Psychology behind Gamer Rage | Dr.K Explains

_____

Gamer rage can be a front for many different emotions a gamer can experience. Gamer rage can be fueled by shame or sadness that a gamer experiences outside of the video game. Understanding the psychology of video game rage and where gamer rage comes from is crucial for self improvement and personal development.

Why do video games make us rage? In this video, Dr. Kanojia explains why video game rage happens.

DISCLAIMER
Healthy Gamer is an online community and resource platform for gamers and their families. It does not provided medical services or professional counseling, and it is not a substitute for professional medical care. Our coaches are peer supporters, not professionally trained experts, and they cannot provide medical service. If you or a loved on are experiencing an emergency, please call your nation's emergency telephone number.

All guests of Healthy Gamer are informed of the public, non-medical nature of the content and have expressly agreed to share their story.
----
Become a Healthy Gamer!
#MentalHealth #gamerrage #videogamerage

[thorn]

People get mad usually because they're not playing for fun, they're playing to be good, and when they have that expectation that they are good they attach that to their ego, and so to not fulfil that causes one to take a hit to their own ego.

[iamjustamazin]

Rage is often about the feelings of unfairness after a loss, which could be due to bad game design, bad netcode, encountering cheaters or being overly confident in your own ability.

[xzx]

I get really salty when I know I can play better but can't for that day due to bad or disturbed sleep. It's so frustrating.

[loganredding]

I think the answer is pretty simple, it’s either two things 1 The person is wanting to win extremely badly or 2 The person believes that they’re better at the game than they really are.

[spoons]

I take rage out on myself. I've never inflicted it on objects or other people. I'll be playing Cuphead and finish with bruises on my legs, face, and head. It's so embarrassing that I get so pissed for something so stupid and insignificant.

[nguyenhuylong]

When u know that that game has caused u alot of anger but u cant quit since you have put so much time, efforts and money into it to move on

[patrickcarrillo]

I start raging whatever I can't beat something in a game like something's extremely difficult or the game is flawed in some way or causes you to retry it over and over and over and that leads to boredom and then that leads to frustration and then that leads to broken controllers and the broken controller being thrown out the window I don't feel anger or express anger when I'm playing video games unless there's a specific part of the game that is rage-inducing

[BZman]

It takes growth and some real life success to overcome this rage/anger. In some cases raging over video games is not the game itself, but where we are in life, maybe it's our situation or not having the job we want or school or something else. After going to counseling, I finally applied not to take the games serious but real life. Its been 5 years and now yeah im laughing and goofing off in games and somehow because I'm more relaxed I've been doing better and winning more and the games are fun. 🤔 But that took time and focus on real things in life to fix. If i don't have a good time I can just stop playing and do something else like workout.

[Summon]

Our ego gets in the way, because we don’t get our ways in a fictional world where we have all the tools to!

[grandmastermario]

Low self esteem mental health problems learning tempers and languages from parents being a victim of bullying Abuse neglect witnessing violence being stressed having to high exspectaions spending way to much time on it any of those things could cause game raging people need to wake up and relise that

[technounionrepresentative]

i rage because i do not matter irl, at one point i had promise but now my body wont let me become the pro basketball player or a track runner or even a bodybuilder, but in my teen years my body just seemed to break. I think i can pin point it to when my family was kicked out of our home and because my brother had a heart condition and my mother could barely walk and we had a month to pack and move
every thing we owned, furniture electronics moving every tool every creature comfort every family heirloom moved out of a house within a month, we had a month during the hottest month of the year to pack find a new home and move into a new home, people are lucky to even find a home in two months so i worked my body until i couldn't move, because unless i moved everything out of our house by myself we were going to be fined and if we were fined we would not have any money to move into a new home, in the end i have had constant pain in my body since moving several tons of useless crap up and down stairs in 100+ degree weather.
so i cannot get a good job due to searing pain in my back hips and knees that flares up when ever i do high stress physical activities, oh also my lungs have been damaged due to catching covid last year.
so after all this i am left with barely earning money and playing video games, and when i play video games it is all i have, and when i lose it feels like i have failed and ran out of relevance and it's the one last thing that i can do, because my body won't let me do anything else,
(side note. i also moved away from everything and everyone i ever liked so i also feel alone)

sorry if i may have conveyed anything poorly or a made little sense, i am not exactly a poet

