The Worst Things That Can Happen To You As A Gamer
They say that someone who gets struck by lightning twice is incredibly unlucky. But ask yourself this question: is getting struck once all that great?
Bad things happen, and they're called bad for a reason. They're usually unpleasant. When bad things enter your favorite hobby, like video games, they take something you do for enjoyment and spit all over it. Whether it's something entirely out of your control or a byproduct of your own decision-making, unfortunate gaming moments still have the ability to ruin what would otherwise be a fun time.
We know: problems playing video games! What a first-world problem, right? We can't argue. But hey — we're allowed to have fun, too, right? BioShock asks, "Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?" We ask: "Is a gamer not entitled to a little bit of unimpeded fun?"
We've gathered a list of the worst things that can happen to gamers. We hope they've never happened to you, but if they have, take comfort in knowing that you're not alone in the struggle.
Your batteries die at the worst time
Wireless controllers are great, aren't they? You don't have to worry about a cord being too long or too short. You can game comfortably in any position without a cable getting in the way. And there's one less thing in your home for your dog to chew up. They're a fantastic creation — one we wish had existed back in the 16-bit generation when our young siblings were tripping over our gamepad cords.
But with the good comes bad. And with wireless controllers, you have to ensure you have appropriately charged batteries installed, because trust us: they'll run out of power at the worst possible moment.
Just picture it. You're one hit away from taking one of the toughest Dark Souls bosses down and ... suddenly you're not moving. The power light on your controller has burned out. And said boss has no qualms with striking you down while you're completely motionless. In fact, he'll probably tell his buddies all about it over drinks later.
Or what if you're completing a jumping puzzle in Destiny? They're tests of timing and precision, but if your batteries go home to Jesus at the wrong time, you won't be opening the loot chest at the end with your fireteam — you'll be zipping downward toward certain death like a rock thrown from a tall building.
Maybe you should keep a USB cord nearby.
The internet goes down during an online game
Online multiplayer gaming can be a blast. It gives you an opportunity to compete against others, and it can help you get additional mileage out of a game you've already completed. Odds are, you'll always have the chance to play against different people, and that in itself makes every single match a unique experience. And let's be honest: there's nothing like winning a game online. You're either king of the mountain or, for a moment, part of a victorious squad of badass killers. There's no better feeling.
If you don't have luck on your side, though, you will be none of those things. Because your internet connection could drop at the wrong moment, cutting you off from your virtual world and erasing your hard-earned match stats in the process.
That killstreak you were on in Call of Duty? Gone. That long touchdown you were about to score in Madden? It's never going to happen. That sick shot you pulled off in Rocket League? It turns out that you were disconnected from the game thirty seconds ago. Your opponents weren't driving around in circles because they're bad. The game is just having a hard time breaking the news to you.
A dropped internet connection can hurt the soul of any gamer when it happens. We pray it doesn't happen to you.
You forget to save your game
We now live in an era where cloud saves are a thing, keeping a backup of your video game process stored on some remote server farm in Kansas. But these saves, as useful as they are, can't do everything for you. If a game doesn't have automatic save points, you have to go through the process of saving a game yourself, which means entering the menu, finding the save option, and hoping that you don't accidentally overwrite the wrong file.
Let's face it, though: some video games can be immersive, intense, or both. We get caught up in them. We're determined to complete this quest for the Jarl in Skyrim and no dragon or bandit is going to stand in our way. Which makes it all the more painful when disaster hits and we realize that it's been a while since we saved the game.
Perhaps the power in your home goes out, not only transporting you out of your game, but leaving you without a way to microwave your Totino's Pizza Rolls. Or maybe you flew a little too close to the Sun in Persona, grinding away without thinking about all the progress you'd lose if your character met its untimely demise.
Don't let yourself become the sad gamer who didn't save. Do it often. Save yourself some heartache.
You come across a game-breaking bug
Believe it or not, there are people who exist on Planet Earth to break video games. They're called game testers, and they do everything they can possibly think of to make a game glitch out, freeze, or crash. They sit in a room and run a character into walls for hours, simply to make sure that you're not going to get stuck like a dummy when you eventually play the game yourself.
These testers can't catch everything, though, and you can find more than a handful of games that have a hefty amount of bugs in them. Some of these bugs are pretty inconsequential and won't affect gameplay in a dramatic way. But some bugs can break things to the point that they impede your progress or worse: they prevent you from completing the game entirely.
There's that bug in Rise of the Tomb Raider that doesn't let you turn a mission in to an NPC. If you can't turn the mission in, you can't complete it. If you can't complete it, you can't get your trophy or achievement for doing all of the missions. And if you can't do all the missions, you can't 100% the game.
Or how about that bug in Superman 64 that randomly kills you in the last level of the game for seemingly no reason whatsoever? Playing through a bad game that you can't even finish? Not exactly what we'd call fun.
The game you've been looking forward to is terrible
We're all guilty of jumping on the video game hype train at times. There might be a new game in a series we love, or a new and exciting project that looks like it'll change the way we play games. We know that building ourselves up will only hurt us more if the whole thing comes crashing down, but darn it, we can't help ourselves. HYPE TRAIN! CHOO-CHOO!
Yeah — we probably shouldn't have gotten so hyped up.
