Written by Gamer well-being may be one of the most ignored aspects of the video game lifestyle. It is also perhaps one of the most hard to define and explain. I am here to tell you it is the MOST important aspect of gaming, and life, and I want to tell you why. But first, let’s begin with its definition.
gamer
[gey-mer]
noun
1. a person who plays games; especially : a person who regularly plays computer or video games (Merriam-Webster)
well-being
[wel–bee-ing]
noun
1. a good or satisfactory condition of existence; a state characterized by health, happiness, and prosperity; welfare (Dictionary.com)
Put them together and what have you got? This is the question. As the first and opening article of Mind, Body, GAMING!, I will explain what I know and think on gamer well-being. It will provide a long list of positive and negative influences that affect your well-being, and what destroys it.
This will be an introduction article, hence the 101, focusing on this broad and quite abstract subject with hope to go into great details in the future.
A quick side note: well-being, well being, and wellbeing are all used interchangeably.
What is Gamer Well Being?
Gamer well-being is the state of peace one has while playing video games. It is an overall constant contentment during ones gaming session; one with no opposite. This, in turn, will hopefully continue when one has stopped gaming. A gaming life harmony! But while this idea is nice and all, how many have really achieved it?
Us gamers like to play video games, and sometimes, perhaps most of the time, we like to play a lot. Do we have a sense of peace during this time? Well, do you? And if so, how often?
Everyone may answer that differently depending on the time and game naturally. But the point here is to recognize what percentage of your gaming time is fun and peaceful and realize what may be the cause of when it isn’t. I call these the gamer well-being X-Factors.
The X-Factors of Gamer Welfare
Your state of mind in both the real world and in the virtual world will affect each other. They are connected! And just the same, many things while gaming, as in life, can benefit or hinder one’s contentment.
What factors can affect gamer well-being?
I’m glad I asked. While video games are generally made for consumer enjoyment, they don’t always succeed. There are many reasons why your enjoyment may be compromised in-game. Technically, all things outside of gaming can also affect the gamer while he/she games, as I mentioned before.
Therefore, to clarify and simplify, and also to not go into every facet of human suffering, I will stick to things that affect actual game sessions ONLY. This includes the influential lifestyle of the individual. In other words, the gamer’s personal health both internally and externally, or mind and body.
We will start with the positive x-factors, then the negative, and finish with the destroyers of gamer welfare. Each section will be divided into a mind and body section, highlighting the internal and external x-factors of each.
Not to cause any confusion, I consider the brain as part of the body, not the mind, which is the element or complex of consciousness and thought. Yes, the mind might exist in the brain but different subject, different debate, different article. Complicated? I love our language! To the lists!
The Positive X-Factors For Your Mind
Video games offer us enjoyment, plain and simple. Nothing can maintain a sense of gamer well-being better than constant enjoyment. A list of what contributes to enjoyment is massive and potentially endless.
This list includes success in overcoming a challenge (Super Meat Boy anyone?), like beating any boss, or finishing the game itself, finding a hidden secret, solving a puzzle, completing everything, even being surprised. Enjoyment also includes learning about a story, a character, or yourself.
Progress is important, like seeing improvement in your skill, gaining confidence outside of gaming because of how well you did in-game, or just gaining meaning in the discipline of practice. Multiplayer games are great at this. I prefer Destiny 2 and Quake Champions.
Of course, games also can keep bored souls out there un-bored. This is often a main thing to do for those that don’t do much else for entertainment.
One of my favorites is the relaxation and stress relief games can provide. These games can put you in a meditation that can be thoroughly enjoyable and rewarding. Some games, like ABZÛ, even allow you to meditate in-game and out of game, at the same time!
Gaming can also be used to learn how to deal with real world stresses. The entire Dark Souls series are great for this.
Don’t forget how you feel when you get blown away by a game’s technical achievement and/or the art of the game creators, experiencing the wonder of a realistic or imaginative universe that they give you. Sometimes just an idea in game is enough to spark awe, and just going there, experiencing it, is amazing.
