mention this is because it's stuff I'm having to stare in the face very hard in regards to how I deal with my anger, and how I manage it. I treated it much the same as you did for a number of years.

Last time I would really rage out was with Tecmo Bowl on the NES.. played it heavily in college and certain guys would just abuse me and it would result in thrown controllers with the NES frequently taking a fall from its shelf.. good thing those old consoles were built strong lol.

My rage seems to fall into the quick frustrated curse word or two and then completely forgotten about. If I get too many of those in a short span, I go do something else.

Tanglebones wrote:

Usually I'll just nope out of a game and stop playing it, either for a long time, or forever. Can't say I've ever damaged gaming equipment out of anger.

This captures how I am with games as well.

I never broke anything but I lose my temper with some games if I feel that it has been unfair to me. E.g. Hit and killed by an enemy or situation I felt shouldn't have...

I banged my mouse, once, really hard on the desk but I was under stress in all aspects of my life at the time.

I have punched cushions and pillows but not over a game.

I lost a ps3 controller to Dark Souls. I got really angry at a boss I was struggling with and tossed the controller onto the ground hard but I didn't think it was that hard, well it was hard enough that it broke one of the triggers clean off. So that pushed me right over the edge and all I can remember thinking was might as well finish the f*cking job so I picked the controller off the floor and threw it as hard as i could straight down into the ground and it just shattered into lots and lots of pieces. The first and only time I have ever done anything remotely like that.

AnimeJ wrote:
The two women I've lived with, and whom I never raised my voice at, both said that I'm scary when I'm like that, which is why I'm very careful to keep that stuff directed away from people.

Even if you're not directing it at people, it can still absolutely have an impact on your relationships with others. The fact that they find it scary strongly implies that they were probably afraid of you doing that to them as well, even if you never did.

Only reason I mention this is because it's stuff I'm having to stare in the face very hard in regards to how I deal with my anger, and how I manage it. I treated it much the same as you did for a number of years.

I hear what you're saying, and I understand. I've talked with it about myself, I've talked about it with a therapist, and I've talked about it with my previous girlfriends and my wife. I'm very conscious of it, and I'm fairly confident that I can keep it under control with people, and only let it out at inanimate objects. Honestly, I don't get that angry very often.

This should make everyone feel better:

There is only one thing that makes me the volcano, and that's for another thread!

Definitely a seether gamer-wise. The reward in gaming comes from overcoming challenge, but sometimes I just want a super-easy mode option to roll through parts when the frustration gets high.

I don't typically play the type of games that really cause a lot of anger. For the most part, if I'm getting frustrated with a game or the difficulty seems excessive, I'll just quit and do something else.

HOWEVER

In the past, I had one very notable exception with the NHL series. Specifically, playing NHL13/14/15 online over XBox Live. Occasionally, I'd run into a game where my opponent would just skate circles around me, score at will, and be crushing me 0-5 after the first period. I hated, hated the idea of just quitting, even though there was really no chance of me winning, but I couldn't stand the thought of playing another 10-15 minutes with the humiliation just piling on. It didn't help that after every opposing goal, the game shows a team celebration, and I mentally pictured my opponent sitting on a couch somewhere laughing and high-fiving his friends, all at my expense. I've never been so angry or frustrated with a game as I have been during some of those NHL games. I'm not proud of it, but there were multiple games where I had to just shut off the Xbox mid-game. Either that or I'd just set the controller down and walk away and let the other person play without me.

I'm more of a geyser than a seether or volcano. My rage about anything in life gets expressed in one of two ways when it builds up enough to need to let off steam:

1) I rant about it online to vent my frustration and get it out of my system.
2) I get rid of the situation causing the anger or frustration if ranting isn't enough to keep it managed. With games, I either uninstall them (if a pc game) or sell them (if a console game) when I'm fed up with their crap. With people, I either deal with it directly or break off further interactions with them.

Definitely a seether. I got all the achievements for Trials HD and Dishonored's Dunwall City Trials, though both, especially Daredevil on Dunwall, nearly cost me a controller and TV.

The one game that's made me say "f*ck it" and give up was trying to 3-star all the time trials and speed runs on Mirror's Edge. I might go back to it one day after the pile's been whittled down some. That was the epitome of frustration to me.

AndrewA wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Usually I'll just nope out of a game and stop playing it, either for a long time, or forever. Can't say I've ever damaged gaming equipment out of anger.

This captures how I am with games as well.

My least favorite feeling is that impotent, tight-throated rage that I associate most directly with being in the process of losing a fight in grade school. I can certainly lose in games without feeling that, and I even like to experience tragedy in games, but the trick is that I know there's nobody sitting on my chest, forcing me to keep going. If the game is doing something and I'm not willing to be part of it, I can—and will—quit. I've got a bit of a hair trigger on this, too, built into the way I play games. I don't have a whole lot of time, so I'm not going to get more than a couple hours together before I'm forced to stop, and I'll have to think about continuing before I launch a game again.

