Poll: Have gamers lost touch with "playing for fun?"

[TheDooD]

"I play the game (, and then I learn it)."

This is what my room mate said as he played Mortal Kombat. I'm watching him and some friends play Mortal Kombat's campaign mode, and I suggested (after getting their asses handed to them quite a few times) that maybe they should go into training mode, get a second controller, and learn some new moves/combos instead of button mashing and spamming. But apparently, getting frustrated and using the same approach is their idea of "fun." They say they like to "learn in the heat of battle" but all they're really doing is learning a few attacks/combos and then using those few moves over and over and over...

This kind of narrow-minded thinking upsets me a little. It seems that they aren't playing the game... they're just winning (or losing, mostly); in other words, it's a competition and winning is all that matters. While I've come to expect that from anonymous people playing competitively online, it's kind of hard to deal with now that it's in my face. What's even scarier is that there's no ranking/scoreboard to spur these guys on.

What about you, Escapists? Do you feel that gamers in general, or even some of the gamers around you, have lost touch with "playing for fun" and adopting "playing to win"? What ever happened to playing for fun?

I agree with you. I really don't like playing other people that just button mash and spam. When I beat'em they normally get angry at me for playing the game like it should be played. I normally tell them to practice or try different characters but they ignore me and call me an elitist when I'm just help them not get their asses handed to them. Note I don't play to win, I play to understand the game I'm playing.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Sadly, I have to say yes. I see so many people go "Hawr har u suckk i domina8 u!1!" whenever I see people play games together, and I just go "... um, who the fuck cares? It's about having fun" and the they get all pissed and say stupid things like "No it takes skilz!1" "Skills" shouldn't be a term used in relation to playing games, unless it's talking about a character's skills/abilities in-game.

That's plainly wrong.


Serious fighting game players need to input numerous moves on reaction in fractions of a second, memorize 40+ input combos with precise timing, memorize every move everyone ever does to know how to react to it. There's definitely a lot of skill at work.

Fair enough. I was talking about fps games moreso, but yea, fighting games do take a lot of practice and precision to be good at them. But you should be playing fighting games for the fun of it, not to "dominate" your opponent. I have nothing against tournament level play for fighting games, in fact i think it's really cool to watch. But, since MOST people don't ever play at that level, they need to learn to chill out and just have a good time, was my point.

Pushing yourself to dominate as overpoweringly as possible is how you improve in fighting games. If you're pitted in a room with good foes, the one who doesn't try to overwhelm is the one who'll be defeated right away and the rest of them, all going 110%, will produce quite even-sided battles, both impressive and beneficial to their skills.


As for most lets say, "normal" people, I don't see why they shouldn't aspire to get there. The mentality is not about how good you actually are, it's about how good you wish to be. These people don't just wake up one day and decide to be serious since they're good, they have always been that serious about it, which is why they managed to become good.


Now, I don't say you shouldn't be a graceful winner or anything, obviously the guy who has to always rub everything he does in has some issues, but not all of gaming is like that.

 

[Shikua]

Here's a story about me. I hate fighting games. Really. I HATE them. I pretty much avoid them at all costs. Fuck learning combos, fuck trying to remember those combos. But you know what game I love? Marvel Vs Capcom 3. A fighting game. You know why? Simple mode. In any other fighting game, I devolve to boring button mashing before geting trashed. In Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, I can pop on simple mode, and provide a challenge to my friends that are best at the game, giving both them and me a fun experience. Now, why do I find button mashing, learning movesets ect. boring? Because loosing without putting up a fight isn't much fun, and I can never remember complicated movesets. But with simple mode, both of these are put aside, and hell, if I win, that's even better. Then it's even more fun, the temporary gloating, the kidding "I PWNED U NOOB" remarks, and it's more fun. Playing to put up a challenge and WIN is more fun than playing but loosing because I can't remember how do to attack A or counter-dodge-clusterfuck Gamma. Winning = Fun. How does this relate to button mashing guys? They have fun playing like that if they keep doing it. I give up on most fighting games because all I can do is buttonmash. If I feel like have some skill, even if I lose, at least it was fun for me.

 

[Yoh3333]

Playing to win is fun.
That is how i feel and here's why!

When i play games i usually play those who have a competitive multiplayer in them. I am very competitive by nature and therefore love these games. I also play these to win them.
That might not be considered fun when a person like me is too focused on winning, but they might say otherwise.

