What are some IRL habits you’ve picked up from playing games?

Video games provide us a lot — they act as areas where we discover community over love of a mutual game, they provide us memorable experiences and stories, teach us lessons, and influence our habits. I’m not talking about the lessons between right and wrong or good versus evil, or the habit of jumping to immediately save a character in distress. I’m talking about some of the everyday things we’ve all done — or learned to do — thanks to gaming.

Hoarding and Inventory Management

Loot is the cause of, and the solution to, nearly every problem I have in every RPGs and MMOs I’ve ever played because I grab everything I can get my hands on. For junk items, I’ll grab and sell to maximize the amount of currency I can get from vendors. For the more valuable items like consumables, weapons, and armor, I’ll hold on to it if I can’t immediately use it, in case I need it in the future.

As a direct byproduct of my hoarding habit, I’ve become really good at inventory management — I need all of this stuff, therefore, I need to account for the space. I’ve organized my character bags to hold designated items I need and use on the daily whereas my vault functions as a collectors hoard of things I want to physically keep as mementos. This has translated really well in real-life skills — I’m an incredibly efficient packer, traveler, and I keep most of things organized and neat even if I don’t use them.

In-game systems like transmog and crafting have helped me be better at evaluating what I want to keep in the last few years. Regardless, I probably won’t part with the old items and keepsakes that I’ve collected so far. Some items were hard to collect or took some time to acquire, and while some of them might be useless right now — what if I end up needing it in the future?

What’s that over there?

I generally have a difficult time following quest and objective markers because I’m really curious about the world around. Whenever I’m travelling in a game, something will inevitably catch my eye, and I’ll impulsively re-route and look. I love to explore and but more importantly exploration usually rewards me with, you guessed it, loot. Consequently, in the real world and in game worlds, sometimes it might take me forever to get anywhere because I always get distracted by something — or the possibility of something — around the corner or in the distance.

Real Life Honorable Mention

• Seeing quest markers in the real world
• Imagining what items could fit in to real world architecture, potentially revealing hidden paths or secrets

Over the weekend, some of our supporters in Discord were talking about games that provided them lessons on inventory management, which is what started me down this path. Now I want to hear from you, what are some habits or lessons you’ve picked up while playing games?