Video game related Injuries

[Lago 139]

A long, long time ago a friend and I were playing SMB 3.  He kept dying against the hammer brothers.  
 

It was unusual.  He wasn’t the greatest player, but he wasn’t terrible either.  He kept trying and inexplicably dying.  The longer it went on the funnier it got.  The more I laughed, the madder he got.

Finally, things hit a boiling point.  My friend died again.  I’m rolling. He launches the controller at the tv.  The controller ricochets off the tv and smacks him right in the mouth, busting his lip.  I laughed that much harder.

Ahh, fun times.

Your turn!

[Gloves 10,025]

I have pretty bad carpal tunnel because I sit on a computer all day coding, and then when I'm done I continue sitting at the computer playing pc games. That's kinda like an injury. 

[doner24 1,073]

I got pretty good at swinging a genesis controller at my brother when he beat me at Mortal Kombat 2 back in the day. Gave him some good welts. 

[Bearcat-Doug 4,274]

During the 2015 Track and Field weekly contest, the joints in my thumbs were legitimately sore for almost a month after an entire week of mashing buttons as fast as possible for several hours a day. I somehow managed to win the next two contests despite my thumbs seriously killing me.

[Darth Vader 150]

Oh man, get ready for this one.

So when Final Fantasy VII came out, I was in that shit deep. I played that game non-stop, pretty much did everything that could be done in that game. My girlfriend at the time loved just watching me play it, never touched it though. When FF IX came out, she got in on the action. She was super into the card game Tetra Master. Mistake I made was  not giving her a dedicated file. She played Tetra Master on my main game file.

So one day, we were chillin' in my room and I was playing the game. I got about 2 hours of progress in and then she wanted to play Tetra Master. So I handed over the controller. She was playing for about 20 mins or so and ended up losing a really valuable card. I was sitting there watching, picking at my nails with a pocket knife. She looked over and said she wanted to reset the game so she could get the card back. I realized I hadn't saved and would lose my 2 hours of progress. So naturally I said "Fuck No" but she wasn't having it and we started arguing big time. Well it came down to her lunging for the Playstation and hitting the reset button. I immediately, without thinking, screamed out "What the FUUUCCKKKK!!!", took the pocket knife I was holding and stabbed that mother fucker into the wall behind me as hard as I could. Well, I ended up hitting a stud and my hand slid right down the knife. Ended up getting 8 stitches. 

[CMR 468]

I got blisters from SFII on the SNES and from trying to pull of Sabin's special moves in FF3/6.  I think I wound up putting tape or something on my thumb to help it slide over the D-pad.

[11strings 90]

When you collect 200+lb. Arcade games you get all kinds of injuries. I've hurt my back, legs, feet multiple times lol

[DefaultGen 4,416]

I have a RSI wrist injury from playing too much Path of Exile, like heroin addiction, never sleeping too much. Way, way, too much. I haven't played in a year and it still sucks. Don't get addicted to video games.

[DefaultGen 4,416]

20 hours ago, Gloves said:

I have pretty bad carpal tunnel because I sit on a computer all day coding, and then when I'm done I continue sitting at the computer playing pc games. That's kinda like an injury. 

Don't hide Runescape under the generic label "PC games"

[austin532 457]

I think we all got blisters from this at one point...

[MovieTom 39]

I got a bad blister playing Rival Schools on PS1 back in the day. I didn't have a dualshock at the time and trying to make those half circles and quarter circles on the d-pad just killed my thumbs. 

When I was 11, my brother and I would play a lot of NHLPA 93 on the Genesis. He was always Chicago and I was always Detroit. After several very heated and close games, he beat me for the millionth time and I was so pissed I snapped the Genesis controller in half. No one was injured except my controller. My mom then told us we couldn't play that game for a while. LOL

[Tulpa 2,841]

My cousin and I were playing Madden 93. It was my game and my Sega Genesis, so because I logged way more hours, I was able to beat him most of the time, even if he played as Washington (the overall best team in that year.) My game room was an upstairs loft area where the staircase to downstairs and the rest of the house kind of rose out of the floor. No guardrails or anything, just a rectangular opening with stairs going down. 

One day we were playing and it's the most intense game ever. Leads constantly changing. Turnover city. Finally he gets an interception, runs it in for a touchdown and manges to hold me before I can score again.

He leaps up, does a victory lap around the loft ... and promptly runs into the hole and falls down the stairs.

He wasn't seriously hurt, maybe a bruise.

Surprisingly this didn't convince my dad to put up guardrails.

Edited November 16, 2019 by Tulpa

[MuNKeY 241]

I blistered the palm of my right hand spamming Kanos barrel roll on Mortal Kombat arcade back in the day, instead of gripping the stupid joystick like someone it seemed easier to place my palm on top to rotate the stick quicker, which indeed worked as I almost got to the end on the .50, and I never heard the end of it either for several years afterwards "Heard ya blisted yer hand playin with yer joystick." in all variations.  

[GPX 1,207]

On 11/15/2019 at 12:40 PM, Gloves said:

I have pretty bad carpal tunnel because I sit on a computer all day coding, and then when I'm done I continue sitting at the computer playing pc games. That's kinda like an injury. 

Not "kinda", it IS an injury! Carpal Tunnel is probably one of the most commonest RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) that's out there.

As for me personally, just the typical thumb sore/blisters from playing too much Street Fighter 2 back in those days, and more recently playing several consecutive hours of Geometry Wars 2.

[zeppelin03 314]

On 11/15/2019 at 11:10 AM, Gloves said:

I have pretty bad carpal tunnel because I sit on a computer all day coding, and then when I'm done I continue sitting at the computer playing pc games. That's kinda like an injury. 

