I'm the type to binge a game for a while and then take a few months of break and then resume binging. As far as my memory and enjoyment goes in comparison to when I completely binge from start to finish, Ive never even thought of it and I'm not sure to be honest, definitely something I want to keep in mind from now on thanks for the video! Very insightful
I feel like I'm the same way. I fell hard on Persona 5 Royal and Hades, but then I just stopped. They're both brilliant games, but I ended up reading a bunch of fanfics about the games, rather than going back to the games themselves.
I have a bad habit of not finishing things weirdly enough. I get like 66 to 80% done with something snd then just lose interest. Usually before losing interest i am obsessed with the thing and binge it in as short a time frame as i can, and then just somehow never finish it for months if not years. So yeah, i'm also kind of a mix.
I remember playing so many games when I was kid, they all felt like huge, grand adventures. But when I go back and replay them, they go by so fast, and my nostalgia is somewhat shattered. I kind of wondered what caused this, why my perspective had shifted so greatly... but eventually it clicked. My mom would only let me play on weekends.
that and... some memories (games) is better to keep then as that... a plesant memory. Maybe its me but as an adult I have become more critical about games (graphics, physics, gameplay, even the art style)... and replaying those old games i enjoyed so much as a kid, i cant help but start seeing flaws in the desing, witch ruin the game a little for me, there is a very few games i still replay every now and then and enjoy them (to name a few: Contra, Punch out, Megaman 2), but for most cases i prefer to keep then in my memory as a "good" game.
@@cuentaalterna3754 I absolutely feel you. I've become very interested in game design over the last few years, so the ways I appreciate games have changed a lot, and yeah I tend to be more critical. Sometimes I wonder if just not playing an old favorite at all is the best course of action, so I can cherish it forever. Games used to just be games to me. I didn't think about the development that went into them or the ideas that the developers came up with, I just soaked games in and enjoyed them to their fullest. They used to feel a lot more special. I have a friend who is into writing music. I've also shown a passing interest in creating it although I don't know much, and they've encouraged me to learn music theory. I declined, saying that I would just end up liking music less in general. They said that leaning it helps you appreciate and respect it more. And that's true, with my knowledge of game design I can truly understand and appreciate what went into a game... but I can never just... _play_ it. I'm always thinking, noticing little details and considering the development behind them. It subtracts from the immersion a great deal, and I know the same thing would happen were I to learn music theory. I'd be able to appreciate my favorite songs so much more, but never again would I be able to just turn my brain off and let them flow through my mind. Learning about something you're passionate about changes the way you approach it. In some cases you will genuinely like it more if you learn about it, but in others it just takes away from the magic, and more often than not it's a little bit of both. Thanks for reading this, if you made it this far, and have a good one.
@@sagehanson190 tbh I don't know theory but I do compose music quite often and it's not like it's all I can think about when I hear it. I think if you applied the drifting ideology (as opposed to binging) to learning something like that, it won't feel as omnipresent when you see something related because it's not living rent free in your skull filling everything up
@@whiteface513abandonedchann8 I see... well that's a fair point I guess. I spend a lot of my time playing games every day, they'd probably be more enjoyable if I played them less frequently.
I’m a* you’d use Imma in the case of proceeding an action. I’m a buy ten games kinda guy (your a guy who buys 10 games) Imma buy ten games (your going to buy ten games) Not a grammar Nazi but reading that gave me a mini stroke
Hey, I just wanted to thank you. This channel has to some degree restored my interest in psychology. I'm in the third semester and sometimes I question my decision to study psychology but these videos remind me why I wanted to study it in the first place.
I'm a binger, and my memory already sucks. The great thing about this combination is the ability to replay games multiple times without losing the spark the next time. It's a beautiful way for me to keep loving my favorites over and over again.
Oh yeah, even when I replay games I've played a dozen times I still feel excited whenever I get to something big because there are so many smaller things I didn't remember.
i kinda remember the entire shit, but stil sparks on me... i'am a person that get spoilers as a motivation to watch/play something... Because the end result is never the important think to me... but live the entire road to the end, feel each emotion in order is the golden part. Even when i already now something, some twist some emotional part, i dump temporarily to pull off again as the first time. How many times i cried watching kimi ni todoke over years. HYMYM, you lie to april, man those stuff, some i bengie at first, hit me like a cannon ball, but after rewatch it hit me as a intergalactical meteor with nuke, and drifting it is totally acceptable, but i can't handle and want to finish the entire stuff... Like One Piece, sometimes when i got weekly, i just drowne down and keep lowered for months, by now i not watch a episode more than a year, in 2021 november i got my last one anime episode... i will catch it up when feel okay to move on, and i totally loved the las episode plots, but i just can't handle weekly content good as bengie them all and rewatch with calm afterwards
@@jscs9960 Very big thing here, not everyone is the same. The study was about overall try and find an average, the reality is that some people really don't fit that.
I stopped playing sekiro for a few weeks when I went on vacation at about 85% of the way through and when I came back to it, I couldn’t play anymore. Lost all my skill at it in two weeks and just got wrecked over and over.
@@GyroZeppel this is me rn. im trying to replay sekiro. what I did it I played about the 1st hour on a new save and then went back to my main save when my parries were good. hope this helps if u are still interested in beating the game
What's nice about being a drifter... you can play multiple different games at the same time and absorb multiple things at once. I've spent months on end NOT playing a game just because "I didn't feel like it was the time". Somehow I can feel when is the right time to continue a game, and since I adore game design it gives me time to process what I played. I guess this is why I'm not a huge fan of a lot of triple A story oriented games. Because they tend to guide you through very specific twists and turns and are designed more for binge type people, which I'm not one of. I was raised on the saturday morning cartoons and anime where you got one episode a week and had to just deal with the slow drip feed and mull it over as you went.
Dude I feel that, I also grew up on the weekly new episodes from watching toonami or whatever it happened to be at the time. I will say though, as an adult sometimes if a game is just that enticing, I don’t have the self control to pace myself lol
@@DarylTalksGames i'm very much a drifter but i can't enjoy more than one thing at a time. If i start a game, i can't play, watch or read anything else. This makes me feel like i'm wasting my time. Any advice?
@@Jibash I feel you. I have a different problem, and an advice. I want to be an game designer, and during lockdown, i planned to play so much games. I just hadn't the energy i guess. I mostly just walked back and forth in my home. And looking back, it makes me sad, how much time i wasted not playing games(this sounds weird but it is hobby and relevant to my later job). Even RN i can't really motivate ms to play, even though i knows i will enjoy it once started. My advice would be, don't see that time as wasted, it's time you didn't want(ed) to play games, so it wouldn't make sense playing. Also maybe opt for shorter games, thats what really helped me. Im mostly a drifter too, but i could play eg. metro last light pretty quick, giving me time to play the next game afterwards(i can't really explain what i mean so i hope this makes sense to you). Also, this might sound silly, but you can try playing multiple games, with the other game being some mindless shit(not negative), like enter the gungeon, or Uncharted or something Also how is it about multiplayer? When you can play multiplayer games at the same time as story games, that might be the filler your looking for
A topic I've always found interesting that I'd love to see you do a video on: How much information do you want to know about a game before it's released? Like, how many trailers do you watch? Do you want to know the ins and outs of the gameplay? I've found this interesting because I think for a long time I fell into the gaming hype machine, where I wanted to see all the biggest trailers and announcements because it was a kind of endorphin rush. I got to feel part of the excitement. But then I started to suspect it was actually hurting my enjoyment of the games themselves, because it was ruining the sense of discovery of the games. I already knew the overall story, had already watched how the gameplay works, had already seen much of the world. I didn't know all the story beats and hadn't played the game for myself, but the surprise was kinda ruined and I found myself not wowed by as many games. Then I stopped watching trailers once I'd decided I wanted a game, and my enjoyment has skyrocketed. I'm curious if other people have felt this same thing or if there's a psychological basis for wanting to feel part of the hype to the point that it actually hurts your enjoyment of the final product.
I'd love to see a video on this topic. I had the same switch in perspective you did a few years back, where for a while I avoided trailers/reviews as much as I could and tried to go into every game blind. Now, how much of a game I want to see before playing depends on a few factors, one of the biggest ones being price. If a game is less than 20 dollars, I'm sometimes willing to splurge and go in blind. If the game in question is full price, then I usually watch some reviews first- not to find out if the game is good or bad (my tastes differ from a lot of modern critics), but just to see what exactly I'd be paying for and if I think I'd enjoy it enough to justify the purchase.
Also add in the fact that the "review videos/xyz reacts to this game" also put the game off for me as I felt I had a little less to explore in the game
I'm like you. For established series (like Halo, Final Fantasy, God of War etc.) I'll watch the very first trailer and if I know I'm getting the game I won't watch anything else that comes out and so I can be surprised. Trailers these days show literally everything exciting, and it blows my mind. A ton of people like that hype train stuff, though, for whatever reason. I'm the same way when it comes to movies. I saw zero trailers for the new Avatar movie and I think I enjoyed myself more than if I had seen them.
i pretend a game doesn't exist until it's in my hands I feel like that discovery aspect you mentioned is very important for fulfilling the novelty itch that i always have
Totally can relate. Definitely caught me off my guard and i feel genuine joy from hearing such line. This is rare coming from a yt vid. Thanks daryl :)
When I like a game I learn everything I can about it So I normally spoil the endings of games just trying to learn more This has happened like 7 times and still haven't learnt
@@mrrey3481 I get why you're saying it, but I disagree. The ending is still the same, but the first time is always the strongest, and watching it on yt will feel less than actually getting to it in game.
@@mrrey3481 Some of the best stories can be made in such a way, that the information you get further into the game changes your understanding of the previous events in it (Outer Wilds, OMORI). And if you spoil it beforehand, well... You can't speculate about that part of story and enjoy it as it is when you already know the truth or the ending.
@@silverstar4505 true. But I never really regreted spoiling anything. For me, I found that I don't really care about spoilers. I want to see the story unfold and characters develop. Even if I know the ending (Like my first playthrough of Undertale for example) I can still lose myself in story and enjoy it unfold.
I'm a chronic drifter who's barely even able to start games most of the time, but sometimes I shift hard into a binger when a game grabs me. Copy Kitty, Kingdom Hearts 3, Gravity Rush Remastered, and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim were games that inspired this shift in the past three years.
I'm a drifter too. But I struggle to finish games I know are great. ffx is sitting at about 75% done, plague tale innocence is 50% are the latest ones. Then there's more "one game" type games with me going hard into tekken 7, legends of runeterra, ffxiv or whatever other game which people would usually play for years, but I stick to for maybe a week or two then get back to it like a year later.
Drifter here. It's hard for me to finish a plot or fully complete a game, including second playthroughs. I guess it's either because of the difficulty or that I don't want it to end. There are times where I'm bored out of my mind, but I don't touch the games that need completing.
Funny you should mention KH3! I had a long period where I wasn't even playing many games anymore because I was so busy with exams and mental fatigue caused by lockdown, but I bought KHDDD on a whim as it was on offer and it's been the fastest I've binged and replayed a game in forever - even had me staying up until 3am to beat it. Sometimes you just get one of those games, my man.
Even though I'm a long time Kingdom Hearts fan I dropped 3 after about 2 hours and didn't go back for about a year. For reference, I binged KH2 back in 06 and poured like 90 hours into my first playthrough. I'm glad other people enjoy KH3 but frankly it still disappoints me. Gravity Rush I'd like to go back to at some point as well
I binge through works I love and then drift among the fandoms and online communities lol. I just can’t stop once I’m hooked and a super long session of gaming is a lot more immersive for me than breaking it up into tiny sessions throughout days or weeks. Learning other people’s thoughts and theories on the games I just finished is also part of the experience for me which I can totally enjoy over time instead of uncontrollably binging.
