Video Game and Stats Causing Anxiety

Hey there, I’ve been having problems with anxiety over a particular issue for the past few weeks and was wondering if I could get some advice/stories of similar experiences from people. I have talked to my therapist about it, but I’d like to see what other people with anxieties make of it.

It’s to do with a video game. I'm not entirely sure if this is the right forum for this post, as there are certainly obsessional qualities to my problem, but this seems a good place to try asking. I recognise this is a really silly, inconsequential problem, but that’s irrational anxieties for you. I hope people won’t judge me harshly and can offer some advice.

I apologise for the length of this post, but I need to explain my complicated situation clearly. I guess I probably also need to vent. I hope you will read it.

The game in question is Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. I’m having two problems with it. First of all, after I bought the game, it took me several days to muster up the courage to play it. I’ve been playing the previous game in the series (Super Smash Bros. Brawl) for six and a half years. I was super hyped for that game before it came out in 2008, and it met my expectations and has provided me with so many great memories. What if this new Smash Bros. game isn’t as good? What if I don’t like the changes they’ve made? What if I have this game in my collection that I’m supposed to play instead of Brawl and I just don’t like it as much? I guess I’ve just got to try and accept that it’s a different game to Brawl. It has its own identity and I shouldn’t try and impose my old memories and habits onto it…

But a more significant problem is the game’s stats. This is a game that records a lot of stats as you play it that you can look up within the game. Among lots of things, it records how many times you turn the game on, how many hours you’ve played it for and even posts messages with timestamps when you complete certain achievements.

I eventually started playing the game and seemed to rather enjoy it. However, I didn’t realise that I’d set the internal clock on my Wii U console wrong, so the very first timestamped message in my records (saying “You played Smash Bros. for the first time”) had an incorrect time listed with it. Now I’m someone whose anxieties all seem to stem from issues with control. I want the pieces of technology I use to behave as I want them to, and I want all my electronic records to give an accurate representation of who I am and my habits. I’ve had severe anxiety in the past caused by pieces of technology changing and not behaving how I’m used to.

So I figured my best solution to this was, instead of permanently keeping an incorrect record, to delete the game’s save data (as I’d barely played it) and start over (with the correct internal clock, of course). However, this has led to a big problem. The Wii U itself keeps its own records in a separate Wii U Activity Log, outside of any games’ records. It lists how many times you’ve played each game on the system and for how long. This log cannot be reset or deleted in any way. So the Activity Log remembers the times I played the game before I deleted its save data, but the records within the Smash Bros. game do not. So this means the stats (i.e. number of times played and total play time) don’t match between the two sets of records.

I know it doesn’t affect my ability to play the game at all, but this discrepancy has really thrown me off kilter, and I haven’t played any video games for the past two weeks since. I wondered if taking time away from the game would allow my anxiety to gradually dissipate, as I think it has with similar anxiety causing problems in the past. However, I’m worried that instead this game seems to be building up into this huge scary obstacle in my mind, and I’m going to be too scared to challenge it. Funnily enough, my anxiety seems to be quite reduced before I go to bed in the early hours of the morning, and I feel like I could maybe play the game, but every day when I wake up I feel pretty damn awful and unable to face or process anything. Does anyone else have their anxiety vary at different times of day?

I’ve thought of one possible solution, but haven’t been brave enough to try it yet. I read somewhere (in a forum thread about the Wii U and people with OCD) that if you unplug the Wii U’s power supply while still playing a game (and not quitting to the Wii U main menu as I would normally do), it doesn’t record the play time to the Wii U Activity Log. Hopefully though it would still have recorded the power on and play time within the game itself. I could use this method to try and match up the two sets of data to a closer level, but I of course don’t know if this will work. If it doesn’t, and the two sets of records are permanently discrepant, I don’t know how I’ll be able to adjust my thinking to be able to live with that. Even if it does work, I worry I’ll still always think I’m lying to myself about the game, or something…

So here I am with this silly problem that shouldn’t be an issue. Does anyone else get anxieties over technology and record keeping? (For example, Steam keeps a track of how long you’ve played your PC games, but only when you are connected to the Internet.) How do you deal with these irrational worries? Any words of advice/encouragement to get me playing this game again? I just want to be able to enjoy things and move forward with my life.

TL,DR: Have two differing sets of records for a game. This causes me anxiety. How do I tackle it?

I myself have had issues with pc gaming namely around addiction. Just last weekend I almost gave myself a panic attack because I was playing really badly online!

I think the key is just taking a step back from the situation and analyse it with a clear logical head.

You sound like you obviously love this game very much (I used to love smash bros when it was first released!) Don't let your brain take that joy from you. Logically stats do not matter one jot. Do they physically prevent you from playing? No they don't.

I have no experience with O C D myself so I wouldn't know exactly what is recommended these are just my thoughts. Best of wishes.

I can understand what you mean. With OCD, you can find yourself caught up in negative patterns involving numbers, statuses, etc...like everything MUST be at X or done like Y, etc.

The problem is, this is unhealthy, unproductive thinking and if I'm honest, resolution is not in changing the times to remove the problem but resolving how you think & feel about the problem because as you have recognised, its irrational.

Its not silly or daft or anything, a lot of what we talk about on here would look that way to someone without anxiety but once you go there, you see how truly strange things can get. I've had many odd rituals that if people saw them, they would think I was crazy, but thats how OCD goes and everyone can experience the same if they end up suffering from it.

If you resolve the time issue, it will resolve your current anxiety. However, thats how compulsions work. You perform them to relieve anxiety but all the end up doing is confirming a negative thinking pattern in your subconscious as being 'valid', not correct & rational, just 'valid'. This reinforcement just keeps them going.

So, your therapist should be looking for ways to get your thinking to change so that you can say "so what", "nothing bad will happen if I don't align this", "it doesn't matter if something is out by X hours". Within CBT, they have things like TEA forms and Thought Records to challenge this type of thinking.

You want to be able to change or align the time because YOU want to do it, not become your subconscious tells you that something bad is going to happen if you don't or you will just remain anxious about it.

I'm thinking perhaps this will come down to exposure and Thought Records, but its something to discuss further with your therapist since they are already aware of it.