Last but not least, I should not forget the universal enjoyment of creation in those games that give such a gift like Minecraft, Super Mario Maker 2, No Man’s Sky, and many others.
Social benefits video games can provide start with meeting new people, getting to know people, camaraderie, gaining friendships, and even creating romantic relationships. Other pluses include winning in a competitive match with friends, helping other players overcome their obstacles, or them helping you overcome yours, in game and out.
Add more players and this equates into learning how to work with a team of potentially any size. Bonding with a friend or family member is also lovely.
And you may get culture you would otherwise not get, by being able to play with people from different places around the world. Gaming could also end up opening up job opportunities or sponsorships, too.
I hesitate including beating another human being in a game as a good thing, especially dominating. But, alas, this does make many gamers feel good about themselves.
The feeling, unfortunately, is temporary, though. and ultimately needs quick replenishment. Otherwise, they may suffer the consequence of quickly jumping into the negatives. You need to feed the beast, afterall.
The Positive X-Factors For Your Body
Let’s not forget the externals of gamer prosperity, the things that affect your body. There are many great benefits physically in playing video games, too.
The obvious are the games that include physical activity like dance or other body movements, like Dance Dance Revolution, Wii Fit, or many VR games. This also includes music/instrument games, especially drumming on Rockband (do you like to sweat?).
One of the best game types for physical exercise are transportation games like Pokémon GO and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. In fact, if you want to get in shape while playing Wizards Unite, check out my article on it here.
More general body health benefits that gaming can provide include relaxation while gaming, as mentioned before. Don’t forget that relaxing helps the body, too. Playing games is also a perfect activity to rest and heal from physical activities or injury.
Games can even provide distraction from chronic and temporary pain and/or other external stimuli. Things like world events, parents, or wife(s), or kid(s), or even other stressful games!
Many games help us increase and better develop coordination from eye hand to spacial, improve our focus, increase our reading ability speed, our memory, problem solving, attention capabilities, pattern recognition, multitasking, and general processing speed. Go us, and games!
The Negative X-Factors For Your Mind
When you are not enjoying a gaming experience, Houston, we have a problem. Non-enjoyment is a major gamer comfort bummer. What causes this?
Not enjoying your time can be due to in game stress, any form of disappointment which creates anger, sadness, or feelings of failure. For example, not being able to finish or accomplish something in game, not beating a boss (did I mention any Dark Souls game?), or not winning a competitive game.
Or maybe the game isn’t as good as you want it to be due to expectation, or misunderstanding. Maybe it’s just boring or poorly designed. Maybe you are just having a bad day. All this can affect your well-being, too.
Other more external mind topics include hiding in video games to not deal with real life issues, which can be infinite. This can be a positive, as mentioned. In time, though, it ultimately becomes a negative because you are not dealing with the problem directly. Games will not fix the problem, they only delay the fixing.
Debatably, video games can desensitize you or those younger than you to violence, or introduce unsupervised youth to adult subjects in games. I say debatably because the science isn’t exact and far past the scope of this article.
Procrastination is also a great bad use of gaming, and likely one of the most common. We do things we like instead of what we need to do. Sound familiar?
I did not forget one of the most common negative x-factors in gaming. Playing with or against negative people can influence your experience, and that can take all sorts of forms with examples (hello teabagging). In fact, this can be so destructive, it has its own section below. But first, your body.
The Negative X-Factors For Your Body
Physically, gaming can influence all sorts of negative physical outcomes that affect one’s gamer well-being, especially long term gaming and beyond. I cover many of these in details, including the severe health risks associated with sedentary behavior, in my FREE eBook Pause the Game: A Beginner’s Guide to a Healthy Gamer Lifestyle.
The physical health issues that gaming can cause seem unlimited. Poor posture when sitting can create habitual hunching or worse, scoliosis. Other issues include general muscle stiffness, carpal tunnel syndrome, what I call video game butt, muscle atrophy, and all other general lack of exercise body problems.
