Question About Video Games And Special Interests

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Can anyone explain the difference between playing video games as an ASD special interest and just playing video games.

I'm not sure there is a difference?

I suppose the "special interest" version can maybe be more obsessive? I'm not really sure.

The reason I asked is I'm trying to identify autistic traits and video games used to rule my life ( a lot better now but I still love them ) , as in stay up all night playing them then skipping school because I was too tired.

I read that it's usually intensity that defines a special interest but I've known lots of people play long sessions of video games.

I'm inclined to believe there's no difference whatsoever between the two.

I have video games as a special interest. Between things, I will usually focus on one video games at a time. When I play one, it's the only one I will play for as long as it drives my interest. In the end, after some time, I always go back to the same one which is really my special interest. I do not only enjoy playing the game, but also doing researches on it. I am also a completionist of games I play. I deeply struggle to not have 100% a game.

The expert who assessed me reflected that this whole interest was cathartic for me, that it helped me feel better.

For me, it's an issue, in the sense, that I feel the need to do something related to video game, either playing or researching, almost every day. While I can put this need on the side for other responsibilities or just other activities I enjoy, after some time, it might result in frustration or in overall emotional instability, because I find ways to stabilize my emotions through video games.

At the contrary, an NT interested in video games won't struggle switching from one game to another. A normal interest in a video game is driven by the inherent characteristics of the video game. What I mean by that is that it's normal to play video game for extended period of time if the video game is new, by example. Games are designed in a way that drives the person to continue to play it, to maintain their interest, and it's normal to lose sight of time every now and then while playing a game. My interest goes beyond that. My interest is, between thing, about understanding how the game was designed to drive the player's interest. And, this is enough motivation to interest me in a game. I love to analyze a video games in ways I can understand the various design choices, to compare various video games experience between them. I don't exactly play video game only for the video game experience.

A video game becomes an obsession/addiction when it starts to get in the way of life obligations, such as school, family, friends or work and when the person failed to remove himself from the video game. He might be lying to his relatives to be able to continue to play. There was this guy on the news at some point, he was so obsessed with video games, that his parents thought it would be good to lock his consoles in a strongbox, but he found a way to force it. Despite my very strong interest in video games, it does not have that much consequences in my life. I feel the need to attribute sufficient time for it to maintain balance and finding the right amount of time to find that balance and complete my responsibilities can, sometimes, be an issue, but that's about it.

Thanks Ailurus , I can definitely relate to a lot of what you've written except playing video games for something other than the video game experience , but my interest has evolved a lot since it began as a kid and for some games I love creating a custom DLC ( music related games ). I also have terabytes of games and there are some I have never played , it's the only thing I really collect and I've even mourned losing games for consoles that no longer work.
Do you ever get very angry and frustrated while playing games and is it related to ASD?
I am also a completest and some games I'll wait for a long period of time before playing again so i get that fresh new feeling again.

When I have a goal in a video game and can't reach it for some reasons, it might depress me for some time. It won't really frustrate me. Like when I die too much and I either loose some valuable piece of equipment or just can't get over a boss or something. There is a form of emotional switch in mind, where the game I perceived as good, suddenly become something bad I have to move away from. It does not last for very long, but it's definitely a displeasing experience. I guess I enjoy video games for the sense of controls they give me. They have various things that happen that are unexpected, but, in a way, games allow you to gain control over these and when, for some reasons, I can't achieve or lose that control, I feel bad.

I get frustrated when I loose a game I used to love. It's not really that I would want to play it much again, just still having it. I don't collect video games, tho, but I do enjoy to collect things related to video games, like figurines. I wish I had more.

What is your favorite game?

Woah , such a difficult question to answer.

At the moment I'm shifting between Watch Dogs PS3 to Rocksmith on the PC.
The Last Of Us & Beyond: Two Souls blew me away on PS3
Huge fan of the Guitar Hero / Rockband series.
Burnout Takedown Xbox 360 ( Crash Junctions not the racing ) ruled my life for a while and interfered with work.
I love the Hitman series ( I love stealth FPS ).
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater PS1 was a big part of my life.
Saboteur - ZX Spectrum 48k
Kaboom on the Atari 2600 was the game that started my journey.

What's your favourite?

One of my all-time faves. Back in the day I was able to finish Saboteur in all the difficulty levels. Never managed to do the same in Sab2, the map was way too big.

I don't think I ever played Sab2 but Sab1 was awesome , it sucked me into the world of ninjas

I'm too young to have experienced the Spectrum. Tho, I had an Atari with Space Invaders and Pitfall.

I greatly enjoyed Ori and the blind forest. It is definitely a game to play. It's short, but an extremely well done game. I have discussed it with someone after discovering it and was told it was used in a game design class as an example of how to design a game.

I think my best memories of video games are from the 90s with games like Dungeon Keeper and Ultima Online and just the overall plate-former experience of the SNES.

I mostly enjoy plate-formers and turn-based or strategic RPGs games.

I have played Ori and thought what a beautiful game it was , I played it for a few levels and can't remember what sidetracked me but I haven't gone back ( I only had it on PC ).
I never owned a SNES so have never played the other games you mentioned and I could never get into turn based games however my GF loves them especially online she'd play Lord Of The Rings , Command & Conquer , Halo War but she had to keep her mic off otherwise she didn't get games or players disconnected as soon as they were losing probably because they didn't want to have their ass handed to them by a girl

Hmm, the bit about switching from one game to another, to me isnt an ASD or NT trait alone.