I'm one that binge a game but stops when I'm close to the end. It's a combination of burn out (mentality of completing as much as possible and FOMO) and, as you said, not saying goodbye to the characters and world I am experiencing. There is a lot of games I want to complete, but it also feels like it has been too long now.
I definitely binge games, but often i have a hard time even starting any games cause i know i'll want to play the entire game before starting a new one. I think this is why i love rouge-lites so much. I can treat every run as a different game entirely, allowing me to pace myself,and play other games instead of burning myself out.
God, sseth tzeentach evaporated like a hundred hours of my time (they might be more in the future) by recommending synthetik, and i have no clue what i'll do when synthetik 2 comes out but probably i'll be presumed dead.
i feel like having ADHD makes all of this significantly different I usually stay hyper-fixated on something for days or hours, but it doesn't feel forced, it feels like my natural energy ... because it's my natural energy, so I tend to enjoy it much more than if I consumed it slowly The irony is that my ADHD also means that, even if I finish the game in 2 or 3 days instead of a month as a neurotypical person, I will spend the rest of the week viewing opinions or consuming the game in other ways on the internet ( like making theories or happening in fandom). So despite finishing it quickly, I go back to those memories all the time for a long time, so I also tend to remember everything in a very vivid way even years later. So ... I have the advantages of consuming everything slowly despite doing it insanely fast, the only disadvantage in fact is that my obsession will make me forget important things ... like eating ... or sleeping ... or finishing the thesis .
Absolutely yes. I used to spend while days playing games. It's actually made it a lot harder recently for me to play games due to poor time management, it's hard for me to be willing to sit down for a game, because I know I won't want to stop playing. So now I've sort of become a drifter, I'll binge for a few weeks when I have the time, then not touch a game for months. Of course one of the last games I played was Xenoblade Chronicles, so that I took 3+ breaks playing that. I binge as far as playing it nonstop, but in terms of playstyle I think I've always been a "drifter." I can not rush through a game to save my life. I always stroll around slowly, taking in the sights and sounds, exploring everywhere, and I take ages deciding equipment loadouts or even just doing mundane stuff like reading through item lore descriptions or compendoums or literally looking at my character's stats. Recently my life's been kinda chaotic, I've had a lot of free time, but a lot of the time it isn't "optimal," and I might have distractions or need to be pulled away. So I ended up starting 4 different games alongside a personal project I sometimes work on. This is unheard of for me, but I play a different one depending on my situation. Sorry for giving my whole life story, but I thought this was very interesting and worth discussing.
@@Oceaniac mmm... i may have news for you then xd (is not possible to have an hiperfixation whitout ADHD or Autism, so... maybe you should check yourself a little)
Hello people with ADHD. Stop being so relatable. I do not want to go to a therapist. On a serious note, I've done the same thing but with Anime. I started My Hero Academia, loved it, completed the whole 3 seasons in two weeks, got into the "Fandom" (the good part not the Twitter section ugghh), started reading fanfics and now I even write fanfics. So yeah, I can complete something in a week and still have it on my mind from other places by inhaling even more of the content.
Idk if other people feel this way, but I love seeing my playtime in a game go up. There is something extremely satisfying and rewarding about it, to me.
The games I love I usually played daily, making the sessions as long as I could, until I finished them. I went to school/work with my head still remembering it. I may not remember all the details of the game but the emotions still resonate very strongly hearing a song or seeing a scene of it.
I tried the drifter approach with ghost of tsushima, it took me over 6 months to finish it by playing it a bit every weekend. It was an interesting way to experience it, felt like watching a really long tv show and in a way helped me remember more about the game as every session had 100% of my attention.
I've always been a binger, and it is true that it's hard to retain the information properly after a while. But tbh I think that's not so bad, because when I get into it months or years later I can re-experience it again.
this, i have really bad memory and this is actually the only positive thing about it, i usually remember some stuff while playing it again but somehow it feels fresh, like im uncovering an ancient story, then i remember what i felt like playing for the first time and what has changed its really great
I think binging gives games inherent replay ability, you get to experience something you rushed through again, and overtime every little detail will be etched into your mind by pure virtue of having gone through it so many times. I blitzed persona 5, but I did it so many times going for different builds that a lot of the games story is now in my long term memory. That's just my opinion and experience though, not sure if the science backs me up lol
Dude. Yes. How many times have you heard “I wish I could forget this game so I could play it again blind.” I love knowing that in 5 years I could come back and play FF7R and just be blown away at all the stuff I forgot.
I didn't think about that during this video but yeah, when binging something a second, third, fourth time etc. everything comes flooding back to you and you remember enough to be excited but forget enough to get new experiences. It's the closest thing to being able to forget something and experience it for the first time again but it's better because you also (at least I do) remember what you were doing/how you were feeling etc. when you binged it before. It combines nostalgia and first time experience to create something new and amazing.
lol dark souls has been a part of my life for literally 10 years and has never left. even when i dont have an active playthrough going on im still reading about it, thinking about it, participating in the social media communities etc. and i absolutely binged it the first time i played.
Same man, dark souls 2 its been part of my life for like 4 years already i always come back start a new character or finish another, maybe i just progress a bit or binge it, i love that god damn game it has sucked 300+ hours from my life.
absolutely same. I regularly replay Dark Souls 1, it's one of my favorite games of all time and even when i'm not replaying it I still actively love it and talk about it
I was just thinking about how the only game that I 100% binged when I first played it that still sticks around and that I keep going back to is Dark Souls.
Tbh i really want to make it so that I play a game for 1 hour and switch to another game for another hour and make it fit all the time I have to play games which isn't a lot
I simply just play what I feel like playing, gaming is a hobby first and foremost. Took me 2 years to finally play through the dmc collection, but guess what I played it when I felt like it and loved it.
@@MatthewsPersonal maybe referring to like social media stuff? like "oh, I've already completed this game over the weekend..." or others flexing that they've been through most of the game within a short period after the thing was released. this is purely based on my observation anyway, so i may be wrong
100% agree, I usually only spend 2-3 hours at a time and it keeps it very enjoyable for me. Any more than that and I start to get more and more burnt out
When I got my nice gaming computer this year I was finally able to play all the games I’ve been wanting too. I have 80 hours into both Nier games and I still haven’t downloaded Witcher or Red Dead 2 even tho I bought them already lmao.
@@McSnezzly for me tho, after getting a quite decent system I made a checklist for games that I'll "play". But for some reason older games kinda interest me even more now. Even today, after 7 months I haven't beaten Automata.
I usually drift, but I have extremely fond memories of beating CoD MW1 on release day. I bought the game, got home, put together a pot of chili and let that simmer while I devoured Modern Warfare in one sitting. Then I ate delicious chili after the credits rolled. Some of the moments in that game have stuck with me in the 14 years since. It was a good day.
I feel that. Managed to get a PS5 about 3-4 months ago, got God of War (hadn't played it yet on PS4). Quite like it, but now haven't played in 2 months and can't bring myself to pick it back up again.
This is a very interesting dichotomy. I knew I was a binger pretty much from the point of definition of terms, but I couldn't necessarily have said why, it's just been the most fun way to play games I'm really invested in. I certainly don't binge every game, but I absolutely have binged most of my favorites; me not playing a game very much is usually a sign that I'm bored with it or not very engaged for some other reason. I do it for shows too; I honestly hate watching things weekly because by the time the next week rolls around I'll have forgotten some of what happened in the last episode and had to get un-excited and then excited all over again, which often fails. I've noticed a distinct tendency in myself to enjoy things *more* the less space there is between watching episodes of it. If there's more space, I tend to get a lot more nitpicky and taken out of the experience. Daily is ok though, something like 1-3 episodes a day is probably my ideal schedule. I will also say, with a lot of the games I really like, there's often room to replay them and do something different and interesting in a new way - like playing a completely different character build in Dark Souls. So even after finishing the game there might still be a lot more to do.
What I'm hearing is that I need to play games faster, so I can forget enough to have fun playing it again a second time! I feel like I'm more a binger to begin with, but a lot of my favourite story-driven games... As much as I love them, I can never get the same impact a second time... Once you know the story, you know the story, and all.
That's one of the main difficulties with story-driven games, they don't have much replayability. Luckily there's a lot of games out there for you to play, so much so I don't think you could run out of them even if you were to restrict yourself to story-driven games which happens to be one of the most common genres.
I'm in the middle, between the two types, I tend to play a little each day and also love story based games. Sometimes if it's hard to beat or I don't want it to end, I'll leave and come back later to finish it, but there's also tons of story based games (and others like hades) that I have yet to play so I'm definitely not running out anytime soon.
@@annaairahala9462 yeah despite the fact i love story driven games like Uncharted or The Last of Us, i can say i enjoy games like Sonic Unleashed and Devil May Cry 5 more not cuz it also has emphasis on story but its gameplay is what brings me back as platforms and hack-and-slash offer a ton of replayability. Actual Uncharted has a great multiplayer mode which is what always kept me hook during the PS3 era and the games before 4 felt more arcadey which is why even with emphasis on story, it still had enjoyable gameplay
I’m somewhere in the middle myself. I don’t binge games in a day or weekend almost ever but I don’t tend to spend more than 2-3 weeks at most on a game and am even ok with finishing a game in a week. I also have to always finish a game at some point, unless I don’t like it and then I usually don’t even keep the game. This video was so interesting. I love your content.
@@definitelyhooman7939 same here. I love taking my time with a game but for me a week to two weeks is long enough for me to fully appreciate a game. The last time I spent a month or more on a game was a pretty huge title as well so I agree that those huge long games you kind of have to spend more time with in order to even beat them. Lol. Usually if a game is that long though I’ll usually play another game along side it to so I can have little breaks if needed.
I feel like this has a lot to do with how your normal life is structured as well. If you work and don't have a lot of time to play games, you're going to drift more than someone who has all the free time in the world. And simply due to the fact that since your free time is more limited, you're going to spend your time on what you really enjoy most and cherish ever part of it since you have so little.
Interesting, thats the reason i play very few titles. Due to a lack of time available i want to just stick to 1 or 2 titles until i finish them, and if i start drifting i may not return to it for a year or more.
Because I have extremely limited time to play games, I have the issue that regardless of what I am playing, I am always wondering if my time would not be better spent on one of the other hundreds of games in my backlog. And I feel this, even if I am really loving the game that I am playing. It doesn't help that I collect physical games, and am constantly buying games when I find them on the cheap to add to my collection.
I started tearing up at that ending- I am somewhere in the middle of a binger and a drifter and I found the comments about time and memories at the end to just be so.... emotional and true. It hit close to home and inspired a mini self-reflection. I love your Pysch of Play videos, and I hope everyone reading this comment has a great rest of their day/night
I am definitely a drifter, I bought undertale in december and finished it in the last day of july next year while some people finished it in one day lol
When I like a game, I play it for like a week or 2 and move on to something else, finished or not. But when I find that special game, I try to put all my efforts in playing it. I still remember the games I finished faster.
