The Witcher 3 Wins GameSpot GotY

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 22, 2015

Adding another accolade to the long list, CDProjekt Red’s The Witcher 3 was awarded Game of the Year by GameSpot today. The global team of editors take months to collate the tastes, experiences and preferences of the communities they represent. Their final list of the top 25 games of 2015 spans everything from big AAA titles to small but impactful indie games. We explored political turmoil, civil war, supernatural elements, and a vibra

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We Now Have Way More Sympathy for Game Devs

Posted By: Melissa - December 19, 2015

Welcome to all the new members pouring in! First off, thank you to everyone here. This site is the dream of three gamers and it is incredible to share it with all of you. What started as an off-hand idea has bloomed into the work of our every waking moment and we are so grateful you are here. Some of you may have noticed the challenges we have had with our current version. Several members were magically transported to far away lands last mo

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Changes Coming to WoW PvP

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 17, 2015

We WoW fans have been eagerly awaiting the details of the new Legion PvP changes that were teased at BlizzCon. Blizzard put up a massively detailed post on their blog yesterday and while we admit that we were skeptical to begin with (aaaarg, change!), the updates look like they will breathe new life in to what some think is a ailing game. Hopefully, these changes will make it easier for good players who haven’t spent the past decade gatheri

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Halo 5 Update Brings Forge To A New Level

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 16, 2015

Halo 5: Gaurdians players are getting a holiday gift a little early. Today, 343 Industries released a free update for the Xbox One shooter, called The Cartographer’s Gift. This is the second free expansion, it follows Battle of Shadow and Light which was released in November. The Cartographer's Gift adds more maps - both Area and Warzone, new assassinations, new REQs and what we are most excited about: a massive overhaul of Fo

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The Final Announcements for Super Smash Bros Wii U

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 16, 2015

Masahiro Sakurai, Director of the Super Smash Bros. series, hosted the final presentation for the game today, announcing the last two additions to the list of fighters. Once they release, hopefully in February of next year, there will be 58 playable characters and 84 stages.  Corrin, from Fire Emblem Fates was announced first. The tactical role-playing game is due to be released for the 3DS in the west on February 19th. As you can choose

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Unravel Release Date Announced

Posted By: Melissa - December 14, 2015

Swedish studio Coldwood Interactive and EA have finally answered the burning question of release date for Unravel. The game will be released on February 9th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PCs. To celebrate the announcement, they have also released a beautiful story trailer; you can see it here. This is one of my most anticipated games of next year and I don't think I am going to be disappointed.  Unravel is a physic-based puzz

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Microsoft Adds More Support for Xbox Wireless Adapter

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 11, 2015

For those of you who prefer controllers to keyboards, today a is a great day. Finally, Microsoft officially introduced Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 support for the Xbox Wireless Adapter. When the dongle was released in October there was only support for Windows 10 - because loads of us were super keen on that update (and all of the auto ones that would come after), right?  Now that there is support for 7 and 8.1, we don’t mind the $25

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EVE: Valkyrie Announced as Oculus Rift PreOrder Bonus

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 10, 2015

It has been several years since the Oculus Rift was introduced as the next big gaming experience. With still frustratingly few real details about the some time in Q1 release date, new and actually exciting info has been announced. Those who pre-order the device will get EVE: Valkyrie and an Xbox One controller so they can dogfight their way through space without leaving the living room - or your bed, no judgements.  CCP Games, best k

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Elder Scrolls Online F2P Weekend and $1M Giveaway

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 10, 2015

Elder Scrolls Online is free to play this weekend for PC/Mac and Xbox One. Beginning at 8am GMT on Thursday and ending on Monday at 8am GMT, players will have full run of the game. Check out their announcement for details on downloading. PlayStation 4 wasn’t included, but ZeniMax is “working with Sony on a technical solution.” We hope that has something to do with the just announced free PlayStation Plus weekend that just happen

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System Shock 3 Leaked

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 08, 2015

Earlier, on their Facebook, OtherSide Entertainment posted a link to a site: https://othersidetease.com/b645gt.php . Following the link takes you to a mostly black page with only an ominous count down and a glitchy animated ’s’. Of course gamers weren’t going to leave it there and a user at RPGCodex dug into the source code and posted a confirmation of what we all were hoping for: System Shock 3. System Shock and its sequel a

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Minecraft Finally Confirmed for Wii U

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 07, 2015

In a live podcast on Saturday for Nintendo World Report, Damon Baker - Nintendo of America Senior Manager of Licensing and Marketing - teased an announcement coming on Monday. A big announcement. Fans spent the weekend speculating everything from new Super Smash Bros. news to details about the NX.  Today, Nintendo and Mojang announced that despite doubts, Minecraft will be coming to the Wii U as a digital release on the 17th of this month

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The Leaked List of Games Probably Coming to Steam

