How to Deal with Video Game Losses

If you play video games, there’s a very high likelihood that you can recall yourself or a friend getting angry when losing at video games. This can be entertaining to onlookers as footage of angry yelling and keyboard smashing can go viral.

However, it’s not all keyboard smashing and memes: when your life revolves around success in a video game, experiencing frequent loss can eat away at you. An increasing number of eSports competitors are sharing their experiences of how demoralising frequent loss can be:

[Many players] wrap a good amount of their self-worth into where and how they place at tournaments.

 

– Conyers, 2020

 

It seems that from the living room to the tournament setting, losing at video games can cause frustration and even outward displays of anger – but why? In this article, I aim to explain two things: why we experience anger and frustration when losing at video games, and what we can do to minimise these negative feelings.

As usual, there will be a summary at the bottom if you do not wish to read everything. Now, let’s begin!

Contents

1. 1. Why We Get Frustrated
      1.1. “This Game’s Worthless!”
      1.2. “I’m Completely Worthless!”
      1.3. “Hey, That’s My Worth!”
   2. How to Beat Frustration
      2.1. Trapped in a Vicious Cycle
      2.2. The Fast Track to Winning
      2.3. Recognise Your Emotions
      2.4. Manage Your Emotions
      2.5. You’re Not Worthless
   3. Summary
   4. References

Why We Get Frustrated

“This Game’s Worthless!”

Before we examine why we can get frustrated by video games, we should consider what factors encourage us to play a game. Back in my article on the psychology of MMORPGs, I used a theory known as Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985) to explain why we can become interested in games.

We enjoy games that allow us to feel in control (autonomy), that we can relate to and connect with (relatedness), and that allow us to feel good about ourselves by overcoming challenges (competence).

When we’re interested in games for competency reasons, this can be a double-edged sword due to reasons outlined by Nummenmaa and Niemi (2004). When we overcome obstacles and experience victory, this results in feelings of positive self-esteem, pride, happiness, and self-assurance. However, if we try our hardest and still lose, this can lower our self-esteem, lower our mood, and can lead to anxiety and hostility.

How you rationalise these negative feelings may be influenced by something called locus of control. In basic terms, locus of control refers to what you might ‘blame’ when something happens (Rotter, 1966). Those with an internal locus of control feel that they are largely in control of their actions and outcomes, while those with an external locus of control might blame external factors beyond their control.

If you’re prone to having an external locus of control, you might start yelling about things like how much this game sucks, how the developers can’t balance this game properly, and so on and so forth. If you have an internal locus of control, you may begin to blame yourself and feel that you suck and are unable to rise to the challenge. This can lead to outbursts such as “I’m trash” and “I’m completely worthless”, which brings us to our next point.

“I’m Completely Worthless!”

When someone loses at a video game, they can become frustrated and make generalised statements such as “I’m trash” or “I’m worthless”. To explain why people make such devastating assessments of themselves based on a video game, I’ll be using the combination of three psychological theories: Social Identity Theory (Turner et al., 1987), Self-Categorisation Theory (Turner, 1999), and good ol’ Identity Theory (McCall & Simmons, 1978). Don’t worry, I’ll be describing them using examples that are easy to follow.

These theories argue that there isn’t a singular you, there are lots of yous that are influenced by social groups and/or contextual cues. When dealing with customers, you might speak more politely than outside of the workplace. When playing games online with friends, you can get rowdier and more rambunctious.

On social media, it’s fairly common to see people describing themselves based on their gaming preferences. People may label themselves as ‘Hardcore Gamers’, ‘Achievement Hunters’, or as belonging to specific communities such as the fighting game community. These identities that we willingly choose for ourselves can be important for our own self-worth and self-esteem (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). I’ve even witnessed someone threatening to kill a person for the mere suggestion that they weren’t a Hardcore Gamer.

These identities can be more important to us if we know more people sharing this identity (Stryker & Serpe, 1994). If you’re interested in a video game, it’s easier than ever to immerse yourself in a gaming community, join Discord servers, and familiarise yourself with a world of players who are amazing at the game. Since you’re more aware of how amazingly the game can be played, these people can shape your expectations for how you as a community member can and should be playing the game (Thoits, 1986).

Let’s imagine someone is playing a fighting game at home and they have just lost for the tenth time in a row. They become incensed after repeatedly experiencing failure and start to feel awful about themselves. There are many things at play here, so let’s go through them:

1. This person is sitting in front of their large screen wearing headphones with their arcade stick on their lap. They are completely immersed in the game, leading to something known as identity salience (Oakes, 1987). Identity salience argues that the identity we assume at the time is influenced by the context surrounding us. This person is not only completely immersed in the game, but also completely immersed in being a fighting game player. The most important thing to a fighting game player is to be successful and win. This person isn’t achieving this today, leading to feelings of inadequacy.

