I guess I might as well post about my own experiences, even though I'm probably not a typical game player:

I noticed myself developing the habit of seeking the dead ends first in video games, but I thought that it was just a bad habit that I developed, and that most other people don't play like that. My brother doesn't play like that. But I continue using this strategy even in games where there isn't a reward at the dead ends. I deliberately choose the path that's more likely to be a dead end first, just for my own peace of mind, to know that it's a dead end, and I don't have to mentally keep track of another decision branch that I might have to come back and try later. And I also apply this strategy in real life, in any situation that involves a branching set of decisions, where if I take the wrong branch, I'll need to go back to a previous branch, and there is some cost involved in backtracking, even if the cost is just a trivial amount of time or mental bookkeeping. And I've found that this is actually a good and helpful strategy. Or maybe it just feels helpful, despite often being counterproductive. If, for example, you're trying to track down a bug in your source code, and... actually, rather than trying to explain in words, I'll just link to this XKCD comic, which illustrates what happens you follow the opposite of this strategy.

I'm not afraid of spoilers. And I have the bad (or maybe not so bad?) habit of always playing to win, as opposed to playing for fun. If there is a guide for the game, I'll read it. Unless reading the guide would actually be more work than figuring things out for myself, or if reading the guide would prevent me from learning or practicing a skill that's actually important. Guides can save you from having to do lots of pointless searching, or experimenting, and can prevent you from making wrong choices early in a game that have big harmful consequences later in a game. And they can contain other important information that you wouldn't have had much chance of figuring out on your own. Also, I often find reading the guide to be more fun than actually playing the game.

I apply the same paranoia to games that I apply to real life. I err on the side of spending too much effort researching which choice to make, rather than risking making the wrong choice by deciding arbitrarily on a whim. And this is often necessary even in video games, due to imbalanced classes, or classes that just don't fit my playing style.

Another example of this paranoia: I'm constantly expecting that at any moment, the game might contain a challenge that's impossible, or that is only possible if I haven't made any other mistakes or wasted any rare items until I reached that challenge. And this is sometimes necessary even in video games.

I also apply the same frugality in video games that I apply in real life, even if I know that the game's currency inflates dramatically as the game continues, making this strategy counterproductive. I just can't bring myself to act in any other way. I avoid buying any items I probably don't need. I avoid using up nonrenewable items, often to the point where it's useless to keep them in my inventory because I never use them. And yet I still try to collect as many of these nonrenewable items as possible, even though I know I'm probably never going to use them. The problem with this strategy was illustrated in this 8-bit-theater comic. Specifically, the quote "I merely realized that my reluctance to sacrifice spell slots or use items for the express purpose of maintaining my peak level of versatility was a vicious cycle of stagnation."

Actually, this strategy sometimes causes problems in real life. Usually with food going bad because I was reluctant to use it up... just because of some irrational inhibition about using up any resource that can't be easily replaced.

I really hate playing "deathmatch mode" in FPS games, because the usual rules about trying to survive at all costs no longer apply, because you're competing for the highest number of kills, not trying to be the last person standing. After years of trying, I still can't get used to playing like that. And so I've mostly stopped trying.

I suspect that video games have made me more risk averse than I would have been otherwise, by constantly providing me with examples of ways that things can go terribly wrong. I'm still undecided about whether this has an overall positive effect. For example, when I'm driving, it makes me constantly be on the lookout for objects that could potentially move into my path or otherwise collide with my car. But sometimes it makes me panic, with dangerous results.

I guess I had better stop writing now, this comment has already grown too long.