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 06, 2015

NeoGAF has leaked a list of games possibly coming to Steam. Some were added as potential topics in the Steam Help Desk while others were found through SteamDB. Both are relatively reliable ways of predicting what games are planning to release on the platform. There are some fantastic games on the list, previously only available on console:     •    Everybody's gone to the rapture     

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PlayStation Experience Kicks Off With Exciting Keynote

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 05, 2015

Sony’s second annual PlayStation Experience kicked off with a keynote filed with tons of announcements and trailers. It continues later today with panels from some of the largest franchises on PlayStation such as Uncharted and Call of Duty. Here are the parts of the keynote speech we are most excited about: The new Final Fantasy 7 remake gameplay trailer was shown and it looks fantastic. While we wait for that, the PC port of the

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Amplitude Soundtrack and PS4 Release Date Announced

Posted By: Melissa - December 02, 2015

Today, Sony and Harmonix announced the release date of an updated version of Amplitude. On January 5th, PlayStation 4 owners can get the game through the PlayStation Store for $20. No word yet on the PS3 version. The Kickstarter backed update was originally slated to come out in March of this year and continued to be pushed back as Harmonix added new features. The original is one of my all time favorite games and I can't wait to share this

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Bloodborne Servers Down For Emergency Maintenance

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - December 01, 2015

If you were planning on playing some Bloodborne this week, perhaps trying to climb the leaderboards with your friends in recently added patch: The League -- you are going to have to wait. Sony announced today that the servers are down for “emergency maintenance”. We are currently conducting emergency maintenance on the game servers. The maintenance should be complete within a few days. We will update you again once

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Interactive Loading Screen Patent Expires Friday

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - November 25, 2015

Something great is happening this week. Though, yes, our American team members are pretty stoked to eat their weight in turkey and stuffing, what we are all really excited about this week is the end of US patent 5718632.  While that may read as just a bunch of numbers, the patent they represent has had a profound impact on gamers. Filed on November 27th, 1995 by Namco - this patent stopped all other game devs from including interactive

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New Game From Makers of Retro City Rampage

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - November 25, 2015

PlayStation and Vblank Entertainment announced a sequel to Retro City Rampage today. The 16-bit follow up, called - Shakedown Hawaii - takes place 30 years after the previous game and follows The Player as he is forced out of retirement to save his "neglected corporate empire". There aren't a lot of details in either the blog post or the trailer, but we do know it will release for the PlayStation 4 and Vita and that the first g

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Mankind Divided Delayed

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - November 18, 2015

In a blog post titled “No compromise on quality”, Eidos-Montreal Head of Studio David Anfossi announced that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is being delayed until August 23rd, 2016.  I know that expectations are extremely high, and we not only want to meet those expectations, but exceed them. We’re confident and proud of the game so far. However, as we are now playing through the game in full we can see that it will require

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Pillars of Eternity: The White March Part 2 Announced

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - November 16, 2015

Today, Obsidian and Paradox Interactive announced that the second expansion for Pillars of Eternity, The White March Part Two, will be out in late January 2016. If that title sounds oddly familiar, you aren’t experiencing deja vu - this DLC finishes the story started in the first expansion. There isn’t a lot to report on at this time, but we can tell you that level caps have been raised, there are new quests and abilities as well a

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Highlights From Today's Nintendo Direct

Posted By: The GamerDating Team - November 13, 2015

It has been months since the last Nintendo Direct and fans turned out by the thousands online. For any of you lifetime Nintendo fans out there who couldn’t watch the livestream of today’s Nintendo Direct, we have you covered. You can watch the entire 45 minute broadcast here. Legend of Zelda As suspected, Twilight Princess HD will be coming to the WiiU. The preorders start today and the release will be March 4th, 2016. Of c

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Too Much Salt is Bad for You - Relationship Advice from Emily Toye

Posted By: Emily Toye - January 30, 2017

If you’re part of the gaming community, you’ll probably be familiar with the idea of ‘being salty’. For those who are unsure of the term, it is a way to describe someone who is upset or angry about something. In the case of video games, someone might be salty that they lost a match of CS:GO or died to a boss in Dark Souls. Getting angry at a video game and being salty can be a common occurrence in many video games and, just like the mineral the phrase is named after, too much salt is certainly not good, especially in a relationship.

Over the few years I’ve been with my Player 2, we’ve run into a few incidents where one of us will start getting salty at a video game, either by yelling or cursing at a game or being so mad we stop playing the game for days or even weeks at a time. Those few times we got angry we would be talking over the internet or sat next to each other, the latter being a lot more intense. Sometimes only one of us would be salty, other times we would both be salty, but either way it left us both feeling exhausted, guilty and regretting the anger immediately regardless of game genre.