Other negative physical results include increased laziness, poor hygiene including them teeth, stress eating, poor diet, overeating, and under-eating. On my post the 4 + 1 Healthiest Eating Tips for Gamers, I suggest some solutions to these specific issues. They are important as each one of these can domino effect into other major health problems that create even more.
And if you stay up too late gaming, or sleep too little for days, lack of sleep can become a major issue, too. Sometimes even leading to death (most epic result).
Being inside too much gaming also reduces chance of natural vitamin D absorption from the sun. We need fresh air people! Go outside more! Plus, depending on how clean your gaming environment is you may be subjected to poor air quality, like dust, molds and germs, or worse (stank).
The Destroyers of Gamer Well Being
The destroyers include the more severe detriments of gamer welfare. Be it a one time game related incident or long term issue, each one would best be never encountered or experienced for maximum enjoyment.
These destroyers are not listed in any order as each can be equally important. Most can influence, overlap, or even domino effect into each other.
These are the negative extremes, the dark side of gaming. And though they are not described in depth here, they show how such a simple entertainment device can influence our lives drastically not just in game, but outside, as well.
Gamer Rage
I’ll begin with gamer rage as a starting point here; when anger goes overboard. If you have experienced it, in yourself or in someone else you witness or hear, you know it is anything but a nice gaming experience.
Be it you or another, no matter what the reason, this can destroys everyone’s gamer well-being at that moment.
Even if not playing with others, this heavily adrenaline oriented impulse can take you over, leading you to saying things you otherwise may not. You may yell and scream, or react more physically. This leads to broken controllers, broken hands or walls or desks or all three, broken T.V.s or monitors, and even broken hearts.
The runoff of such an event can carry on way after the act, as well. If others were involved during or after, repercussions far greater than just the own rager’s suffering can result. This is a severe stress scenario.
Gamer rage can get you reported in game, too. If on an online game, this can result in a temporary or permanent ban. That is done for the greater good of others experience.
What can really get messy is when gamer rage causes you to lose real life friends, as well as in-game friends. But it doesn’t stop there. It may also affect your family, not just those you game with, but also those you live with.
Depending on how you reacts during an episode, your neighbors may get involved. If they see or hear something that isn’t keeping the peace, the police may be called. To add even more to this, the rage can carry on after the game session, affecting your entire life.
The important thing to understand here is that gaming rage is an explosion of negative energy that affects all parties involved in a bad way. No one wins here.
Harassment and Negative Chatter
While harassment can be a result of gamer rage, it does not require it. Any form of harassment is a one stop attack and attempted end of another’s happiness and gaming is no exception. In fact, it unfortunately is very common in my experience.
These people verbally attack and can ruin a gaming experience for anybody. Be it bullying, cyberbullying more accurately, sexual harassment, any hate speech, exclusion, outing if you know the person, stalking, threats, or griefing, any and all are not ok to do to another person.
Even just profanity without permission is harassment. Any form of harassment can create a lack of enjoyment for another and a toxic, unpleasant environment. Yet, anyone is capable of saying mean or inappropriate things.
Unfortunately, this is just a risk of playing a game or anything with others.
The Long Term Destroyers of Happiness
The long term destroyers of gamer well-being are the things that don’t happen overnight. They include game addiction, overspending, poor health, and social repercussions.
Gaming Addiction, Now Known As Gaming Disorder
Game dependence and/or obsession, or gaming addiction, can be a terrible disease with bad real world consequences, personally, and health wise. It is classified as a disease called Gaming Disorder by the World Health Organization.
Gaming Disorder is defined as a pattern of gaming behavior (“digital-gaming” or “video-gaming”) characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.
In other words, if you prioritize gaming over other aspects of life, not every time but often, you may have Gaming Disorder. If anything, you are starting down that path.