My mouse hand gets real bad from clicking around in Excel all day.  Add smart phone usage and gaming in my freetime.  I've had to buy grips for handhelds and try to favor certain controllers on console/PC.

[Tulpa 2,841]

3 hours ago, zeppelin03 said:

My mouse hand gets real bad from clicking around in Excel all day.  Add smart phone usage and gaming in my freetime.  I've had to buy grips for handhelds and try to favor certain controllers on console/PC.

You might look into a roller mouse. My assistant at work got one when she was developing RSI (carpel tunnel and tennis elbow.) She got used to it quickly and now won't use any other mouse.

[a3quit4s 3,220]

I’ve done some pretty dumb things when getting super frustrated, hit the controller on my head, punched walls, etc. Nothing really ever lead to a real injury though. I’ve definitely gotten the thumb blisters too on a couple of occasions; all nighters on GoldenEye, CoD, Halo, LoZ

[demanufacturedmario 13]

I'm surprised no one mentioned the first Mario Party.  Blisters galore on the palm of your hands.

[JamesRobot 4,978]

[Reed Rothchild 7,521]

Carpal tunnel in college from Morrowind, and a severe blister in high school from Mario Party

[spacepup 2,044]

On 11/14/2019 at 9:29 PM, Darth Vader said:

Oh man, get ready for this one.

So when Final Fantasy VII came out, I was in that shit deep. I played that game non-stop, pretty much did everything that could be done in that game. My girlfriend at the time loved just watching me play it, never touched it though. When FF IX came out, she got in on the action. She was super into the card game Tetra Master. Mistake I made was  not giving her a dedicated file. She played Tetra Master on my main game file.

So one day, we were chillin' in my room and I was playing the game. I got about 2 hours of progress in and then she wanted to play Tetra Master. So I handed over the controller. She was playing for about 20 mins or so and ended up losing a really valuable card. I was sitting there watching, picking at my nails with a pocket knife. She looked over and said she wanted to reset the game so she could get the card back. I realized I hadn't saved and would lose my 2 hours of progress. So naturally I said "Fuck No" but she wasn't having it and we started arguing big time. Well it came down to her lunging for the Playstation and hitting the reset button. I immediately, without thinking, screamed out "What the FUUUCCKKKK!!!", took the pocket knife I was holding and stabbed that mother fucker into the wall behind me as hard as I could. Well, I ended up hitting a stud and my hand slid right down the knife. Ended up getting 8 stitches. 

I can't say I've ever been this mad at a gaming situation.  Even losing tons of progress.  Anyway - I was reading through your story, and as I was reading through it, I thought for sure it was going to end with you grabbing the knife and stabbing your girlfriend!   I'm glad it was just the wall at least!!!!

On a more serious note, I actually hope this was a good learning lesson about games being just games, and not really that important.

[spacepup 2,044]

On 11/14/2019 at 9:10 PM, Gloves said:

I have pretty bad carpal tunnel because I sit on a computer all day coding, and then when I'm done I continue sitting at the computer playing pc games. That's kinda like an injury. 

For some reason, no one else I know who has any RSI or carpal tunnel actually believes me or is willing to try this.  But in all seriousness, I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend getting a split keyboard.  In my early work days I was doing a ton of data entry and I started having severe pains.  Eventually, I embraced the split keyboard and really worked on improving my ergonomic setup, and it makes typing SOOOOO much more enjoyable.  It took just a little bit of getting used to at first, but now when I use a regular keyboard it feels awkward and I think "how the heck did I ever used to type like this!"

Seriously - anyone who has these problems, I would highly recommend you really give it a shot, try it out for a while, and see if it helps manage!

[Gloves 10,025]

5 minutes ago, spacepup said:

For some reason, no one else I know who has any RSI or carpal tunnel actually believes me or is willing to try this.  But in all seriousness, I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend getting a split keyboard.  In my early work days I was doing a ton of data entry and I started having severe pains.  Eventually, I embraced the split keyboard and really worked on improving my ergonomic setup, and it makes typing SOOOOO much more enjoyable.  It took just a little bit of getting used to at first, but now when I use a regular keyboard it feels awkward and I think "how the heck did I ever used to type like this!"

Seriously - anyone who has these problems, I would highly recommend you really give it a shot, try it out for a while, and see if it helps manage!

Split keyboards definitely do help, and that's next on my keeb list. But as you may be aware I'm sitting on a pile of keyboards and have expensive tastes, so it may be a bit before the next purchase/build. 

[spacepup 2,044]

That is a fair point.  Plus there are so many wacky kinds out there it is hard to bite the bullet without trying it in person (trust me I know!)

As for injuries - my older brother was known to have a bit of a temper with games, and while he didn’t hurt himself or us often, I know one time he got really upset about something game-related (can’t remember now) and he stabbed the sega genesis we had with a screwdriver and cracked it (the poor thing)!  Yet, it still worked fine for many years! 

[Gloves 10,025]

12 minutes ago, spacepup said:

That is a fair point.  Plus there are so many wacky kinds out there it is hard to bite the bullet without trying it in person (trust me I know!)

As for injuries - my older brother was known to have a bit of a temper with games, and while he didn’t hurt himself or us often, I know one time he got really upset about something game-related (can’t remember now) and he stabbed the sega genesis we had with a screwdriver and cracked it (the poor thing)!  Yet, it still worked fine for many years! 

I've been looking at the ErgoDOX for a while, I'll bite the bullet one day.