2. This person enjoys being a member of the fighting game community. They are in several Discord servers dedicated to fighting games and they follow hundreds of fellow fighting game players on social media. When we enjoy being in a social group, we may be prone to something called self-verification (Burke, 1991). Self-verification involves acting like ‘successful’ members of the group to justify and cement their inclusion in the group. While we might be familiar with dozens (if not hundreds) of brilliant and successful members of our gaming community, our expectations at the time are falling short, making us feel inadequate compared to others and/or less deserving to be in the community.

3. Many of us are familiar with the concept of self-esteem, but self-esteem may not be consistent. According to Kline (1993), self-esteem can be divided into trait and state self-esteem. While trait self-esteem most resembles a consistent view of yourself over time, state self-esteem reflects your evaluation of yourself at the time. So while someone could be an amazing doctor with dozens of publications who’s great at things like public speaking (trait self-esteem), their failure in the moment can lead to them feeling like garbage (state self-esteem).

To summarise all of this, victory is the most important thing to this person right now due to identity salience, yet they are failing. This affects their state self-esteem and makes them feel horrible about themselves in the moment. Thanks to being immersed in wider gaming communities, this person has many points of comparison for what a ‘successful gamer’ looks like, making them painfully aware of how ‘bad’ they are and leading to them questioning their place within and value to the gaming community.

“Hey, That’s My Worth!”

I will conclude the “Why?” portion by discussing the most commonly cited reason for why we get frustrated by losing. When we lose in a video game, we lose something: we can lose points, ranks, the chance at a win bonus, or simply our valuable time.

Decades of economic and psychological research indicates that we’ll do what we can to avoid losing something, a phenomenon that’s been referred to as loss aversion (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). We may be loss aversive because of the psychological effects that loss can have. For example, evidence suggests that the outrage and frustration you’d feel from being forced to pay $10 extra for something is twice as powerful than the joy of receiving $10 off something (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992).

Features in video games such as ‘YOU LOSE’ screens, watching yourself be demoted, watching yourself being assigned a rank you don’t think you deserve, and more can elicit the negative emotions that we associate with loss.

How to Beat Frustration

Trapped in a Vicious Cycle

Imagine you are experiencing frequent losses which are frustrating you. You’re tired and you have work in the morning, but you don’t want to go to bed on a loss. You play and play until you experience a win, but each loss hurts more than the last.

If you are someone who insists on ending a gaming session on a win, research suggests that you are most likely to lose. Researchers have examined what task performance is like when experiencing negative emotions. When you are stressed and under pressure, you are more likely to underperform, choke under pressure, and make more mistakes than if you were calm (Ellis & Ashbrook, 1989; Harris et al., 2007). These effects are found regardless of how good you are, so even the best players are going to do poorly when angry and frustrated (Beilock & Carr, 2005; Beilock & DeCaro, 2007).

When you are angry and want to chase a win, it’s honestly best for you to not as the odds aren’t in your favour. You’re more likely to lose, which will make you angrier, and you will be trapped in a vicious cycle.

You can also personalise this to increase your chances of bowing out gracefully. I mentioned above how we are loss aversive and hate to lose. In this situation, you can run your own cost-benefit analysis. If you lose and feel yourself starting to get angry, you can ask yourself one simple question: “Are the benefits of playing until I win going to outweigh the costs?”

From my personal experience, they absolutely aren’t. You go to bed groggy and grumpy and wake up feeling more tired and less prepared for the day ahead than if you peaced out earlier. You can use your own experiences with this in the cost-benefit analysis to make it more personal to you.

You might disagree with this approach, arguing that it’s psychologically uncomfortable to end on a loss. This argument is perfect for my next point.

The Fast Track to Winning

Something I often speak passionately about (and have done so already in multiple articles) is reconsidering the concept of ‘failure’. It’s easy to consider a loss as an endpoint that reflects poorly on yourself, but a fail state can be so much more than that. A loss can contain vital information that helps us to grow as a player, and this is supported by evidence.

Instead of thinking of something as a ‘loss’, it may be better to think of it as ‘productive failure’. Multiple studies conducted by Kapur (2010; 2012; 2014) find that students who fail and learn from their mistakes perform better than students who are told how to answer correctly.

Rather than sulking about losing, it is more productive for us to think about why we lost and what we can learn from it. Along with doing our own research and practicing what we’ve learned, we can also seek advice from wider community members and Discord servers. This means that by engaging in productive failure and viewing loss as a learning point rather than an emotional devastation, you are managing your own emotions, learning more about the game, becoming better at the game, and becoming more ingrained in a gaming community and getting the opportunity to meet new people. Sounds like an all-round victory.

Recognise Your Emotions

I feel it’s fair to say that not every loss in a game will be devastating to someone. You might start off feeling positive and content, then your brow starts to furrow and your chest feels a bit tight. After this point, the losses might start to feel more devastating and frustrating.

The anger and frustration associated with taking a loss poorly can make us feel threatened, activating our fight-or-flight response. This gives us a burst of energy that can lead to feelings and actions such as your chest tightening, your heart racing, leg shaking or jaw clenching (Tasaka et al., 2014; Kubo et al., 2015; Mind, 2018).