I feel as though I've commonly swapped between both styles of show/game consumption depending on the kind of show/game, as well as how hectic my life is at the time of playing/watching. A big part of my enjoyment of Game of Thrones, for example, was watching RUclipsrs theorize about the next episode while waiting 1 week for more. It gave ME more time to understand the plot and really get excited for the next part of the story. I feel that the overall amount of impact that a game/show has on my life comes down to how much I allow myself to reflect on my time with it. For example, I spent several months slowly making my way through Control, only speeding up my playthrough towards the end as I finally started to grasp and understand the world that I had been plunged into. I watched a lot of content surrounding the game in an attempt to better understand the playthrough that I was having as I went through it. NieR: Automata, on the other hand, I chugged through in just a couple weeks, with the overwhelming majority of my reflection coming after completing all endings of the game, once I could fully engage with youtube video essays and other content around the game without worrying about spoilers. Despite taking different amounts of time to complete both games, I ultimately spent about the same amount of time reflecting on my playthrough and theorizing about the amazing worlds in both games. This is just my opinion, but my overall enjoyment of most games or shows or movies usually comes down to the depth and significance of my reflections on my experience. Still, I have absolutely felt the effects mentioned in this video when quickly binging or slowly nibbling on content as well.
>but my overall enjoyment of most games or shows or movies usually comes down to the depth and significance of my reflections on my experience yes, "drifting" just makes it more likely for someone to do so. Memory is essentially based on how much depth of thought/effort you put into it in the first place.
@Anna Aira Hála yeah I kind of thought about that when he said it "gives you a chance to reflect." But ultimately it's up to the viewer/player to *take* that chance and actually reflect on it.
I don't know if this concept is true. I remember my favorite movies a lot more than my favorite TV shows, even though TV shows by design are consumed much, MUCH slower.
I feel like "binging" any type of media partially ruins the experience. If you watch a Netflix episode once per week, you have some time to dwell on individual episodes. On the other hand, binge watching a whole series on a single day, all episodes seem to blend into one another. It gets hard to recall certain parts of it a month later. Same case for games, I personally have a more fullfilling experience when I take regular breaks from them. Lets your brain process it.
I believe you're right, I played this one game that started off as a demo and the story slowly progressed as the game got updated, they had a cutscene after every level and back then everyone would watch them because they had no other content from the game. Nowadays, I always see new players skipping the cutscenes and flying past the levels and it's just so different from when we were basically forced to drift through it rather then drift
I do agree with this point a lot but as someone who binges it just makes those memorable moments really really stand out and well I’m so captivated by something so I want to enjoy it for as much as possible. I don’t think it really makes that much of a difference weather you binge or drift but if something sticks with you long after playing that’s when you found something truely special.
For shows, I like watching 2 or 3 episodes at a time, especially near a climax, but I agree that spacing out is usually better for my enjoyment. I also have a bad habit of taking long gaps because I don't want to finish it then have to find something else, despite the fact that I am finding something else to fill the gaps. At the same time, I really enjoy getting platinum trophies on games if I'm pretty close already or really enjoy it, and similarly if it's an open world game I enjoy I'll collect everything. So I guess for me it just depends.
I disagree. Having long breaks is what ruins experience for me. If have to wait week for a new episode I will probably never finish the show or just wait till all episodes are out so I cn binge watch it (or play in case of games). I will get bored as heck otherwise and I have no patience. Also I do indeed enjoy remembering what going on in the show and making connection, and it's all most impossible if i have to wait a week, cuz I will just forget stuff. Oh! And that's not even saying anything about emotions, they totally got lost during the wait
I binge all my fav anime, manga, novels, tv shows, games. Because once I get hooked, I just can’t stop. My body forgets to sleep or eat. I become too immersed. 😂 BUT I remember much better this way. If I take a week break, I might’ve forgotten details of the last episode. Or my emotions have calmed down. But watching it all together, I’m able to remember every little detail and foreshadowing and seeing it all tie together as more of the story unravels is beautiful. However, once I’m close to the finish line, I stop, slow down or even go on a hiatus and return months or years later because I don’t want it to end. Once it ends, I’ll read it again. But I feel like I’ve always remembered it really well, never had a problem with memory when binging. Even after a decade I remember my childhood fav manga in detail, even the dialogues every word for word. Also depends on the story. If it’s told in arcs, I’ll binge the arc until it wraps up and there are no more cliffhangers, and take a break before resuming the next arc. Oh! But the saddest thing about being a binger, like mentioned in another one of your videos, is the emptiness and existential dread I face every time my fav thing ends too soon 🥲
Definitely just had an amazing experience with Prey. Took my time took in all it had to offer and it's an unforgettable game indeed. Very immersive and fun.
I got a huge spoiler from that game because I got too excited and revealed a secret trophy's requirement, which was unlocked for watching the death of a character
Now that I think about it, all the games I have finished have been games that I have managed to play every day or two at least, so there's a steady stream of progress. I hate how many games have gone into some "Man, I should finish it" hibernation just from me having had some week or so away from it and that kinda.. Breaking the momentum or ... Idk what it is. I just find it hard to get back into it if it's been a week or I've played something else in between. Something about that break makes it feel like starting again with it not fresh in my memory instead of continuing. Still I rarely binge in a way of not sleeping or rushing. But I easily drift too far. Maybe I should just try and pick a game back up.. See if it "continues" well from where I left off.... (Yeah never said that before /s)
As a kid, I mainly played what my father had in his library. Mainly PS1, N64 and Sega Saturn titles. The thing is my dad was more of JRPG/Adventure guy so these games were mostly way too hard for a 6 years old kid. But I remember clearly being sucked into these worlds so much that every time I reached a difficulty threshold, I just restarted the game. Over and over again. And I was never bored of it. I know Final Fantasy 8 and 9 CD1 from start to finish, because I was LIVING with these worlds. I felt part of them. Imagination. That's how I grew up with a strong connection with games like Panzer Dragoon, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy and such. And the weird thing is, when I became old enough to actually finish these games... I didn't even care. Finishing these was nothing compared to what I lived back then. It's still weird for me to this day how I can't enjoy these games the way I was enjoying them as a kid. Even newer games. But what I can understand from my pont of view is that playing games as a kid made playing video games much more enjoyable than now, as I'm a grown adult living in the sad truth that is our world. And boy how much I would pay to actually be able to "live" these newer games like I was doing it back then. Ah man, being an adult is boring.
I always take a 5 min break every hour I play, especially through points with large plot progression. I did it with books too in order to absorb and form ideas based on what I just experienced.
Every now and then I'll take a break and just pace back and forth as I try to understand what the heck just happened when something confusing or a lot of stuff happened at once.
This is so interesting. I don't actually remember wanting to take breaks after I reach some kind of breakthrough in the plot of a game, but I do that with books. This might also be highly related to the type of game. For a lot of games, there might not be major twists in the plot.
I am a drifter, but I played Spiritfarer for 49 hours straight because I was so emotionally invested that the story became more important than casually enjoying it.
YEAH I have the exact same problem, i HAVE TO BINGE, the time i drift i am forced to play everything over again, and binge it if i drift again i need to replay it and never get to finish
Ditto but I will take breaks before doing dlc expansions. I recently got started on hzd frozen wilds expansion (since Sony gave away complete edition) and 1st hour was so odd because I forgot how to play (didn’t remember how to use potions). I recently also bought Witcher 3 complete so I can play expansions and have a fear of starting because I forgot how to play over the past year since I beat main game.
This video really resonates with me, it felt like the more I kept playing games the quicker I completed them and eventually I started playing games for the sake of beating them rather than getting enjoyment out of the game itself and I began to lose interest in video games altogether. My best memories of games are of the ones I played over longer periods of time which felt like they were part of different chapters of my life. Think I’ll take a step back and stop pressuring myself to beat as many games as possible and instead I’ll take my time and fully absorb the experience each new game has to offer.
I’ve actually tried to binge through AC Unity and FC5 mostly for the story reasons. I remember AC Unity being pretty boring and not necessarily fun, but then again I played only the story, interacting with the side stuff in passing. I didn’t understand how many in the AC community actually like this game. But when I binged through AC II in a similar vein I actually enjoyed it very much. I gave myself a bit more time with FC5, halted it a few times even. I played through 3/4 of John’s region then went on to play something else when I went back I completed it through to the end and though it was a pretty cool game. I liked Joseph as a villain, hunting some bisons for attachments for my sniper rifle, And atmosphere of FC5 was great. I keep however wondering if I were to pace myself a bit more would I have enjoyed it more and felt more impacted. On the flip side of the coin I played through Halo Reach, CoD4, MW2 and BO1 quickly (around a week each) and felt the quicker I went through the game the better the impact it had, since all of this games take place in a fairly continuous storyline (kinda minus BO1 which takes place along a couple of years in flashbacks). Playing them fresh like that actually made it easier for those games to stay in my memory and reinforce the urgent matter those games kinda have.
Relating any piece of information to experiences is bound to have it stick with you. Retrospection is the perfect way to heighten those relations, or find new ones not explicitly intended by the material. Regardless, remembering something, and wanting to remember something, are two different fields; the above is only important in one of the cases.
I'm definitely a binger, I love that feeling of hit with a concentrated dose of emotion from taking in a story quickly. And for me forgetting bits isn't actually a bad thing because I relish in replaying and rewatching favorites. It's made me getting into FFXIV dangerous though because I've put like 300 hours into it over a month and a half, maybe two months tops, which puts it into like my top 5 or 10 most played games of all time, and I'm only partway through stormblood. One great thing tho is how you can disengage and reengage with the story as you see fit meaning you can drift or binge within the confines of the game, as well as with how much you boot up the game.
As a heavy binger, I was recently contemplating this topic as well. I tend to have a lot of problems with retention - video games, anime, school, etc. I always blamed my trashy retention on my ADHD without looking into it, so it's nice to have some explanation for why my perceived memory is so bad. The fact that my poor retention and isn't (100%) intrinsic to my memory is quite a relief. (Also, that Game of Thrones example was really relatable. You could point a gun to my head and ask me to recall how the Red Wedding went down - or the Battle of the Bastards or any big event - and I would be completely incapable of doing it.) Nice to have some closure. I suppose I could give drifting a try when I'm no longer as anxious to cross things off my lists.
@@docmarion8902 I started it when it came out but I was busy and I completely forgot about it for months. After that, same, I finished it in an few days
The game that struck me was Sekiro, so much so that whenever i think about the game i can even recall what kind of weather it was outside, what kind of deep emotional feelings i was going through and much more. I can't even call it nostalgia at this moment.
Ah, another man of culture I see. Sekiro is my favorite game of all time, even moreso than Elden Ring. And I even played Elden Ring first since I was late to the From Software party. If I had one wish it would be for a Sekiro sequel, whether it's a true sequel or a spiritual successor, I just need more of that glorious swordfighting
I’m both and always will be. I could play Minecraft, Mariokart, or Zelda for 8 hours straight if I’m in the zone but other games I will play for a bit then stop maybe force myself to play more then stop or just do a bit when I feel like it it always depends. I love Nier: Automata but still don’t feel the urge to play for hours straight I have to force myself but when I do I love it.
3:11 "I do not remember exactly what went *down*." And then he shows THAT! You genius! How do you dare! (I don't know whether to cry or to laugh at that genius move...)
I really like completing games. But there are two exceptions. Pokémon.. And Chrono Trigger. Without catching every Pokémon, I always have an excuse to come back, and Chrono Trigger.. I didn't want to say goodbye to everybody. I loved my experience so much, I didn't want it to end
I, unfortunately drift. Between games usually because I have very little free time but the attention span of a child. The problem comes when I come back to a game after months of not touching it, and even though I have the desire to play it, I can't get myself back into the grind where I left off, it feels hollow. So I start over. The problem? There are several games I've done this to on multiple occasions because of it. I have started Kingdoms of Amalur over on like 10 different occasions. It's one of my favorite RPG's of all time, and I've NEVER beaten it. Sometimes I binge games because I know it's the only way I'll see the credits.