I noticed that the games most likely to trigger annoyance and anger were versus games, such as fighters, and competitive games where we could be on the same team. The fighter games would pitch us against each other – we’re both rather competitive people, so playing a game like this would cause us both to be salty and would result in controllers being thrown down and not touched for months. The competitive games were also a problem sometimes. We would get salty and blame each other for something not going the right way. Fortunately, none of these tiffs would lead to anything major, but I always had a fear that it could.

This is where problems can come in, when the lines between the video game and reality blur and the arguments leave the game and end up resulting in real arguments between partners. You die in a video game, get angry about it and blame your partner. They, in turn, start yelling at you for blaming them and the argument spirals out of control. The game is no longer part of the argument but you still shout at each other. I had that worry go through my mind a few times: I hated the idea that one death in a video game could result in an argument that could dent the relationship.

For a while, I found it hard to supress some of the things I said about a game or how my Player 2 acted in a certain situation, which could have hurt his feelings. After a long time of playing video games with him, I realised the best way to avoid arguments is to get to the source and not get too salty in the first place. Of course it’s fine to express your feelings about something that displeases you in a game – it shows your passion for a game and how much it can mean to you to win. But, when it goes too far, it can make you and your partner feel terrible in the short and/or long term.

Gaming LoL

So, how do you avoid getting too salty? I compiled a few questions to think about before saying anything bad towards your partner purposely or inadvertently and things you should remember when playing a video game to avoid you getting stressed and angry. These are just techniques I apply to myself and I hope they can also help you in reducing salt levels which, in turn, will reduce the risk of having arguments with your Player 2.

Remember: it’s just a game. Yes, I know this one is really obvious to remember and may come across as patronising but I find remembering this helpful when playing any game. I often get very immersed in a game world and I sometimes forget that what I am playing is just a game and I’m not losing territory or a war in real life. Because of this, I can get very agitated if people don’t take something seriously in the game. Reminding myself periodically that what I was doing was playing a game with my friends was enough for me to calm down and not raise my voice or say anything negative. I would face any death or bad situation with the phrase “Oh well, it’s just a game”, which has reduced my chances of getting salty. If you have problems with salt, just remembering what you’re doing, which is playing a PC or console game with a partner and/or friends.

Ask yourself: “How would my partner feel?” and “Would I say this to their face?” I’ve thought about this many times. Seeing your Player 2 make a mistake in the game may cause frustration. I found that my partner and I would sometimes say some hurtful terms to each other without thinking as a result of such frustration. For us, it never escalated further, but I always wonder what would be said if it did. As a result, I started to think about things and how they would affect my Player 2 before I said them. These questions require thinking before you speak and imagining you’re saying what you want to say directly to your partner’s face. I believe people are more likely to say harsh things to peers when not face-to-face, leading to arguments amongst friends or partners. Thinking about how my Player 2 would feel if I said anything spiteful towards him, by putting myself in his shoes, made me stop to consider what I should say instead. I also pictured how he would react if I said it to his face, which helped me empathise with him. He does the same and we manage to have a better gaming experience that way. So, instead of him yelling at me asking why the hell I didn’t kill a certain enemy, he’d ask me if I was alright and if I needed any help within the game.

Think about the other side of the screen. This is related more to multiplayer games with players who you don’t know. I’ve sometimes found that me and my companion get frustrated at actions that an enemy player does, like killing us three times in a row in a MOBA and making it look effortless. This leads to both of us getting salty and pointing the blame at the enemy team and our own team. All of this frustration would usually end up with us losing the game and rage quitting. The way I found to get around this was to imagine the human behind the screen who is playing that enemy character and think about how they felt they were doing really well in this game. Imagine yourself in the same situation, where you got three kills on someone and felt proud of yourself. That is how that person is feeling on the other side of the screen.

Once again, this is about empathy. I find being empathetic with those online players can reduce my saltiness and stop me yelling at my team. I’d look at the enemy team doing well and, instead of focusing on the negatives, think that they were playing really well and probably have a lot more experience with the characters. Combined with thinking “it’s just a game”, I look at the game with a more positive light and find I get less salty. This technique allows you to keep a more level head instead of tilting and throwing the game because of anger.

By combining a few of these ideas in any game type, you will see a reduction in anger and perhaps less stress between you and your Player 2. You will feel less agitated with a game and get a more positive experience out of a gaming session instead of frustration and no satisfaction. Furthermore, your gaming peers and your Player 2 will also leave games feeling more positive. Finding what works for you is the best way to reduce saltiness, whether it’s having a stress ball next to your keyboard or taking breaks. If it works for you, that’s what’s important.

Working out how to get around arguments and how to reduce them is an important part of any relationship and, with the added aspect of competitiveness associated with games, it can be hard to lower anger and stress whilst playing together. But, by communicating with each other and finding methods that work for both of you, you can keep the bond between you strong and still enjoy your shared hobby without fear of arguments. Remember, salt is bad for you, in both the mineral and gaming definition of the word, and reducing the amount you consume will always be beneficial to you and to those around you.

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