Overspending
Overspending, in the form of in-game transactions, is a big part of the gaming industry these days, and too easily a cause of stress. It is easier than ever to unload your wallet (or your parents or spouse’s) into a game with a click of a button.
Inherently, this is no big deal. It is your money right? The problem is how easy it is to overspend. Before you know it, that neat new in-game outfit can be yours for some money.
But maybe you want all of the outfits, too. Might as well add the outfits for every event the game can possibly have. Every holiday, while you’re at it, too. Suddenly, you just spent over $100 on a game you are into on a 20 second whim.
Even worse, the game may offer a mystery box that randomly gives you game items you cannot choose. This fits into a gray area of almost gambling with real world money, only with no hopes of winning that money back (you know which games do this).
One purchase becomes two, two becomes four, and before you know it, your entire paycheck is gone. Maybe you even get a couple bonus boxes?
This urge may not seem like a destroyer of well-being, but it can be. It feeds on a general weakness of the human mind and is why gambling addiction is a serious deal.
Spending can spiral out of control in no time and can affect many other aspects of a gamer’s life. For some, it is difficult to control. For many, it is not. But cheers to any of you whom have resisted the urge to spend a little more than you originally intended to on an in-game purchase.
Poor Health
Poor health, while mentioned in the negatives section above, cannot be emphasized enough as a main variable to gamer well-being. Especially once once poor health creates disease or enters disorder-ville and/or medication-land and therapy-world.
While I am not going to go into details here, all of the following are risks associated with a long term sedentary gamer lifestyle.
- heart disease
- increased blood pressure
- cholesterol
- blood clotting
- blood sugar regulation, and diabetes
- lung, uterine, and colon cancers
- slowing of metabolism, speeding up weight gain potential
- muscle and bone atrophy
- posture issues and scoliosis
- eye strain
- weaker muscles and bones
- bone loss
- headache potential and muscle soreness
- carpal tunnel syndrome
- computer vision syndrome (CVS)
- stress and anxiety
- depression
- lower cognitive functioning
- neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s and other dementia, Parkinson’s, and motor neuron diseases
Most of these illnesses don’t happen overnight. But regarding long term destroyers of your welfare, just know that sitting around and gaming a ton can hurt you in a major way.
Sure, gaming would not be the sole reason for poor mental or physical health, but as a heavy influencer, there is a limit you do not want to go past regarding it. If you do, while the game may stay fun, you will not feel well playing it.
Social Repercussions
As mentioned before, any kind of negative time while gaming can affect your real world relationships and interactions. But a result of poor decision making due to gaming, sacrificing responsibilities like work, reduced time with friends, a girlfriend or spouse, your child or children, or any family member(s), can have negative real world consequences of all kinds.
You may miss other life aspects, too, such as accomplishing goals you have, big or small, or reading that book, even writing that book that you always wanted write. The list goes on forever.
Real world interactions and personal development are a vital part of one’s happiness. You don’t want to miss that. It reduces that chance for something new in this wide world of random amazement.
In fact, it reduces that chance for anything to even happen at all! Games can be good, but not that good. Nothing can emulate life experience better than life experience.
Gamer Well Being Semester Finals
Video gaming, which was originally nothing more than just small form entertainment, has become quite a complex lifestyle. This lifestyle contains many variables that can affect a user’s happiness and enjoyment of gaming.
Gamer Well-Being 101 is an introduction to what gamer well-being is and the positives and negatives that can affect it. This includes an even bigger section on the destroyers of this peace. It concludes with the long term effects gaming can have on your welfare in-game, and thus, out of game.
Hopefully, upon examination, you can see how all these things may influence your own state of mind while gaming. Doing so may help you in learning how to deal with them as well as how to maintain a peaceful and enjoyable gaming experience for you and anyone that you play with.
Your test is next week, multiple choice with two essay questions. Bring a pencil.
And a controller.
What events have affected your gamer well-being? Share your stories below.