[nahthatyou]

why do gamers rage? We think we are good/skilled at the game because we spend almost all our free time playing, whether or not we truly try to get better is moot because we think we are good just because we've spent time looking up builds, meta, etc. So, when we lose or under-perform we are instantly taken to a place, subconsciously or consciously sometimes, of "i spend all this time ONLY doing this, in the back of my head i know its a true "waste" because im not able to spend good gamer points in real life, AND i cant win?"


That turns to feelings of depression, frustration, anxiety, anger, bringing up anything anyone (parents, teachers, famous personalities, even ourselves) has even said about gaming being a fruitless venture, giving us nothing to show but pixels. No one who is fulfilled sufficiently in other aspects of their life is going to be a chronic rager. Sure, they may have their moments but its tame at worst when compared to the vitriol spewed out by the truly deprived (not depraved, talking about emotional fulfillment here, self actualization).


Its really not that hard to see why gamers rage. Its a typical consequence of having nothing to fall back on outside of our little virtual worlds that come crashing down so easily at the slightest setback. Im guilty of lashing out, oh yes. Not as much as when I was at my worst, but as they say "it takes one to know one".



Truly, whether we admit it or not, that is the chain of thoughts that goes through our minds which leads to chronic rage behavior.

[TheXeeman]

it's so crazy how some people get so mad. ive had incidences where two people gang up on me in chat (they know each other irl) and basically insult me together. it's like this evil, twisted, game they play and it's just overwatch quickplay, not even competitive. to live with that much hate just astounds me, that there are people like that out there with such malicious intentions over something so insignificant. How do they even hold down a job? How do they function in society?

[doge]

My wrath has no end when I get beaten by pay to win noobs. Spamming a broken weapon just.. oh my God I just realized, bottling up my rage led my ass to a mental breakdown midgame.

I've never. In all my life... Felt so angry at the unfairness and just.. shit I need to go outside

[godzilla]

Video games actually filled me with anxiety. I would get stuck on a certain stage and get so frustrated that I literally pulled my hair out. There was always this dread I would feel when I'm not playing games and it would kill me inside. This is why I finally stopped playing video games.

[Summon]

The issue lies way way deeper than that! It’s not that simple at all! Media entertainment is our escapism into the world, where characters are usually more capable than us ordinary folks (wether it’s superheroes or just regular folks trained to overcome impossible odds both physical and psychological!) and video games in particularly lets us not just dive into the shoes of those characters, but its the only form of entertainment, that lets us have full control over him/her! When that happens for the moment of the duration of experience we associate with that character, we ARE that character! People by nature hate to fail and hate unfairness and injustice…the situation when we lose control over a fictional character in a fantasy world is what makes us being pissed off as we see it unjust! Its because we realise that in this fantasy world we have more control over the destiny of our character, than we usually do with ourselves in real life! (Cuz real life ain’t video game and we won’t have full control over it as there are circumstances, unlike in video games that don’t depend on us or our actions!) And when the game takes that only sacred freedom and control from us - is when the rage happens!…

[the_BattleGoose]

I hope you tackle this topic more in depth. It's an important one.

[tunnelingkiller]

The only reason I ever rage in games is when someone is teabagging or being toxic as fuck (such as messaging me about how I’m trash). That puts on full tilt and I never knew why

[Theorangecrushgamer]

I lose every time I play warzone. It doesn't even bother me. I don't expect to win. I still have fun

[victorcovarrubias]

If I'm mad I have my pull up bar ready and put my rage into that also pushups or something that lets me physically express myself instead of punching holes or kicking