Personally, i play the game and try to play my best because it gives me a thrilling experience. To avoid useing CoD as an example i will choose Tetris. (yes tetris.)
See, in my class Tetris is all the rage right now. There are alot of variations of Tetris but this one is called "Tetris Battle" on Facebook. It basicly pits you against someone else (a bot camuflaged as a human) and then each time you send some lines it counts as 1 point and pushes the enemy 1 row closer to the top. These rows can be cleared through hitting certain points. Then there is the feature which is important to why i chose this example: Combos.
I am the best in my class at this game (according to the leaderboards atleast) and i get serious thrills of playing this game when everything goes just right, racking up a combo and getting the opponent crushed is an amazing feeling. That feeling is the exact same i've gotten in CoD, MAG, Minecraft and Assassins Creed: Brotherhood. The feeling of being on a roll and unstoppable. You're playing better than ever and it feels amazing!

So the point of this horribly writen post?
Playing to win is great because it encourages some people to play their best and when it finally happens that you do play perfectly and get that well deserved victory pop-up, it's just pure entertainment.

Now, fun is subjective just as the kind of way you experience it. I get it off of these thrills and some just play games to enjoy them for other reasons and that's


EDIT: Extra things i wanted to write but forgot about:
In the example you told us about i kept thinking like some other in this thread did by saying that you might not have realised what they thought of as fun.
The picture i get to mind when reading it was of 3 or 4 12 year old kids sitting around a TV takeing turns to play eachother.
They don't know the combos, they can't even read english properly. Are these kids haveing fun? Hell yeah! They are sitting there playing a fun game by button smashing. They are amazed by every special combo they randomly execute and get all excited and starts trying to redo that combo.
They are haveing so much fun but barely knows how to play the game.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Here's a story about me. I hate fighting games. Really. I HATE them. I pretty much avoid them at all costs. Fuck learning combos, fuck trying to remember those combos. But you know what game I love? Marvel Vs Capcom 3. A fighting game. You know why? Simple mode. In any other fighting game, I devolve to boring button mashing before geting trashed. In Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, I can pop on simple mode, and provide a challenge to my friends that are best at the game, giving both them and me a fun experience. Now, why do I find button mashing, learning movesets ect. boring? Because loosing without putting up a fight isn't much fun, and I can never remember complicated movesets. But with simple mode, both of these are put aside, and hell, if I win, that's even better. Then it's even more fun, the temporary gloating, the kidding "I PWNED U NOOB" remarks, and it's more fun. Playing to put up a challenge and WIN is more fun than playing but loosing because I can't remember how do to attack A or counter-dodge-clusterfuck Gamma. Winning = Fun. How does this relate to button mashing guys? They have fun playing like that if they keep doing it. I give up on most fighting games because all I can do is buttonmash. If I feel like have some skill, even if I lose, at least it was fun for me.

Sorry but when you use Simple mode you have access only a limited selection of your moves, you may be winning against your friends now but sadly you're not that good at all since you can only do a few predictable sequences of moves over and over (and your friends are definitely not "the best" at anything if they lose against simple mode lol)


Why isn't remembering fun?


Why isn't doing cool stuff through the power of your fingers entertaining to you? Don't you think it would feel good to finally land that 100% Hp combo?


Button-mashing is only fun if you are too afraid or haven't given a proper go at the alternative. If you're inherently turned off by the prospect of memorizing your moves and their sequences it is your mentality at fault and you may have had even more fun if you stepped out of your comfort zone and put in some work. I'm not saying you're not having fun, you're just missing out on a plethora of options which enrich gaming experiences.

 

[TheEndlessSleep]

Simple answer: No or we wouldn't have a reason to play.

The reason the people 'play to win' is simply because winning is more fun that losing.

Any other reason that people can come up with for playing games is, inevitably, going to contribute to their own personal enjoyment of the experience.

But apparently, getting frustrated and using the same approach is their idea of "fun."

Sooooo, they ARE still playing for fun?

Congrats on beautifully contradicting yourself

 

[Pyrokinesis]

Depends on the genre.

Pro example: CoD multiplayer

Counter Example: Minecraft

I personally dispise any PVP with a passion just because competition brings out the worst in anyone. Sleaze, corruption, abuse all for a shiny title. Now working WITH people against NPCS, much more fun.


Also on a side note: In order for someone to have fun in Cod, everyone else must suffer miserably. In order to get that 25kill streak the other team must suffer miserably so that you alone can enjoy it.

 

[razelas]

I think that people seem to not understand that other people find other things fun to them. This is evident in the OP as, so what if they got it handed, if they were enjoying enough to keep fighting losing battles then they got to what games are about, having fun and enjoying yourself.

I get this sort of thing all the time from people I know. Constantly I get the same conversation come up: "Why are you playing ? It's rubbish, its only a short campaign and there's not enough character development. Why not play <insert game here which without being a trolling prick, is pretty much always a valve game>? It's got puzzles and the plot's great and all the characters are really deep and interesting!" To which I normally reply "Fuck off, I just want to blow shit up for half an hour."

You might enjoy learning all the moves to win every battle, but if they're really enjoying just button mashing and occasionally getting a victory who are you to say they're not having fun?