I can never play only one game at once, TBH. I'm always playing way too many at a time. And that's interesting, about people slowing down when they get near the end of a game. I've always been the opposite. When I'm getting close to the end of a game, I start focusing on that game in particular to beat it, I guess because I'm FINALLY near the finish line.
I find for me that it really depends on how the game makes me feel emotionally. I love digimon cyber sleuth so much that twice now I have left 200+ hour playthroughs to sit near the end of the game because I still dont want it to end. theres a whole second game I still haven't touched because of this. the game has been out for years. but I've wanted to race to finish a game when the story gives me more complex or mixed feelings. I started my ace attorney spirit of justice playthrough slowly, but the pace quickened more and more as I progressed [typical of me with this series but never more so than with that one] and to this day I still dont know if I love or hate that entry.
@@annaairahala9462 I have but I also have a hard time playing multiple games at once. I'm also really intense about the games that I play, so losing momentum typically means a lot of effort to figure out what I was doing, why and how (i play mostly RPGs).
@@annaairahala9462 I did actually had an interest in whatever I was doing at that time, but yeah it might just be the hype that got me going but not what made me stop..
I'd say I'm both a binger, and a drifter. I binge a game for a bit, switch, binge another for a bit, switch, binge another for a bit, and come back to the start. I used to be a binger, but that habit started because I didn't have much access to games, so I replayed some games multiple times, learning the ins and outs of it over hundreds of hours, but as my access improved, I've noticed myself drifting around more. But in all honesty, I feel like this fits me. My favorite game of all time, and the one I enjoyed most (and still enjoy) was a game I binged... Until I reached the midway point, and the story hit me too hard, and I couldn't keep going without crying, so I stopped, for about a week or so, and played other mechanical-driven instead of story-driven games in the meantime, letting myself absorb what I felt from it. Once I got back, I could still feel that pain, but I could handle it, and I could actually understand what the character was going through. Much later, near the end of the game, I did the same thing, but for a different reason. One of the final "dungeons" was so big and a long-winded experience, I had to put down for a while, but when I came back, and finished the game, that section felt the longest of the game, even though it was barely a fraction of the time I spent, both these breaks improved my experience of the game much more than if I had just forced myself to continue binging.
10:51 but how come when I'm at the Elite Four in a Pokemon game, I almost never finish it... (maybe because i already got all 8 badges and the end game is whack and you need to grind so many levels just to beat the Elite Four) idk man.
An experience like this happened to me watching one of the most sad endings of an episode in Bojack Horseman. After being in shock and quite sad about that particular episode, I went off to do other things and continued watching the next day. It kept going in my head over and over and made it a much better experience than if I would've watched the next episode immediately.
"a strong correlation with nudity and enjoyment of playing with one's Wii" What kind of research were you into back in 2009?! o.O Seriously, I love the mini-article you wrote there, genuinely hilarious, even if it is immature :P
Returning to this video again as this has been a big topic in the back of my mind for years. I just played Fatal Twelve for almost 12 (ha) straight hours on my day off and realized I should probably let it simmer. I'm not one to cry almost ever, but it has been one of the games to get me the closest, and on multiple occasions. I struggle starting VNs in particular, because they're so story heavy with little gameplay, that it makes it hard to return to and have it be enjoyable. 2 of my top 10 of all time are 999 and Danganronpa 2, but I know I'll never be able to enjoy them the same way again, despite my love for them. Therein lies my problem with being a binger. Story is a big part of games for me, but I never space them out like I should so I retain them well. Returning to this video has inspired me to take a break and play 2-3 hours a day instead. It's hard because it's so good, but I think I'll thank myself later for remembering the finer details better, especially since I'll never play it for the first time again.
I'd like to see a study that specifically tests the binge model on games as opposed to non-interactive media. I'm not convinced that the effects of breaks on passively watching a show translate cleanly to those same effects on an interactive medium. We learn differently by doing things than by being told how to do them, for instance. Why wouldn't the interactive nature of gaming affect retention? Also, our gameplay itself affects the outcomes (as opposed to shows that remain the same), it almost always involves repetition, and sometimes lots of it, (again, unlike most shows), it might matter whether we race toward beating a game as quickly as possible or whether we're completionists who have to do every side quest and grab every collectible in terms of effect on memory, and of course there's factors like multiplayer or co-op vs single player, 8 hour games vs 40 hour games, etc. Bottom line, lots of extra variables that aren't accounted for when simply applying the results of a study of TV binging to gaming.
It took me a year to finish Nier automata, not because I was really slow at playing it (Although I did take my time) it's just that I took plenty of breaks from playing it... I just didn't want the game to end.
Some people dont care about this tiny detail, but the menu option sfx for kingdom hearts games are one of my favorite sounds. Simply because i remember me and my friend getting real into it, and how i took my ds everywhere to play the games. On roadtrips, after school, and the car ride breaks inbetween busy real life events. Kingdom hearts is corny, and it certainly didnt start with *my* generation (hence me growing up with a ds lol), i still grew up with so much fondness for it. And since it was the first game series, or game in general that i got attached to. It reminds me of everything i love about games. Those menu sfx just take me back to easier times.
i think i'd be more of a binger than i am if i had more time in any given free time, i binge yt so, probably a safe bet i'm wondering now though, how does rewatching/replaying affect retention of media? like, if you binge everything, but you also rewatch everything, how much more do you remember? i rewatch things all the time, so.. i'm curious if anyone has any ideas i also am very not present in the moment though so that's another factor in my hazy mindspace sooo much haaazzzee.. i'm always tired when i saw the title i thought it meant do you binge one game before you move on or do you switch between games before finishing the previous
what usually happens with me is i play a game, read a book, watch a show, etc, and all i want to do is things related to it. like playing the game, looking at fanart, reading fanfiction and tv tropes pages, watching youtube videos about it, etc. if i draw, ill almost always draw characters from the game, while listening to music ill relate songs to different characters, stuff like that. ill go through phases where, for example, ill be into pokemon for a few weeks, then zelda for several months, then omori for a few weeks, then mha for a month, then zelda again, etc.
If a game I'm excited for comes out or I find a new one when I don't have any responsibilities I tend to binge them. I find that if I put it down I may not play it again for awhile and I will forget the small details that will be referred back to so I cram the story into a few sessions to fully understand it. I think I'll try to shift to more of a drifter style though, I realize that as you said some of the games that have impacted me the most are those where I cannot recount most of the plot besides the major points. I think some of these games like Nier: Automata (which I plan to slowly replay) deserve a very permanent place in my mind.
Great video! I'm more of a drifter, and some games waited years for me to complete them... Feels good though. One thing - it's ZeigArnik effect (sincerely, your russian native speaker viewer)
i binged resident evil 8 and i feel like i really missed out. It was a great game really enjoyable but the story ended up feeling confusing and less meaningful since i played it in a single 20 hour binge
I'm usually more of a drifter, but for entire series in my backlog, I'm binging to finally play them for the story/gameplay. Assassin's Creed at the moment.
The game that came to MY mind was Bloodborne. Some time after I finally beat Dark souls. DS took me forever, I spent a LOT of time in that world and remember a lot, the emotions the characters and how I felt. Then Bloodborne came and it felt like DS but with everything I LOVED, I was there for just as long (plz bring it to PC I wanna go BACK!) But then Dark Souls 3 came along, I barely remember anything about it, I breezed through it and all the things I "remember" are things lifted from DS and BB, so yeah there's that.
I’m the kinda person who gets obsessed with 1 out of 10 of the games they play. When I’m obsessed I beat as fast is possible with my skill level, but then inevitably gets sad that I beat it so fast… and then go looking for any sequels or prequels it might have. If it’s just an average experience I do pace for however long I like(depending on the game, maybe a month). But even if I hate a game, or am just generally not enjoying it, I beat it anyway. Why? One word my friend…. FOMO Because even if it sucks now, maybe it’ll get better later. Even if on many a occasion it definitely doesn’t.
I binged the Last of us 2 in 3 days but the game made such a huge impact on me, I was thinking about it for weeks after. On the contrary I played the Witcher 3 for a while but between all the sidequests and size of the game, I got burnt out and never beat it. So I think it depends on the game and what it's trying to say or accomplish
I'm the type to binge a game for a while and then take a few months of break and then resume binging. As far as my memory and enjoyment goes in comparison to when I completely binge from start to finish, Ive never even thought of it and I'm not sure to be honest, definitely something I want to keep in mind from now on thanks for the video! Very insightful
I feel like I'm the same way. I fell hard on Persona 5 Royal and Hades, but then I just stopped. They're both brilliant games, but I ended up reading a bunch of fanfics about the games, rather than going back to the games themselves.
I have a bad habit of not finishing things weirdly enough. I get like 66 to 80% done with something snd then just lose interest. Usually before losing interest i am obsessed with the thing and binge it in as short a time frame as i can, and then just somehow never finish it for months if not years. So yeah, i'm also kind of a mix.
That’s the exact same with me. I was looking through the comments for something like this.
laugh in soulsborne.
halfway through.
take a break.
came back with no memory of progress.
start a fresh run.
repeat.
i did the same for Nier automata and im currently on a break of Nier replicant
I remember playing so many games when I was kid, they all felt like huge, grand adventures. But when I go back and replay them, they go by so fast, and my nostalgia is somewhat shattered. I kind of wondered what caused this, why my perspective had shifted so greatly... but eventually it clicked. My mom would only let me play on weekends.
that and... some memories (games) is better to keep then as that... a plesant memory.
Maybe its me but as an adult I have become more critical about games (graphics, physics, gameplay, even the art style)... and replaying those old games i enjoyed so much as a kid, i cant help but start seeing flaws in the desing, witch ruin the game a little for me, there is a very few games i still replay every now and then and enjoy them (to name a few: Contra, Punch out, Megaman 2), but for most cases i prefer to keep then in my memory as a "good" game.
@@cuentaalterna3754 I absolutely feel you. I've become very interested in game design over the last few years, so the ways I appreciate games have changed a lot, and yeah I tend to be more critical. Sometimes I wonder if just not playing an old favorite at all is the best course of action, so I can cherish it forever. Games used to just be games to me. I didn't think about the development that went into them or the ideas that the developers came up with, I just soaked games in and enjoyed them to their fullest. They used to feel a lot more special.
I have a friend who is into writing music. I've also shown a passing interest in creating it although I don't know much, and they've encouraged me to learn music theory. I declined, saying that I would just end up liking music less in general. They said that leaning it helps you appreciate and respect it more. And that's true, with my knowledge of game design I can truly understand and appreciate what went into a game... but I can never just... _play_ it. I'm always thinking, noticing little details and considering the development behind them. It subtracts from the immersion a great deal, and I know the same thing would happen were I to learn music theory. I'd be able to appreciate my favorite songs so much more, but never again would I be able to just turn my brain off and let them flow through my mind.
Learning about something you're passionate about changes the way you approach it. In some cases you will genuinely like it more if you learn about it, but in others it just takes away from the magic, and more often than not it's a little bit of both. Thanks for reading this, if you made it this far, and have a good one.
@@sagehanson190 tbh I don't know theory but I do compose music quite often and it's not like it's all I can think about when I hear it. I think if you applied the drifting ideology (as opposed to binging) to learning something like that, it won't feel as omnipresent when you see something related because it's not living rent free in your skull filling everything up
@@whiteface513abandonedchann8 I see... well that's a fair point I guess. I spend a lot of my time playing games every day, they'd probably be more enjoyable if I played them less frequently.
@@sagehanson190 personally I'm a binger, but I hardly ever actually start up a game TO binge
i’mma “buy 10 games and build a gigantic backlog and just play the same damn game” kind of guy
Same...