I have a lot of animals and they refuse to follow someone who is emotionally unstable. I have a dog that was hyper sensitive to my emotions or anger and I had to learn to be stoic both inside and out for him to go on a walk with me. If I showed the slightest frustration or anxiety he would shut down and refuse to budge.

Greatest friend ever.

Now I am frequently complimented by people on my gentle and calm nature in times of stress. I never show anger or frustration. I come from a father who intentionally would hit other cars out of road rage.

I once murdered an entire village and set it ablaze out of anger. Not my proudest moment to be sure, but in my defence that last level in Elite Beat Agents is ridiculous.

Mostly seethed but occasional volcano. Never broke equipment but have pounded the table and yelled at the monitor. Last time it happened I was playing skylanders with my son and we kept falling into the same pit. He told me it scared him so I'm now more cognizant of yelling at the game. What really gets me fired up isn't frustrating mechanics but rude behavior in competitive games or douches spouting super offensive stuff in general chat.

Now, if anyone wants to talk about anger outside of gaming, I have a number of other stories. I recognize my biggest problem is being disrespected, which I think may be a very southern honor culture thing.

I will yell at my monitor these days while playing Speedrunners, especially when one person is constantly winning using Haxxor skills.

Other than that, I guess I run more along the lines of a

IMAGE(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PVs5GnonL.jpg)

Bit hesitant to post this, since I don't want to take away from people who are actively dealing with anger issues, but I do want to push back against the idea that anger is an inevitable response. Yes, it can be a normal reaction, and even healthy if you can let yourself go through it and not direct it destructively at other people or things. But it's not a universal response: I've seldom reacted with aggression to anything related to videogames (or in general).

Wait, now that everyone's talking about music, this gets me thinking...

pinkdino99 wrote:

Are you a seether or a volcano ?

Seether. I swear up a storm at the game, but it's all in my head. It's typically racing games (inevitable last corner shunts in old NFS games) or dexterity challenges (Mirror's Edge server room no kills) that elicit that response, after numerous failed attempts. Beating the challenge is the only way to assuage things at that point—breaking things won't help me win a race—or finally hanging it up for the evening, then once things are shut down it's forgotten (emotionally).

Until either of those conditions are met though, the inside of my head sounds like this (NSFW audio):

I seldom get angry at anything at all, but the last time I did, I threw my bike into a river.

And that is why I don't do that anymore.

The emotional response of getting so angry that you feel compelled to break an inanimate object -- and over a videogame, nonetheless -- is a luxury that few young girls are ever afforded growing up. It's a tantrum, essentially, and while the youngest girls can be as violent as boys, they're socialized out of that behavior as fast as possible.

I can think of a single instance in which I got so angry I broke something. I was six, and I threw a Lego house in rage because the pieces wouldn't fit right. My father grounded me for a month. I never did it again. My brothers, however, were allowed to throw controllers and toys and whatever they liked when they got angry. My parents rarely, if ever, corrected the behavior.

There's a lot of additional things on this topic I could say, but perhaps they're best kept for the Feminism thread. Still I thought it worth bringing up, as an alternative perspective on how anger gets expressed and who is allowed to express it.

Chaz wrote:

My father had a temper, and he passed it to me. I'm really aware of this, and don't like it, so I've gotten very good at never letting myself get angry directly at another actual person. Playing video games is where I vent all that. I never get physically violent, but man, do I yell and scream at the stupid developers making stupid design calls that OBVIOUSLY they shouldn't have made. The two women I've lived with, and whom I never raised my voice at, both said that I'm scary when I'm like that, which is why I'm very careful to keep that stuff directed away from people.

Lately, I've been playing a lot of Monster Hunter 4 on the bus ride to work. I'm starting to get to the point in the game where the challenge is starting to ramp up. Man, keeping my usual gaming rage mode under wraps when I'm playing in public is hard.

Right there with you on everything. From the dad to the MH4U. But since I'm playing in on a n3DS, extra incentive not to break my brand new toy.

I do remember one time as a child, I got really mad at one of the Intellivision games. Don't remember the game at this point. But I remember grabbing the cartridge, yanking it out with the power still on, and tossing it across the room. It actually hit our old table, and I saw pieces of plastic flying everywhere. Thought the game was demolished. But then I looked closer, and there was some kind of weird plastic cover on the table leg, and that was what had shattered instead.

Through the years if I needed to rage I've tried to throw the controller into a pillow or the couch, something soft. Or at the PC I end up slamming my hand on my chair or something when frustrated.

Would probably be better if I could stop the outbursts altogether, but they are less frequent and more controlled than they used to be. Mellowing with age maybe.