*sigh*

I'm not saying they're not having fun, they obviously are... sometimes.

The problem is that the game is suffering for their fun. When a match devolves into "who can spam the most" or "who can button mash most effectively," then there is a serious problem.

 

[Conn1496]

Yes, and you know what pisses me off most? They don't realise it's JUST A GAME. Sure, everyone wants to be no.1 (I should know, I'm second on the 'quack attack' level of Raskulls worldwide, and IT'S KILLING ME INSIDE. HNG.), but pulling away from reality, spending endless hours of practice on a game so you're classed as "sad" or "******". THAT'S IDIOCY!

 

[Darius Brogan]

Incoming rant. You have been warned.

I believe that the age of 'Fun gaming' is coming to a close.
I play just about every type of game you can think of, much of the time online or multi-player if online's not available, and I've noticed that people get RIGHT PISSED OFF if you're not up to their level of skill, and drag their performance down.

At one point I was trying to play Zombies in Black Ops with one of my brothers, and we found this pair of 'friends' obviously looking for some teammates.
Not ONE second after we connected, both of us heard, over our headsets "Don't disconnect!" "What? You wanna play with these ***** ass pussies?" "Yes! for Gods sake just play the fucking game!" About two seconds later, we got kicked from the lobby because we weren't 'good enough players'

This has happened in almost every online game I've ever played in the last two or so years. If you don't meet the requirements for 'good player' you don't get to play.

As mentioned in my post above, I do get frustrated when I lose, but that's more of a "jerk of an older brother pulling the 'HAHA, you lost' bit for about three weeks after losing to him" kind of thing.

When I start getting frustrated with a game, I stop playing for a bit, because I'm not a 'Play to win and nothing else matters' kind of person. Winning rules, yes, but it's not the only reason to play video games.

Going back down memory lane for a sec.

The perfect example of a 'play only to win' player, is an old friend of mine.

We started playing vs on Soul Caliber, and the first thing he did, was use a knockdown attack. I could live with that, they do more damage. Immediately following, however, he rushed up to my character before I could get up, and started spamming a low kick, that knocks you back down every single time. He repeated this until I died. It wouldn't have been so bad if he had left it at that, but no, not only did he repeat this tactic in EVERY fight we had, but he actually thought that made him the elite player, because he never lost once.
Following that, while we continued playing, I began the same tactics: 1) Knock down 2) Repeatedly low kick 3) Victory.
He got mad at this, so I tried another, more skilled tactic, that didn't involve a helpless opponent. It went like this: 1)Let him attack me 2)counter attack 3)repeat steps 1 and 2 4)Victory.
I won six times in a row. He didn't like that. I told him that I played with honor (I've never, in my entire gaming career, attacked a downed opponent, outside those few matches), while he played as dirty as possible to ensure his own victory. That's not how a game should be played, it should be played for enjoyment.

We never gamed together again after that.

So yes, I do believe that gaming has become all about winning. Not for everyone, mind you, but for a growing majority of gamers, it's all about the win/loss ratio. Even if the ratio is just in their own mind.

 

[razelas]

Simple answer: No or we wouldn't have a reason to play.

The reason the people 'play to win' is simply because winning is more fun that losing.

Any other reason that people can come up with for playing games is, inevitably, going to contribute to their own personal enjoyment of the experience.

But apparently, getting frustrated and using the same approach is their idea of "fun."

Sooooo, they ARE still playing for fun?

Congrats on beautifully contradicting yourself

You realize they aren't literally playing to frustrate themselves, but are actually playing to win, right?

 

[Zantos]

I think that people seem to not understand that other people find other things fun to them. This is evident in the OP as, so what if they got it handed, if they were enjoying enough to keep fighting losing battles then they got to what games are about, having fun and enjoying yourself.

I get this sort of thing all the time from people I know. Constantly I get the same conversation come up: "Why are you playing ? It's rubbish, its only a short campaign and there's not enough character development. Why not play <insert game here which without being a trolling prick, is pretty much always a valve game>? It's got puzzles and the plot's great and all the characters are really deep and interesting!" To which I normally reply "Fuck off, I just want to blow shit up for half an hour."

You might enjoy learning all the moves to win every battle, but if they're really enjoying just button mashing and occasionally getting a victory who are you to say they're not having fun?

*sigh*

I'm not saying they're not having fun, they obviously are... sometimes.

The problem is that the game is suffering for their fun. When a match devolves into "who can spam the most" or "who can button mash most effectively," then there is a serious problem.

If they're enjoying themselves then the game is not suffering, it's entirely fulfilling it's purpose on earth. The serious problem would come in if they had to do something they didn't want to do and was less enjoyable for them for the sake of doing it 'properly'. At the end of the day games are primarily a source of entertainment, and if they were entertained then job done.