Guilty, I’m a sucker for sales.
I’m a* you’d use Imma in the case of proceeding an action.
I’m a buy ten games kinda guy (your a guy who buys 10 games)
Imma buy ten games (your going to buy ten games)
Not a grammar Nazi but reading that gave me a mini stroke
How can you not be with the tsunami of stuff coming out all the time lol
@@stereoscream6222 it’s you’re*
Hey, I just wanted to thank you. This channel has to some degree restored my interest in psychology. I'm in the third semester and sometimes I question my decision to study psychology but these videos remind me why I wanted to study it in the first place.
this actually made me rethink f i want engineering
I'm a binger, and my memory already sucks. The great thing about this combination is the ability to replay games multiple times without losing the spark the next time. It's a beautiful way for me to keep loving my favorites over and over again.
Oh yeah, even when I replay games I've played a dozen times I still feel excited whenever I get to something big because there are so many smaller things I didn't remember.
i kinda remember the entire shit, but stil sparks on me... i'am a person that get spoilers as a motivation to watch/play something... Because the end result is never the important think to me... but live the entire road to the end, feel each emotion in order is the golden part. Even when i already now something, some twist some emotional part, i dump temporarily to pull off again as the first time. How many times i cried watching kimi ni todoke over years. HYMYM, you lie to april, man those stuff, some i bengie at first, hit me like a cannon ball, but after rewatch it hit me as a intergalactical meteor with nuke, and drifting it is totally acceptable, but i can't handle and want to finish the entire stuff... Like One Piece, sometimes when i got weekly, i just drowne down and keep lowered for months, by now i not watch a episode more than a year, in 2021 november i got my last one anime episode... i will catch it up when feel okay to move on, and i totally loved the las episode plots, but i just can't handle weekly content good as bengie them all and rewatch with calm afterwards
now im confused, you say that its better to enjoy it all fast but the research says not to (?
@@jscs9960 Very big thing here, not everyone is the same. The study was about overall try and find an average, the reality is that some people really don't fit that.
@@kempolar9768 still kind of confused by your comment because that's what the research tried to conclude, maybe there's a need for a bigger sample ?
I "binge" games because if I don't maintain momentum, I bail on the game.
Same, it’s such a hassle for me to relearn the mechanics
felt that when i stopped playing borderlands3 to play doom eternal. even if they are both fps games my muscle memory felt a huge disconnect
I stopped playing sekiro for a few weeks when I went on vacation at about 85% of the way through and when I came back to it, I couldn’t play anymore. Lost all my skill at it in two weeks and just got wrecked over and over.
@@GyroZeppel this is me rn. im trying to replay sekiro. what I did it I played about the 1st hour on a new save and then went back to my main save when my parries were good. hope this helps if u are still interested in beating the game
@@jest.2486 ya I might try that. I’m on the fight with owl in the burning building and it is pretty hard without the proper parry timing down.
What's nice about being a drifter... you can play multiple different games at the same time and absorb multiple things at once. I've spent months on end NOT playing a game just because "I didn't feel like it was the time". Somehow I can feel when is the right time to continue a game, and since I adore game design it gives me time to process what I played.
I guess this is why I'm not a huge fan of a lot of triple A story oriented games. Because they tend to guide you through very specific twists and turns and are designed more for binge type people, which I'm not one of. I was raised on the saturday morning cartoons and anime where you got one episode a week and had to just deal with the slow drip feed and mull it over as you went.
Dude I feel that, I also grew up on the weekly new episodes from watching toonami or whatever it happened to be at the time. I will say though, as an adult sometimes if a game is just that enticing, I don’t have the self control to pace myself lol
Wait 23 hours ago
@@Human-Zz9he Patron early access, probably.
@@DarylTalksGames i'm very much a drifter but i can't enjoy more than one thing at a time. If i start a game, i can't play, watch or read anything else. This makes me feel like i'm wasting my time. Any advice?
@@Jibash I feel you. I have a different problem, and an advice. I want to be an game designer, and during lockdown, i planned to play so much games. I just hadn't the energy i guess. I mostly just walked back and forth in my home. And looking back, it makes me sad, how much time i wasted not playing games(this sounds weird but it is hobby and relevant to my later job). Even RN i can't really motivate ms to play, even though i knows i will enjoy it once started.
My advice would be, don't see that time as wasted, it's time you didn't want(ed) to play games, so it wouldn't make sense playing. Also maybe opt for shorter games, thats what really helped me. Im mostly a drifter too, but i could play eg. metro last light pretty quick, giving me time to play the next game afterwards(i can't really explain what i mean so i hope this makes sense to you). Also, this might sound silly, but you can try playing multiple games, with the other game being some mindless shit(not negative), like enter the gungeon, or Uncharted or something
Also how is it about multiplayer? When you can play multiplayer games at the same time as story games, that might be the filler your looking for
So what you're saying is that our pace of play ... affects our Psych of Play?
Omg he said it!!
"Look at how far you will go for a png image"
Gacha gamers: "Until my wallet empties"
A topic I've always found interesting that I'd love to see you do a video on: How much information do you want to know about a game before it's released? Like, how many trailers do you watch? Do you want to know the ins and outs of the gameplay? I've found this interesting because I think for a long time I fell into the gaming hype machine, where I wanted to see all the biggest trailers and announcements because it was a kind of endorphin rush. I got to feel part of the excitement. But then I started to suspect it was actually hurting my enjoyment of the games themselves, because it was ruining the sense of discovery of the games. I already knew the overall story, had already watched how the gameplay works, had already seen much of the world. I didn't know all the story beats and hadn't played the game for myself, but the surprise was kinda ruined and I found myself not wowed by as many games. Then I stopped watching trailers once I'd decided I wanted a game, and my enjoyment has skyrocketed. I'm curious if other people have felt this same thing or if there's a psychological basis for wanting to feel part of the hype to the point that it actually hurts your enjoyment of the final product.
I'd love to see a video on this topic. I had the same switch in perspective you did a few years back, where for a while I avoided trailers/reviews as much as I could and tried to go into every game blind.
Now, how much of a game I want to see before playing depends on a few factors, one of the biggest ones being price. If a game is less than 20 dollars, I'm sometimes willing to splurge and go in blind. If the game in question is full price, then I usually watch some reviews first- not to find out if the game is good or bad (my tastes differ from a lot of modern critics), but just to see what exactly I'd be paying for and if I think I'd enjoy it enough to justify the purchase.
Only just now reading this but absolutely one hell of a topic, definitely will be doing this in the future :) thanks!
Also add in the fact that the "review videos/xyz reacts to this game" also put the game off for me as I felt I had a little less to explore in the game
I'm like you. For established series (like Halo, Final Fantasy, God of War etc.) I'll watch the very first trailer and if I know I'm getting the game I won't watch anything else that comes out and so I can be surprised. Trailers these days show literally everything exciting, and it blows my mind. A ton of people like that hype train stuff, though, for whatever reason.
I'm the same way when it comes to movies. I saw zero trailers for the new Avatar movie and I think I enjoyed myself more than if I had seen them.
i pretend a game doesn't exist until it's in my hands
I feel like that discovery aspect you mentioned is very important for fulfilling the novelty itch that i always have
"I'm Daryl, this is Psych of Play, you're a treasure, and today..."
You got me good with that one. Thanks Daryl :)
Totally can relate. Definitely caught me off my guard and i feel genuine joy from hearing such line. This is rare coming from a yt vid. Thanks daryl :)
me called me a treasure ;-;
When I like a game
I learn everything I can about it
So I normally spoil the endings of games just trying to learn more
This has happened like 7 times and still haven't learnt
If the story is good, "spoilers" will do nothing to actually spoil it
@@mrrey3481 I get why you're saying it, but I disagree.
The ending is still the same, but the first time is always the strongest, and watching it on yt will feel less than actually getting to it in game.
@@mrrey3481 Some of the best stories can be made in such a way, that the information you get further into the game changes your understanding of the previous events in it (Outer Wilds, OMORI). And if you spoil it beforehand, well... You can't speculate about that part of story and enjoy it as it is when you already know the truth or the ending.
@@silverstar4505 true. But I never really regreted spoiling anything. For me, I found that I don't really care about spoilers. I want to see the story unfold and characters develop. Even if I know the ending (Like my first playthrough of Undertale for example) I can still lose myself in story and enjoy it unfold.
Yessss
I'm a chronic drifter who's barely even able to start games most of the time, but sometimes I shift hard into a binger when a game grabs me. Copy Kitty, Kingdom Hearts 3, Gravity Rush Remastered, and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim were games that inspired this shift in the past three years.
I'm a drifter too. But I struggle to finish games I know are great. ffx is sitting at about 75% done, plague tale innocence is 50% are the latest ones. Then there's more "one game" type games with me going hard into tekken 7, legends of runeterra, ffxiv or whatever other game which people would usually play for years, but I stick to for maybe a week or two then get back to it like a year later.
Drifter here. It's hard for me to finish a plot or fully complete a game, including second playthroughs. I guess it's either because of the difficulty or that I don't want it to end.
There are times where I'm bored out of my mind, but I don't touch the games that need completing.
Funny you should mention KH3! I had a long period where I wasn't even playing many games anymore because I was so busy with exams and mental fatigue caused by lockdown, but I bought KHDDD on a whim as it was on offer and it's been the fastest I've binged and replayed a game in forever - even had me staying up until 3am to beat it.
Sometimes you just get one of those games, my man.
Gravity Rush was my first game; I love it so much, I play it every year. ❤️❤️❤️
Even though I'm a long time Kingdom Hearts fan I dropped 3 after about 2 hours and didn't go back for about a year. For reference, I binged KH2 back in 06 and poured like 90 hours into my first playthrough. I'm glad other people enjoy KH3 but frankly it still disappoints me. Gravity Rush I'd like to go back to at some point as well
I binge through works I love and then drift among the fandoms and online communities lol. I just can’t stop once I’m hooked and a super long session of gaming is a lot more immersive for me than breaking it up into tiny sessions throughout days or weeks. Learning other people’s thoughts and theories on the games I just finished is also part of the experience for me which I can totally enjoy over time instead of uncontrollably binging.
I'm one that binge a game but stops when I'm close to the end. It's a combination of burn out (mentality of completing as much as possible and FOMO) and, as you said, not saying goodbye to the characters and world I am experiencing. There is a lot of games I want to complete, but it also feels like it has been too long now.
I definitely binge games, but often i have a hard time even starting any games cause i know i'll want to play the entire game before starting a new one.
I think this is why i love rouge-lites so much.
I can treat every run as a different game entirely, allowing me to pace myself,and play other games instead of burning myself out.
So is it just you feel like you can't keep yourself back from playing? You could try maybe forcing a certain amount of play time with a timer?
Right there with you man
Yep, binding of isaac ate my soul
God, sseth tzeentach evaporated like a hundred hours of my time (they might be more in the future) by recommending synthetik, and i have no clue what i'll do when synthetik 2 comes out but probably i'll be presumed dead.
yep...Can't start new one often too , cause I'm not sure if I'm ready and have time for it.
i feel like having ADHD makes all of this significantly different
I usually stay hyper-fixated on something for days or hours, but it doesn't feel forced, it feels like my natural energy ... because it's my natural energy, so I tend to enjoy it much more than if I consumed it slowly
The irony is that my ADHD also means that, even if I finish the game in 2 or 3 days instead of a month as a neurotypical person, I will spend the rest of the week viewing opinions or consuming the game in other ways on the internet ( like making theories or happening in fandom). So despite finishing it quickly, I go back to those memories all the time for a long time, so I also tend to remember everything in a very vivid way even years later.