It is possible that the moment where a game stops being entertaining for you is represented in a physical action. For the sake of your happiness and even your win record, it would be a good idea for you to listen to your body and take a step back.

So what can you do?

Manage Your Emotions

By listening to your body and watching out for your warning signs, you’ve noticed that you’re getting a bit tense and agitated. It’s time to deal with your emotions, and there’s many options available to you:

• If you feel that you’re not ready to stop playing for the day, you could alter your mood by doing or watching something that makes you laugh. Research has found that taking a ten minute break to watch a funny video not only improves our mood, but makes us more likely to persevere during the task at hand (Cheng & Wang, 2015).
• The combination of adrenaline and your current mood might leave you feeling restless and energised. You can expend this energy in a healthy manner by getting some fresh air and going for a walk (Mind, 2018). Alternatively, you can exercise from the comfort of your home using an expanding library of exergaming titles such as Ring Fit Adventure, Beat Saber and Fitness Boxing.
• You could continue playing games in your leisure time, but instead change the type of game you are playing. There’s a plethora of relaxing games you can take a break with such as Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley and more. These relaxing games can distract us from our negative feelings by giving us a range of tasks to focus on in the game (De Jong, 2010).
• Remember those friends I talked about who love the game too and can help you to improve? You can take some time out of the game and chill out with them. For example, you could organise a group game of something entertaining like Fall Guys. This can not only lead to plenty of laughter, but can also forge friendships during a time when you would have been sitting and stewing in anger (Selfhout et al., 2009).

You’re Not Worthless

The combination of identity salience and state self-esteem can lead to us making blanket judgements about our self-worth based on video game performance. I’ve witnessed this time and time again with friends feeling worthless after a day of losing, so I’d like to offer some advice on how to deal with this.

If you are getting frustrated due to identity salience, the key is to remove yourself from this state of mind and consider yourself as a whole. When dealing with the negative feelings associated with failure, it would be a good idea to contemplate all of the wonderful things you’ve achieved so far and the range of identities you have such as Loyal Friend and Hard-Working Student. You could focus your attention on compiling a list of these things in order to distract yourself from your feelings of frustration.

The world can be a pretty cruel place, you deserve to treat yourself with kindness and patience while recognising all of your successes.

Summary

• While losing our temper at video games can be funny to onlookers, eSports competitors are increasingly discussing the psychological toll frequent loss can have. This article aims to explain why we get angry when losing at video games and how we can minimise these negative feelings.
• People may be drawn to video games that fulfil the psychological need to feel competent at something. While rising to the challenge can feel wonderful, losing and having our competence undermined fills us with negative emotions. In response, we might lash out at external factors such as how badly the game is balanced, or we can blame ourselves and feel that we are ‘trash’.
• It is fairly common to see people define themselves based on gaming preferences (e.g. ‘fighting game community member’). Victory is the most important thing to this person in the moment due to the salience of this identity when playing. If they fail, this affects their state self-esteem and makes them feel horrible about themselves. Thanks to being immersed in wider gaming communities, this person has many points of comparison for what a ‘successful gamer’ looks like, making them painfully aware of how ‘bad’ they are and leading to them questioning their place within and value to the gaming community.
• Humans are argued to feel the negative emotions of losing something around twice as strongly as the positive emotions of gaining something. Loss in a game is often accompanied by a further type of loss (e.g. points, ranks, our time), activating these negative emotions.
• Evidence indicates that we perform worse in video games when we are angry or frustrated. If you are the type of person who won’t go to bed until you get a win, your odds of winning are actually lower – so go to bed!
• Instead of viewing a loss as an emotionally devastating endpoint, consider it as a ‘productive failure’. Research shows that people can learn better and more quickly if they learn from their mistakes. Considering why you lost and what you can learn from it is going to make you a better player.
• Due to the activation of our fight-or-flight response, there may be warning signs that we’re about to lose our temper at a video game such as our leg shaking or our jaw tightening. You can effectively manage these emotions with a range of tasks, including: improving your mood with something funny; playing a relaxing game; walking or exercising to burn your adrenaline; or playing fun games online with friends.
• We might become angry as a victory is the most important thing to us at that time. This can be managed by removing yourself from this mindset and considering the wide variety of identities and achievements that you have. Be kind to yourself, you’re achieved so much and overcome so many things, a loss in a video game is a drop in the bucket compared to everything you’ve accomplished.

Thank you all very much for reading! This hard work would not be possible without the support of my wonderful Patrons. I would particularly like to thank my Platinum Patrons: Albert S Calderon, Kyle T, redKheld, Dimelo ‘Derp’ Waterson, Hagbard Celine, Aprou, Austin Enright, SK120, NotGac, Shaemus, Joey Rodriguez, Marcus Lo Re-Sant, DarrenIndeed, Thomas Meszaros, Ciara Elizabeth, Dr. Jhin, Mulgar, Tobias Svensson, Beef Hardcheese, and Matt Demers. Thank you!

 

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