One of the worst things that can happen to a gamer is when reality hits and the thing we've been looking forward to for years is a complete and total disaster. Like falling head over heels for the original Mass Effect trilogy and getting so excited for Mass Effect: Andromeda, only to watch its characters trot around like they're half-spider. Or to truly believe in the ambition of No Man's Sky, only to find that the game fails to deliver on even the basic things it promised. Or to buy into Mighty No. 9 as a true Mega Man successor — until you play it and realize it sucks.
There's something to be said for keeping your expectations in check. Which is why we're going to assume that Grand Theft Auto 6 is the worst game of all time. May it pleasantly surprise us.
You get smurfed
It's safe to say that, if you're playing a video game, you're probably doing it to have some fun. If your game of choice is a multiplayer title, for instance, you're probably looking to get your gaming fix while chatting with some friends about your day. You're not going out of your way to enter a stressful situation: you're just trying to pass the time in the most entertaining way possible.
And then you encounter a video game god.
You're shooting, but he's dodging everything. You spawn, and somehow he's able to kill you before you can even get your bearings. He's jumping through the air while sniping you effortlessly. He shoots one rocket and wipes your whole team. He's making a habit of embarrassing you to the point where you wonder out loud: is this guy making a YouTube montage video with me in it?
Smurfers are gamers who play under alternate accounts so they can demolish easier opponents. Were they to play on their actual account, their high multiplayer rank would likely keep them far away from you. But under a different identity, they're free to wreak complete havoc on less-accomplished players. Running into a smurfer can be a frustrating endeavor. You shouldn't have to play them, but you are, and you're going to have a very bad time as a result.
May your games be ever free from those who smurf.
Your console or PC breaks
Whether it's a known fault like a red ring of death or a simple case of time taking its toll, game consoles and PCs don't last forever. They can break, and it can either happen quickly or take decades. But regardless of the system you're playing on, you should look at it and thank your lucky stars every single day that it still powers on and you can still play your games.
Because having a broken game machine sucks.
You don't realize how important video games are as a hobby until you no longer have a working console or PC. Those weekly World of Warcraft raids? You can kiss those goodbye if your system isn't working. Hearing great things about the new God of War? You'll have to watch YouTube videos, because a broken console means you won't be playing it.
There's always the chance you're still within warranty and you can get your system fixed. But that's a problem, too, because you'll be without your game machine entirely while it's away for repair. So really, the most convenient thing to your gaming life is to have your system not break at all.
Pray at night. Do a special chant and dance. Do whatever it takes. Or just buy a backup.
You encounter spoilers
A big thing that video games and TV shows have in common is the propensity for spoilers to fly out of nowhere and ruin a major plot point. It's certainly not cool when you're catching up on Lost and someone says, "Dude, they were in purgatory the whole last season." It's equally not cool when someone does the same thing in a story-driven video game, and the argument can be made that spoiling a game is actually worse.
TV shows and movies don't require a lot from you other than your eyes and ears. You can sit back, relax, and just take everything in. But video games? You're actively working to reach the end of the tale. You're shooting guns, or solving puzzles, or working through QTE events. You feel, in EA's words, "a sense of pride and accomplishment" when you beat a video game and the entire story has unfolded before you.
That's what makes having a video game spoiled for you so terrible. If you're someone who loves a good video game story, and someone ruins it for you ... what's the point of playing at that point?
If a friend drops a video game spoiler bomb on you, they are not your friend.
Your pre-order doesn't arrive on time
There are a few reasons you could want your hands on a video game day one. A big reason for some gamers? Avoiding spoilers, of course. Playing through a game before other people have a chance to finish it and tell you all about it. Another reason is for progression purposes. Some games have time-gated content — like Destiny and its raids — that drop a few days after a game is released. Starting on launch day means you have a better chance at being ready for that content when it comes.
Unfortunately, your launch day gaming plans can go up in smoke if you don't receive the game on time.
Amazon has a pretty bad track record when it comes to delivering games on release day. And when they fail on that front, it's a huge punch in the gut to gamers who are really looking forward to playing a title. The entire point of pre-ordering a game is to get the whole buying process out of the way and ensure you not only get a copy, but that it gets to you as quickly as possible. What's the point of fronting that money if the game doesn't show up on time, and you could have gotten it more quickly by walking into a Best Buy?
Don't be the gamer left behind because the store you ordered from messed up. Do your homework to make sure your game will actually come when it's supposed to.
You take it all way too seriously
Video games are supposed to be a fun hobby. They're to be consumed and enjoyed much like any other form of entertainment. If you aren't a professional gamer and accessory companies aren't naming keyboards after you, it's safe to say you're a recreational player.
But something terrible can happen to a gamer when they pass a certain point and no longer treat gaming as a fun activity. They can become toxic.
The signs of a toxic gamer are easy to identify. They're the players who yell at their teammates in voice chat. They quit out of games and send nasty messages to their opponents. And the worst quality of these toxic gamers? They perpetuate the idea of platform superiority. They stomp into forums or Twitter threads and heave insults toward those who don't game on the same system they do. And they generally make the internet miserable for those who just want to play great games no matter where they are.
It all comes down to the fact that these gamers are taking video games way too seriously. And once a gamer reaches this point, it's tough to turn things around.
Does this sound like you? Are you already past the point of rescue? Maybe it's time to put the controller down or shut Windows down. There's a whole lot of life to live out there, and a good break never hurt anyone.