So ... I have the advantages of consuming everything slowly despite doing it insanely fast, the only disadvantage in fact is that my obsession will make me forget important things ... like eating ... or sleeping ... or finishing the thesis .
Absolutely yes. I used to spend while days playing games. It's actually made it a lot harder recently for me to play games due to poor time management, it's hard for me to be willing to sit down for a game, because I know I won't want to stop playing. So now I've sort of become a drifter, I'll binge for a few weeks when I have the time, then not touch a game for months. Of course one of the last games I played was Xenoblade Chronicles, so that I took 3+ breaks playing that.
I binge as far as playing it nonstop, but in terms of playstyle I think I've always been a "drifter." I can not rush through a game to save my life. I always stroll around slowly, taking in the sights and sounds, exploring everywhere, and I take ages deciding equipment loadouts or even just doing mundane stuff like reading through item lore descriptions or compendoums or literally looking at my character's stats.
Recently my life's been kinda chaotic, I've had a lot of free time, but a lot of the time it isn't "optimal," and I might have distractions or need to be pulled away. So I ended up starting 4 different games alongside a personal project I sometimes work on. This is unheard of for me, but I play a different one depending on my situation.
Sorry for giving my whole life story, but I thought this was very interesting and worth discussing.
I don’t have adhd but I do the same!
@@Oceaniac mmm... i may have news for you then xd (is not possible to have an hiperfixation whitout ADHD or Autism, so... maybe you should check yourself a little)
I can relate
Hello people with ADHD. Stop being so relatable. I do not want to go to a therapist.
On a serious note, I've done the same thing but with Anime. I started My Hero Academia, loved it, completed the whole 3 seasons in two weeks, got into the "Fandom" (the good part not the Twitter section ugghh), started reading fanfics and now I even write fanfics. So yeah, I can complete something in a week and still have it on my mind from other places by inhaling even more of the content.
Idk if other people feel this way, but I love seeing my playtime in a game go up. There is something extremely satisfying and rewarding about it, to me.
Same
i love it too except when its in league of legends
@@bandi642 LOL
Interesting. Its the total opposite for me.
@@bandi642 hahahahahah
The games I love I usually played daily, making the sessions as long as I could, until I finished them. I went to school/work with my head still remembering it.
I may not remember all the details of the game but the emotions still resonate very strongly hearing a song or seeing a scene of it.
I tried the drifter approach with ghost of tsushima, it took me over 6 months to finish it by playing it a bit every weekend. It was an interesting way to experience it, felt like watching a really long tv show and in a way helped me remember more about the game as every session had 100% of my attention.
I've always been a binger, and it is true that it's hard to retain the information properly after a while. But tbh I think that's not so bad, because when I get into it months or years later I can re-experience it again.
this, i have really bad memory and this is actually the only positive thing about it, i usually remember some stuff while playing it again but somehow it feels fresh, like im uncovering an ancient story, then i remember what i felt like playing for the first time and what has changed its really great
I think binging gives games inherent replay ability, you get to experience something you rushed through again, and overtime every little detail will be etched into your mind by pure virtue of having gone through it so many times. I blitzed persona 5, but I did it so many times going for different builds that a lot of the games story is now in my long term memory. That's just my opinion and experience though, not sure if the science backs me up lol
Dude. Yes. How many times have you heard “I wish I could forget this game so I could play it again blind.” I love knowing that in 5 years I could come back and play FF7R and just be blown away at all the stuff I forgot.
I didn't think about that during this video but yeah, when binging something a second, third, fourth time etc. everything comes flooding back to you and you remember enough to be excited but forget enough to get new experiences. It's the closest thing to being able to forget something and experience it for the first time again but it's better because you also (at least I do) remember what you were doing/how you were feeling etc. when you binged it before. It combines nostalgia and first time experience to create something new and amazing.
lol dark souls has been a part of my life for literally 10 years and has never left. even when i dont have an active playthrough going on im still reading about it, thinking about it, participating in the social media communities etc. and i absolutely binged it the first time i played.
Same man, dark souls 2 its been part of my life for like 4 years already i always come back start a new character or finish another, maybe i just progress a bit or binge it, i love that god damn game it has sucked 300+ hours from my life.
Same
absolutely same. I regularly replay Dark Souls 1, it's one of my favorite games of all time and even when i'm not replaying it I still actively love it and talk about it
I was just thinking about how the only game that I 100% binged when I first played it that still sticks around and that I keep going back to is Dark Souls.
Im the same way with Mass Effect(minus Andromeda of course, even though i think its still a good game, it sucks as a Mass Effect game)
Online culture makes you feel like binging is the only way to play games, now I play them for 1-4 hours at a time and have a much better experience
Tbh i really want to make it so that I play a game for 1 hour and switch to another game for another hour and make it fit all the time I have to play games which isn't a lot
I simply just play what I feel like playing, gaming is a hobby first and foremost. Took me 2 years to finally play through the dmc collection, but guess what I played it when I felt like it and loved it.
how does online culture make it feel like binging is the only way to play games? I'm genuinely puzzled as to what you are seeing here
@@MatthewsPersonal maybe referring to like social media stuff?
like "oh, I've already completed this game over the weekend..." or others flexing that they've been through most of the game within a short period after the thing was released. this is purely based on my observation anyway, so i may be wrong
100% agree, I usually only spend 2-3 hours at a time and it keeps it very enjoyable for me. Any more than that and I start to get more and more burnt out
Love how daryl always puts the games he showcases at the bottom, man he has gotten me into so many games like this
I just binge a game and then play it again once a year for the next three years, and then it sticks with me as if I played it slowly.
I see my favorite game, I click
What game
i wish i could see my kids again
@@loganator2688 nier automata
Me who still hasn't finished The Witcher after 4 years: Yeah I take my time how could you tell?
When I got my nice gaming computer this year I was finally able to play all the games I’ve been wanting too. I have 80 hours into both Nier games and I still haven’t downloaded Witcher or Red Dead 2 even tho I bought them already lmao.
@@McSnezzly for me tho, after getting a quite decent system I made a checklist for games that I'll "play". But for some reason older games kinda interest me even more now. Even today, after 7 months I haven't beaten Automata.
I usually drift, but I have extremely fond memories of beating CoD MW1 on release day. I bought the game, got home, put together a pot of chili and let that simmer while I devoured Modern Warfare in one sitting. Then I ate delicious chili after the credits rolled. Some of the moments in that game have stuck with me in the 14 years since.
It was a good day.
Since I drop 99% of games I start, even if I like them, I guess I'm a dropper.
Ahaha yea
I feel that. Managed to get a PS5 about 3-4 months ago, got God of War (hadn't played it yet on PS4). Quite like it, but now haven't played in 2 months and can't bring myself to pick it back up again.
This is a very interesting dichotomy. I knew I was a binger pretty much from the point of definition of terms, but I couldn't necessarily have said why, it's just been the most fun way to play games I'm really invested in. I certainly don't binge every game, but I absolutely have binged most of my favorites; me not playing a game very much is usually a sign that I'm bored with it or not very engaged for some other reason.
I do it for shows too; I honestly hate watching things weekly because by the time the next week rolls around I'll have forgotten some of what happened in the last episode and had to get un-excited and then excited all over again, which often fails. I've noticed a distinct tendency in myself to enjoy things *more* the less space there is between watching episodes of it. If there's more space, I tend to get a lot more nitpicky and taken out of the experience. Daily is ok though, something like 1-3 episodes a day is probably my ideal schedule.
I will also say, with a lot of the games I really like, there's often room to replay them and do something different and interesting in a new way - like playing a completely different character build in Dark Souls. So even after finishing the game there might still be a lot more to do.
What I'm hearing is that I need to play games faster, so I can forget enough to have fun playing it again a second time!
I feel like I'm more a binger to begin with, but a lot of my favourite story-driven games... As much as I love them, I can never get the same impact a second time... Once you know the story, you know the story, and all.
That's one of the main difficulties with story-driven games, they don't have much replayability. Luckily there's a lot of games out there for you to play, so much so I don't think you could run out of them even if you were to restrict yourself to story-driven games which happens to be one of the most common genres.
I'm in the middle, between the two types, I tend to play a little each day and also love story based games. Sometimes if it's hard to beat or I don't want it to end, I'll leave and come back later to finish it, but there's also tons of story based games (and others like hades) that I have yet to play so I'm definitely not running out anytime soon.
Holy shit, you're a genius
@@annaairahala9462 yeah despite the fact i love story driven games like Uncharted or The Last of Us, i can say i enjoy games like Sonic Unleashed and Devil May Cry 5 more not cuz it also has emphasis on story but its gameplay is what brings me back as platforms and hack-and-slash offer a ton of replayability. Actual Uncharted has a great multiplayer mode which is what always kept me hook during the PS3 era and the games before 4 felt more arcadey which is why even with emphasis on story, it still had enjoyable gameplay
I’m somewhere in the middle myself. I don’t binge games in a day or weekend almost ever but I don’t tend to spend more than 2-3 weeks at most on a game and am even ok with finishing a game in a week. I also have to always finish a game at some point, unless I don’t like it and then I usually don’t even keep the game. This video was so interesting. I love your content.
Fully agree. Some of my favourite games I've finished in just a week, and it's only super long games I spend more than a month with.
@@definitelyhooman7939 same here. I love taking my time with a game but for me a week to two weeks is long enough for me to fully appreciate a game. The last time I spent a month or more on a game was a pretty huge title as well so I agree that those huge long games you kind of have to spend more time with in order to even beat them. Lol. Usually if a game is that long though I’ll usually play another game along side it to so I can have little breaks if needed.
I see NieR Automata, and I click. That game broke me emotionally.
true and real
I spent 3h howling and sobbing at mt screen during/after the final credits and i regret nothing.
Bruh willingly giving up all my game data broke me
That and the new game made me need long depression naps lol
Honestly that game helped me reevaluate my life
I feel like this has a lot to do with how your normal life is structured as well. If you work and don't have a lot of time to play games, you're going to drift more than someone who has all the free time in the world. And simply due to the fact that since your free time is more limited, you're going to spend your time on what you really enjoy most and cherish ever part of it since you have so little.
Interesting, thats the reason i play very few titles. Due to a lack of time available i want to just stick to 1 or 2 titles until i finish them, and if i start drifting i may not return to it for a year or more.
i binge em cuz i don't know the next time i'll have time to play
Because I have extremely limited time to play games, I have the issue that regardless of what I am playing, I am always wondering if my time would not be better spent on one of the other hundreds of games in my backlog. And I feel this, even if I am really loving the game that I am playing. It doesn't help that I collect physical games, and am constantly buying games when I find them on the cheap to add to my collection.
I started tearing up at that ending- I am somewhere in the middle of a binger and a drifter and I found the comments about time and memories at the end to just be so.... emotional and true. It hit close to home and inspired a mini self-reflection. I love your Pysch of Play videos, and I hope everyone reading this comment has a great rest of their day/night
Turns out I tend to enjoy games more if take it slow and complete it slowly than just rushing it to the end.
I am definitely a drifter, I bought undertale in december and finished it in the last day of july next year while some people finished it in one day lol
When I like a game, I play it for like a week or 2 and move on to something else, finished or not. But when I find that special game, I try to put all my efforts in playing it. I still remember the games I finished faster.