I'm not an NT, but at the same time, I switch frequently. Usually a couple of times per day. There's always a group of games I'm focused on at any one time. Like, right now, that group is: Binding of Isaac, 20XX, Caveblazers, Unexplored, and a couple of others. Very much on a big roguelike trend right now. I mostly play indie games (AAA games just bore me these days), and the sheer rate at which the games come out means that there's just too many good ones around... focusing on just one means missing out on who knows how many others.

At the same time though, there's certain games that are pretty much *always* part of my "rotation". Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, and a couple of others... the games I consider to be the absolute best of the best. Isaac is one of those too.

When it comes to the idea of getting 100% of a game, well.... yeah, I dont really care. I'm in these for the gameplay itself, and the challenge. Alot of things like achievements and such can be more than a little braindead, grindy, or just plain boring, so I dont bother with them. Particularly with roguelikes of any sort: those are all about the experience of each individual run. They tend to always have lots of unlockables, but they arent ABOUT those.

As for the sorts of games I really get into, hmm. My main genres are bullet-hell shmups, and roguelikes. I need a very high level of challenge in order for a game to hold my attention (with exceptions), and I mean the sort of challenge that goes well beyond what something like Dark Souls offers, so these two genres are ideal. I play fighting games alot as well, but not as much recently. They're competitive multiplayer, but my skill level has gotten high enough that it actually makes it difficult to find opponents; most players wont fight me more than once. Games like Minecraft are the exception to the high difficulty rule.... sort of. That game, I can make it difficult if I want, with mods. I dont play FPS games, and RPGs of any sort. Not a fan of story stuff in games.... if I want a story, I'll read a book (and I've got like a zillion books). Alot of games I do play dont even have a story, or they have one that's as minimal as possible. In the case of Dwarf Fortress, the gameplay IS the story (if you've ever watched/played it, you'll know what I mean), and that's the only one where I care about that.

Also very into retro games. I still have all of my old Atari 2600 and NES games and whatnot. I also use emulators.

The bit about difficulty though, is where I suspect alot of gamers with any form of autism would struggle. Heck, it's where alot of NTs struggle. For example, a game like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuOQBL1T2o8

That game is on the high end of difficulty, as bullet-hell games go, which is... pretty freaking high. Even the ones on the low end, are going to be incredibly tough. This type of game, it's the sort of thing that most players will never, ever beat. Particularly on it's highest difficulty, which is what I'm playing in the video there. At the boss fight, it starts to give a hint of just how ridiculous the challenge will get. Most people, when seeing the boss's first attack, cant even tell what they're looking at. As the first boss however, it is the easiest of the bosses and mid-bosses. So the difficulty starts out at "absurd" and just keeps going. I eventually beat the game, but it took thousands of attempts and who knows how many hours of practice... and that's where it'd get alot of players. People that are after "completion" would get stuck on MOST of the genre, let alone this one. Same with achievements. And not all achievements are about simply beating parts of the game... these games are usually also played for score, so there are achievements that are about both beating difficult parts, but also doing it while scoring very high. Roguelikes are often similar in the very high difficulty, and they have alot of randomization to them. You cant memorize a game like that.

But this challenge is a huge part of what keeps my obsession going. And it's gone further than that. With the bullet-hell games in particular, I can analyze every part of them, including the bullet patterns themselves. I can tell you what kinds of layers different attacks are made of, and what functional purpose each one serves, and how the challenge is generated and balanced. I actually got contracted to work on a game of this nature, because of that, which kinda speaks for just how "into" it I have gotten.

As you might expect, this can eat up alot of hours, which can be a problem at times. I have nothing but free time though, so that works out okay, I guess. It also means too much sitting.

This obsession/interest has also led to others. For example I got into cosplay, because of the whole gaming thing. Which also got me travelling out of the state on my own for the first time, something I now do frequently. And recently, I'm learning to fly drones/quadcopters. Which doesnt seem connected at first glance, but when you look at it, it's not that much different from a video game... I have the drone, which is controlled by something that's basically an extra complicated game controller, and I try to gain skill and do various things with it. There's alot of challenge to it (just learning to land the thing properly is something alot of people get stuck on, and it gets harder from there), particularly since I'm currently only flying the thing in my basement, which presents the problems you'd expect. But it's exciting to me in the same way that so many games are and keeps my attention for alot of the same reasons.


Anyway, that's enough rambling from me. It's an interesting topic, the whole obsession aspect, so I figured, why not go into it a bit.

Interesting post Misery , I can relate to some of it but don't play those style of games anymore but I found the bullet pattern comment very relatable. I also find it interesting about connections expanding your interest , I feel I've done the same , it's funny that something I don't find interesting can become interesting if there is some sort of PC interactivity involved e.g. food shopping = boring , food shopping online = fun

I go hard on video games myself as if I don't have obsessive and addictive tendencies as it is. I've had times where if given the time I will play a game for 5 to 8 hours. One time I played a game for 12 hours and the longest time spend gaming for me was 18 hours o-o

I imagine it's the same as whatever metric you use to determine a special interest in anything else. Sometimes NTs can achieve the same level of interest in something as autistic special interest, and there are some things in this World where plenty do. Video games is one, football is another such thing, a deep interest / obsession with football is one of the few things in this World that is seen as "normal". An interest in cars is another.