 

[Pyro Paul]

Do you Know who I AM?! I'm the Man thats gunna Burn your House down! With the Lemons! I'm gunna get my Engineers to invent a Combustable Lemon that Burns your House down!!
~Cave Johnson.

best... line... ever.

 

[Shikua]

Here's a story about me. I hate fighting games. Really. I HATE them. I pretty much avoid them at all costs. Fuck learning combos, fuck trying to remember those combos. But you know what game I love? Marvel Vs Capcom 3. A fighting game. You know why? Simple mode. In any other fighting game, I devolve to boring button mashing before geting trashed. In Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, I can pop on simple mode, and provide a challenge to my friends that are best at the game, giving both them and me a fun experience. Now, why do I find button mashing, learning movesets ect. boring? Because loosing without putting up a fight isn't much fun, and I can never remember complicated movesets. But with simple mode, both of these are put aside, and hell, if I win, that's even better. Then it's even more fun, the temporary gloating, the kidding "I PWNED U NOOB" remarks, and it's more fun. Playing to put up a challenge and WIN is more fun than playing but loosing because I can't remember how do to attack A or counter-dodge-clusterfuck Gamma. Winning = Fun. How does this relate to button mashing guys? They have fun playing like that if they keep doing it. I give up on most fighting games because all I can do is buttonmash. If I feel like have some skill, even if I lose, at least it was fun for me.

Sorry but when you use Simple mode you have access only a limited selection of your moves, you may be winning against your friends now but sadly you're not that good at all since you can only do a few predictable sequences of moves over and over (and your friends are definitely not "the best" at anything if they lose against simple mode lol)


Why isn't remembering fun?


Why isn't doing cool stuff through the power of your fingers entertaining to you? Don't you think it would feel good to finally land that 100% Hp combo?


Button-mashing is only fun if you are too afraid or haven't given a proper go at the alternative. If you're inherently turned off by the prospect of memorizing your moves and their sequences it is your mentality at fault and you may have had even more fun if you stepped out of your comfort zone and put in some work. I'm not saying you're not having fun, you're just missing out on a plethora of options which enrich gaming experiences.

Oh no I know all that simple mode entails, and they are simply the best that I know, not the best ever or anything. And remembering isn't fun because I'm terrible at it. I have tried many a time to learn combos, and I always, without fail, forget them. My fingers are a clunky mess more often than not. And they don't lose often, I just know all the moves available with my 3 characters, and use them somewhat well. The idea of me not having fun with fighting games wasn't conjured out of no where, it was adopted after much experience. I enjoy the simplicity of simple mode, just like I enjoy Super Smash Bros for it's simplicity. Certainly for some, memorization is a ton of fun, but for me, it feels like homework, and gets boring.

P.S. Secret for you: I don't ever do homework.
P.P.S. Sorry for jumping around in my post, I'm a terrible writer.

 

[Furious Styles]

Yes, and its best demonstrated by the need to include multiplayer in everything. No one plays for the simple joy of playing anymore, the play to "pwn" everyone else. Well, my friends do anyway.

 

[Vanbael]

I have to say yeah, from what I see is that people are taking the games too seriously. I think its because people are obsessed with winning. For me, its about having the fun.

Say in Battlefield Bad Company 2, I don't want to try and push the enemy back into their spawn areas because then it becomes a scramble to see who can kill the players fast enough. I want to at least give them a fighting chance. Then there are times where I would be on a team of me and one other person against at least 9 players. What do I do? I don't leave, I try and give the legion I'm fighting against a hard time.

But I really find more pleasure in racing games and I make more friends from them too. I made more friends from Burnout Paradise and NFS: Hot Pursuit than in World at War, Battlefield, MAG, Resistance. And those friends come from people I have very close races with, and sometimes we aren't in the front of the pack.

But I see people giving up regardless of what game they are in when they are losing. I don't care about win loss, I care about getting the job done honorably. If you're not having fun, take a break and loosen up. Watch a funny youtube clip or whatever. Gaming is for the fun, the immersion into a good story, and to have an extraordinary experience that becomes positively memorable.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

I don't think we've lost touch with playing for fun, we've just started judging other peoples idea of fun.

I won't deny it, I am judging my friends. But that doesn't negate anything I said or observed, does it?

Well no, I guess not, you are right in saying that they're not playing it very well. But hey, it's their enjoyment and they're allowed to play the game however they please,you can't change that. I used to get really annoyed at my brother playing Driv3r when he used to just deliberately piss about rather than do any of the story missions, but it never stopped him, and in retrospect I was the one in the wrong because he was just having fun.

 

[teebeeohh]

lemons

i do notice it on forums but the people i play with on a regular basis are mostly playing for laughs and giggles. This may have something to do with the fact that i avoid CoD-like shooters and everyone in TF2 is really friendly about getting shot in the head