I feel as though I've commonly swapped between both styles of show/game consumption depending on the kind of show/game, as well as how hectic my life is at the time of playing/watching. A big part of my enjoyment of Game of Thrones, for example, was watching RUclipsrs theorize about the next episode while waiting 1 week for more. It gave ME more time to understand the plot and really get excited for the next part of the story. I feel that the overall amount of impact that a game/show has on my life comes down to how much I allow myself to reflect on my time with it. For example, I spent several months slowly making my way through Control, only speeding up my playthrough towards the end as I finally started to grasp and understand the world that I had been plunged into. I watched a lot of content surrounding the game in an attempt to better understand the playthrough that I was having as I went through it. NieR: Automata, on the other hand, I chugged through in just a couple weeks, with the overwhelming majority of my reflection coming after completing all endings of the game, once I could fully engage with youtube video essays and other content around the game without worrying about spoilers. Despite taking different amounts of time to complete both games, I ultimately spent about the same amount of time reflecting on my playthrough and theorizing about the amazing worlds in both games. This is just my opinion, but my overall enjoyment of most games or shows or movies usually comes down to the depth and significance of my reflections on my experience. Still, I have absolutely felt the effects mentioned in this video when quickly binging or slowly nibbling on content as well.
>but my overall enjoyment of most games or shows or movies usually comes down to the depth and significance of my reflections on my experience
yes, "drifting" just makes it more likely for someone to do so. Memory is essentially based on how much depth of thought/effort you put into it in the first place.
@Anna Aira Hála yeah I kind of thought about that when he said it "gives you a chance to reflect." But ultimately it's up to the viewer/player to *take* that chance and actually reflect on it.
I don't know if this concept is true. I remember my favorite movies a lot more than my favorite TV shows, even though TV shows by design are consumed much, MUCH slower.
"Just think how fare you'll go for a png image"
Damn, never felt so low-key called out.
I have no idea how this guy makes his videos so engaging, thought provoking and fulfilling. But I'm glad I subbed.
16:14 The best joke of the entire video. Y'all are welcome.
Tysm!
Thank you.
Post credit scene viewers are my favorite viewers 🙏🏼
I feel like "binging" any type of media partially ruins the experience. If you watch a Netflix episode once per week, you have some time to dwell on individual episodes. On the other hand, binge watching a whole series on a single day, all episodes seem to blend into one another. It gets hard to recall certain parts of it a month later.
Same case for games, I personally have a more fullfilling experience when I take regular breaks from them. Lets your brain process it.
I agree with you, totes. For me, drifting has always been better than binging.
I believe you're right, I played this one game that started off as a demo and the story slowly progressed as the game got updated, they had a cutscene after every level and back then everyone would watch them because they had no other content from the game. Nowadays, I always see new players skipping the cutscenes and flying past the levels and it's just so different from when we were basically forced to drift through it rather then drift
I do agree with this point a lot but as someone who binges it just makes those memorable moments really really stand out and well I’m so captivated by something so I want to enjoy it for as much as possible. I don’t think it really makes that much of a difference weather you binge or drift but if something sticks with you long after playing that’s when you found something truely special.
For shows, I like watching 2 or 3 episodes at a time, especially near a climax, but I agree that spacing out is usually better for my enjoyment. I also have a bad habit of taking long gaps because I don't want to finish it then have to find something else, despite the fact that I am finding something else to fill the gaps.
At the same time, I really enjoy getting platinum trophies on games if I'm pretty close already or really enjoy it, and similarly if it's an open world game I enjoy I'll collect everything. So I guess for me it just depends.
I disagree. Having long breaks is what ruins experience for me. If have to wait week for a new episode I will probably never finish the show or just wait till all episodes are out so I cn binge watch it (or play in case of games). I will get bored as heck otherwise and I have no patience. Also I do indeed enjoy remembering what going on in the show and making connection, and it's all most impossible if i have to wait a week, cuz I will just forget stuff. Oh! And that's not even saying anything about emotions, they totally got lost during the wait
I binge all my fav anime, manga, novels, tv shows, games. Because once I get hooked, I just can’t stop. My body forgets to sleep or eat. I become too immersed. 😂 BUT I remember much better this way. If I take a week break, I might’ve forgotten details of the last episode. Or my emotions have calmed down. But watching it all together, I’m able to remember every little detail and foreshadowing and seeing it all tie together as more of the story unravels is beautiful. However, once I’m close to the finish line, I stop, slow down or even go on a hiatus and return months or years later because I don’t want it to end. Once it ends, I’ll read it again. But I feel like I’ve always remembered it really well, never had a problem with memory when binging. Even after a decade I remember my childhood fav manga in detail, even the dialogues every word for word. Also depends on the story. If it’s told in arcs, I’ll binge the arc until it wraps up and there are no more cliffhangers, and take a break before resuming the next arc.
Oh! But the saddest thing about being a binger, like mentioned in another one of your videos, is the emptiness and existential dread I face every time my fav thing ends too soon 🥲
Definitely just had an amazing experience with Prey. Took my time took in all it had to offer and it's an unforgettable game indeed. Very immersive and fun.
Now that's a title i've been meaning to play through
I feel like showing nier automata's trophies while talking about checklists was peak irony ;)
I wonder how bingers would approach automata’s trophy list lol
I got a huge spoiler from that game because I got too excited and revealed a secret trophy's requirement, which was unlocked for watching the death of a character
I myself am a "I wont play this for like 4 months but when I pick it up I'll play for like 30hrs non stop"
Oh my. Daryl knows the Smell of the Game. Mad respect, man
Rest assured, my bullshit is blazing.
@@DarylTalksGames when are you going to start a new world order?
Now that I think about it, all the games I have finished have been games that I have managed to play every day or two at least, so there's a steady stream of progress. I hate how many games have gone into some "Man, I should finish it" hibernation just from me having had some week or so away from it and that kinda.. Breaking the momentum or ... Idk what it is. I just find it hard to get back into it if it's been a week or I've played something else in between. Something about that break makes it feel like starting again with it not fresh in my memory instead of continuing. Still I rarely binge in a way of not sleeping or rushing. But I easily drift too far. Maybe I should just try and pick a game back up.. See if it "continues" well from where I left off.... (Yeah never said that before /s)
As a kid, I mainly played what my father had in his library. Mainly PS1, N64 and Sega Saturn titles. The thing is my dad was more of JRPG/Adventure guy so these games were mostly way too hard for a 6 years old kid. But I remember clearly being sucked into these worlds so much that every time I reached a difficulty threshold, I just restarted the game. Over and over again. And I was never bored of it. I know Final Fantasy 8 and 9 CD1 from start to finish, because I was LIVING with these worlds. I felt part of them. Imagination. That's how I grew up with a strong connection with games like Panzer Dragoon, Ocarina of Time, Final Fantasy and such. And the weird thing is, when I became old enough to actually finish these games... I didn't even care. Finishing these was nothing compared to what I lived back then. It's still weird for me to this day how I can't enjoy these games the way I was enjoying them as a kid. Even newer games. But what I can understand from my pont of view is that playing games as a kid made playing video games much more enjoyable than now, as I'm a grown adult living in the sad truth that is our world. And boy how much I would pay to actually be able to "live" these newer games like I was doing it back then. Ah man, being an adult is boring.
I always take a 5 min break every hour I play, especially through points with large plot progression. I did it with books too in order to absorb and form ideas based on what I just experienced.
Every now and then I'll take a break and just pace back and forth as I try to understand what the heck just happened when something confusing or a lot of stuff happened at once.
Gotta savor it man. Me too
This is so interesting. I don't actually remember wanting to take breaks after I reach some kind of breakthrough in the plot of a game, but I do that with books. This might also be highly related to the type of game. For a lot of games, there might not be major twists in the plot.
I often have to take breathers after reading or watching to absorb a giant moment and just freak out to myself.
When a game hooks me, I have to CONSUME it
"Look at how far you will go for a png image"
Calling us gacha gamers out much?
I am a drifter, but I played Spiritfarer for 49 hours straight because I was so emotionally invested that the story became more important than casually enjoying it.
I'm a drifter forsure. I always end up taking week(s) to months breaks when I play any game.
I cant be a drifter. I'd forget everything every moment I go back to the game.
YEAH I have the exact same problem, i HAVE TO BINGE, the time i drift i am forced to play everything over again, and binge it if i drift again i need to replay it and never get to finish
@@NeostormXLMAX that's me stuck on at least 20 games I left for a week and when I got back I was so lost I couldn't continue anymore lol
Ditto but I will take breaks before doing dlc expansions. I recently got started on hzd frozen wilds expansion (since Sony gave away complete edition) and 1st hour was so odd because I forgot how to play (didn’t remember how to use potions). I recently also bought Witcher 3 complete so I can play expansions and have a fear of starting because I forgot how to play over the past year since I beat main game.
This video really resonates with me, it felt like the more I kept playing games the quicker I completed them and eventually I started playing games for the sake of beating them rather than getting enjoyment out of the game itself and I began to lose interest in video games altogether. My best memories of games are of the ones I played over longer periods of time which felt like they were part of different chapters of my life. Think I’ll take a step back and stop pressuring myself to beat as many games as possible and instead I’ll take my time and fully absorb the experience each new game has to offer.
I’ve actually tried to binge through AC Unity and FC5 mostly for the story reasons.
I remember AC Unity being pretty boring and not necessarily fun, but then again I played only the story, interacting with the side stuff in passing. I didn’t understand how many in the AC community actually like this game. But when I binged through AC II in a similar vein I actually enjoyed it very much.
I gave myself a bit more time with FC5, halted it a few times even. I played through 3/4 of John’s region then went on to play something else when I went back I completed it through to the end and though it was a pretty cool game. I liked Joseph as a villain, hunting some bisons for attachments for my sniper rifle, And atmosphere of FC5 was great. I keep however wondering if I were to pace myself a bit more would I have enjoyed it more and felt more impacted.
On the flip side of the coin I played through Halo Reach, CoD4, MW2 and BO1 quickly (around a week each) and felt the quicker I went through the game the better the impact it had, since all of this games take place in a fairly continuous storyline (kinda minus BO1 which takes place along a couple of years in flashbacks). Playing them fresh like that actually made it easier for those games to stay in my memory and reinforce the urgent matter those games kinda have.
Relating any piece of information to experiences is bound to have it stick with you.
Retrospection is the perfect way to heighten those relations, or find new ones not explicitly intended by the material.
Regardless, remembering something, and wanting to remember something, are two different fields; the above is only important in one of the cases.
I'm definitely a binger, I love that feeling of hit with a concentrated dose of emotion from taking in a story quickly. And for me forgetting bits isn't actually a bad thing because I relish in replaying and rewatching favorites.
It's made me getting into FFXIV dangerous though because I've put like 300 hours into it over a month and a half, maybe two months tops, which puts it into like my top 5 or 10 most played games of all time, and I'm only partway through stormblood. One great thing tho is how you can disengage and reengage with the story as you see fit meaning you can drift or binge within the confines of the game, as well as with how much you boot up the game.
As a heavy binger, I was recently contemplating this topic as well.
I tend to have a lot of problems with retention - video games, anime, school, etc. I always blamed my trashy retention on my ADHD without looking into it, so it's nice to have some explanation for why my perceived memory is so bad. The fact that my poor retention and isn't (100%) intrinsic to my memory is quite a relief.
(Also, that Game of Thrones example was really relatable. You could point a gun to my head and ask me to recall how the Red Wedding went down - or the Battle of the Bastards or any big event - and I would be completely incapable of doing it.)
Nice to have some closure.
I suppose I could give drifting a try when I'm no longer as anxious to cross things off my lists.
The game I was thinking about at the beginning was Omori, so when he said "the hands of time" it startled me lol
Oh boy I don’t binge through games, but I just couldn’t stop playing Omori. Finished in about 4-5 days, almost non stop.
