Binge-gaming
I sometimes get asked why I am playing until two-thirty in the morning? What makes me spend hours a day with my controller in hand and grinding level after level of a character? What are my motives and reasons for “binge-gaming”? Read on if you want to find out…
I first have to elaborate a bit about what type of games I play, as this will let you link more easily to the term binge-watching. 99.99% of my PS4 games have a strong lead character with a story in their past. This leads to games that have an interesting story and plot line. It can be a fantasy game or a game set into the future or a fictive cyber world. The all have one thing in common…they tell a story (like TV shows).
And it’s me on the PS4 controller, who decides how I am gonna tackle the problems that my lead character is facing. I am in charge of making good or bad decisions, taking him or her towards a goody good shoes gal or a bad ass guy. I become part of the story, contrary to TV shows, where I am just a viewer.
The story of the lead character is mine to play, to influence or to direct as I see fit. And since each game plays differently, has a different story or plot, I am driven to the next chapter in the game, the next act in the play. It makes me binge-game till 3 in the morning, because
- I have to find out how Talion (me) will get back the “Ring of Power” (in Shadow of War)
- I want to know how Aloy (me again) will gain the trust of the Banuk tribe (in The Frozen Wilds DLC of Horizon Zero Dawn)
- or how I can crack the safe in the third mission “The Bank Job” as Billie Lurk (me again on the controls) without alerting any guards (in Dishonored: Death of the Outsider).
While I am evolving my game character, I want to find out the next part in the story line, exactly like people, who binge-watch, want to find out what happens in the next episode. My curiosity wants to know what happens. But, is curiosity the only thing that drives me onwards? No, and that’s where I personally think that binge-gaming differs from binge-watching.
A second reason is my will and drive to overcome the next hurdle, to fight against the next Orc War-chief, to best the Fire Bellowback in Thunder’s Drum, to achieve a “Blazing sun” in the Hunting grounds, to solve the next rune puzzle as Senua (in Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice).
Bottom line, I think that the two reasons, which go hand-in-hand, making me binge-game are:
- my curiosity about the story line and it’s lead character evolution within it
- and my desire to improve to, to beat the next level, to get the next best armour, to achieve another skill
Leave a comment about your binge-gaming moments, reasons why you spend nights gaming.