@@docmarion8902 I started it when it came out but I was busy and I completely forgot about it for months. After that, same, I finished it in an few days
@@docmarion8902 this was me for disco elysim, i just couldnt stop after that
The game that struck me was Sekiro, so much so that whenever i think about the game i can even recall what kind of weather it was outside, what kind of deep emotional feelings i was going through and much more. I can't even call it nostalgia at this moment.
Ah, another man of culture I see. Sekiro is my favorite game of all time, even moreso than Elden Ring. And I even played Elden Ring first since I was late to the From Software party. If I had one wish it would be for a Sekiro sequel, whether it's a true sequel or a spiritual successor, I just need more of that glorious swordfighting
Omggggg same I can remember that game to its core
I’m both and always will be. I could play Minecraft, Mariokart, or Zelda for 8 hours straight if I’m in the zone but other games I will play for a bit then stop maybe force myself to play more then stop or just do a bit when I feel like it it always depends. I love Nier: Automata but still don’t feel the urge to play for hours straight I have to force myself but when I do I love it.
3:11 "I do not remember exactly what went *down*." And then he shows THAT! You genius! How do you dare!
(I don't know whether to cry or to laugh at that genius move...)
Drifter, I like to slow down and enjoy things. I want to go “I spent a good few months fully completing that”
I'm a binger at heart, but work won't let me be one.
I really like completing games. But there are two exceptions. Pokémon.. And Chrono Trigger. Without catching every Pokémon, I always have an excuse to come back, and Chrono Trigger.. I didn't want to say goodbye to everybody. I loved my experience so much, I didn't want it to end
I, unfortunately drift. Between games usually because I have very little free time but the attention span of a child.
The problem comes when I come back to a game after months of not touching it, and even though I have the desire to play it, I can't get myself back into the grind where I left off, it feels hollow.
So I start over. The problem? There are several games I've done this to on multiple occasions because of it. I have started Kingdoms of Amalur over on like 10 different occasions. It's one of my favorite RPG's of all time, and I've NEVER beaten it.
Sometimes I binge games because I know it's the only way I'll see the credits.
I can never play only one game at once, TBH. I'm always playing way too many at a time. And that's interesting, about people slowing down when they get near the end of a game. I've always been the opposite. When I'm getting close to the end of a game, I start focusing on that game in particular to beat it, I guess because I'm FINALLY near the finish line.
Yeah I'm the same. I also stop games right after the first couple hours too, then come back to it weeks/months later.
I find for me that it really depends on how the game makes me feel emotionally. I love digimon cyber sleuth so much that twice now I have left 200+ hour playthroughs to sit near the end of the game because I still dont want it to end. theres a whole second game I still haven't touched because of this. the game has been out for years.
but I've wanted to race to finish a game when the story gives me more complex or mixed feelings. I started my ace attorney spirit of justice playthrough slowly, but the pace quickened more and more as I progressed [typical of me with this series but never more so than with that one] and to this day I still dont know if I love or hate that entry.
i miss transformers: fall of cybertron.
I usually binge watching/playing, if I get to drifting, I might loose interest and move on to another interest..
Yeah, if I stop a game, I'm probably not going back
Have you considered that if you lose interest from taking a break that the game might not be that interesting to you in the first place?
@@annaairahala9462 I have but I also have a hard time playing multiple games at once. I'm also really intense about the games that I play, so losing momentum typically means a lot of effort to figure out what I was doing, why and how (i play mostly RPGs).
@@annaairahala9462 I did actually had an interest in whatever I was doing at that time, but yeah it might just be the hype that got me going but not what made me stop..
I'd say I'm both a binger, and a drifter. I binge a game for a bit, switch, binge another for a bit, switch, binge another for a bit, and come back to the start. I used to be a binger, but that habit started because I didn't have much access to games, so I replayed some games multiple times, learning the ins and outs of it over hundreds of hours, but as my access improved, I've noticed myself drifting around more.
But in all honesty, I feel like this fits me. My favorite game of all time, and the one I enjoyed most (and still enjoy) was a game I binged... Until I reached the midway point, and the story hit me too hard, and I couldn't keep going without crying, so I stopped, for about a week or so, and played other mechanical-driven instead of story-driven games in the meantime, letting myself absorb what I felt from it. Once I got back, I could still feel that pain, but I could handle it, and I could actually understand what the character was going through. Much later, near the end of the game, I did the same thing, but for a different reason. One of the final "dungeons" was so big and a long-winded experience, I had to put down for a while, but when I came back, and finished the game, that section felt the longest of the game, even though it was barely a fraction of the time I spent, both these breaks improved my experience of the game much more than if I had just forced myself to continue binging.
10:51 but how come when I'm at the Elite Four in a Pokemon game, I almost never finish it... (maybe because i already got all 8 badges and the end game is whack and you need to grind so many levels just to beat the Elite Four) idk man.
An experience like this happened to me watching one of the most sad endings of an episode in Bojack Horseman. After being in shock and quite sad about that particular episode, I went off to do other things and continued watching the next day. It kept going in my head over and over and made it a much better experience than if I would've watched the next episode immediately.
"a strong correlation with nudity and enjoyment of playing with one's Wii"
What kind of research were you into back in 2009?! o.O
Seriously, I love the mini-article you wrote there, genuinely hilarious, even if it is immature :P
Thank you for noticing the small things 😂🙏🏼
@@DarylTalksGames Fantastic. This actually managed to make me snort.
@@DarylTalksGames It's all those small things that you make in your videos that make me enjoy them so much!
Returning to this video again as this has been a big topic in the back of my mind for years. I just played Fatal Twelve for almost 12 (ha) straight hours on my day off and realized I should probably let it simmer. I'm not one to cry almost ever, but it has been one of the games to get me the closest, and on multiple occasions. I struggle starting VNs in particular, because they're so story heavy with little gameplay, that it makes it hard to return to and have it be enjoyable. 2 of my top 10 of all time are 999 and Danganronpa 2, but I know I'll never be able to enjoy them the same way again, despite my love for them. Therein lies my problem with being a binger. Story is a big part of games for me, but I never space them out like I should so I retain them well. Returning to this video has inspired me to take a break and play 2-3 hours a day instead. It's hard because it's so good, but I think I'll thank myself later for remembering the finer details better, especially since I'll never play it for the first time again.
I'd like to see a study that specifically tests the binge model on games as opposed to non-interactive media. I'm not convinced that the effects of breaks on passively watching a show translate cleanly to those same effects on an interactive medium. We learn differently by doing things than by being told how to do them, for instance. Why wouldn't the interactive nature of gaming affect retention?
Also, our gameplay itself affects the outcomes (as opposed to shows that remain the same), it almost always involves repetition, and sometimes lots of it, (again, unlike most shows), it might matter whether we race toward beating a game as quickly as possible or whether we're completionists who have to do every side quest and grab every collectible in terms of effect on memory, and of course there's factors like multiplayer or co-op vs single player, 8 hour games vs 40 hour games, etc.
Bottom line, lots of extra variables that aren't accounted for when simply applying the results of a study of TV binging to gaming.
It took me a year to finish Nier automata, not because I was really slow at playing it (Although I did take my time) it's just that I took plenty of breaks from playing it... I just didn't want the game to end.
''reafirming my sexuality''
sure Daryl, sure :)
Some people dont care about this tiny detail, but the menu option sfx for kingdom hearts games are one of my favorite sounds. Simply because i remember me and my friend getting real into it, and how i took my ds everywhere to play the games. On roadtrips, after school, and the car ride breaks inbetween busy real life events.
Kingdom hearts is corny, and it certainly didnt start with *my* generation (hence me growing up with a ds lol), i still grew up with so much fondness for it. And since it was the first game series, or game in general that i got attached to. It reminds me of everything i love about games.
Those menu sfx just take me back to easier times.
i think i'd be more of a binger than i am if i had more time
in any given free time, i binge yt so, probably a safe bet
i'm wondering now though, how does rewatching/replaying affect retention of media?
like, if you binge everything, but you also rewatch everything, how much more do you remember?
i rewatch things all the time, so.. i'm curious if anyone has any ideas
i also am very not present in the moment though so that's another factor in my hazy mindspace
sooo much haaazzzee..
i'm always tired
when i saw the title i thought it meant do you binge one game before you move on or do you switch between games before finishing the previous
what usually happens with me is i play a game, read a book, watch a show, etc, and all i want to do is things related to it. like playing the game, looking at fanart, reading fanfiction and tv tropes pages, watching youtube videos about it, etc. if i draw, ill almost always draw characters from the game, while listening to music ill relate songs to different characters, stuff like that. ill go through phases where, for example, ill be into pokemon for a few weeks, then zelda for several months, then omori for a few weeks, then mha for a month, then zelda again, etc.
If a game I'm excited for comes out or I find a new one when I don't have any responsibilities I tend to binge them. I find that if I put it down I may not play it again for awhile and I will forget the small details that will be referred back to so I cram the story into a few sessions to fully understand it. I think I'll try to shift to more of a drifter style though, I realize that as you said some of the games that have impacted me the most are those where I cannot recount most of the plot besides the major points. I think some of these games like Nier: Automata (which I plan to slowly replay) deserve a very permanent place in my mind.
I play slow but a lot when I like the game, like, reading, exploring everything, but playing it for more than 8 hours a day
Great video! I'm more of a drifter, and some games waited years for me to complete them... Feels good though.
One thing - it's ZeigArnik effect (sincerely, your russian native speaker viewer)
I played dragon quest 11 for an hour or two a day for about a month. I loved it more than any other jrpg (persona 5 ended up close tho)
"Did you allow this game to be a part of your life for..." 500 hours and there's only more to come B)
i binged resident evil 8 and i feel like i really missed out. It was a great game really enjoyable but the story ended up feeling confusing and less meaningful since i played it in a single 20 hour binge
Coming back to this video just to talk about the judging vs. prospecting personality trait
I'm usually more of a drifter, but for entire series in my backlog, I'm binging to finally play them for the story/gameplay. Assassin's Creed at the moment.
Just add a Nier: Automata thumbnail and i'm 10 times as likely to watch a video 😅
I like binging and doing things slow way more. I rather find all the game offers than speedrun it.
As a child i binged games non stop hovever i now have responsibilities and can not
The game that came to MY mind was Bloodborne. Some time after I finally beat Dark souls. DS took me forever, I spent a LOT of time in that world and remember a lot, the emotions the characters and how I felt. Then Bloodborne came and it felt like DS but with everything I LOVED, I was there for just as long (plz bring it to PC I wanna go BACK!) But then Dark Souls 3 came along, I barely remember anything about it, I breezed through it and all the things I "remember" are things lifted from DS and BB, so yeah there's that.
I’m the kinda person who gets obsessed with 1 out of 10 of the games they play.
When I’m obsessed I beat as fast is possible with my skill level, but then inevitably gets sad that I beat it so fast… and then go looking for any sequels or prequels it might have.
If it’s just an average experience I do pace for however long I like(depending on the game, maybe a month).
But even if I hate a game, or am just generally not enjoying it, I beat it anyway. Why?
One word my friend…. FOMO
Because even if it sucks now, maybe it’ll get better later. Even if on many a occasion it definitely doesn’t.
I subbed 3 seconds after hearing your voice
You would love @maxderrett
I binged the Last of us 2 in 3 days but the game made such a huge impact on me, I was thinking about it for weeks after. On the contrary I played the Witcher 3 for a while but between all the sidequests and size of the game, I got burnt out and never beat it. So I think it depends on the game and what it's trying to say or accomplish
Great video. Really enjoyed it - especially the way you wrapped it up. Also - I'm a drifter.
5:09 - I played the Haven demo and you're reminding me I promised to get it once it came out