The Abhorrent said:
Just something I've been noticing whenever I participate in online multiplayer games, especially those with competitive angle to them. Many, if not most, of the player lack sportsmanship. Sure, you're bound to have a few bad apples (vocal ones too) no matter where you go... but the prevalence of players who don't treat their opponents nor their teammates with any amount of respect is worrying. I understand full well that the internet isn't a place where people are generally nice, but I'm just thinking that online gaming could greatly benefit from people at least trying to be more sportsman-like; the games could be a lot more fun if people just made that little bit of effort needed.
This isn't to say players should cease to be competitive; you can look at many examples in professional sports where the players are doing everything they can to win, but as soon as the game's over they shake the hands of the players on the opposing team. Everyone plays to win, but they do so fairly (no cheating nor using otherwise cheap tactics/strategies) and don't sweat it if they lost. In essence, they follow the phrase "May the best man win" (no offense to the ladies, the principle should be treated as gender-neutral anyhow). In some sports players don't just frown upon unsportsmans-like conduct, but actively punish it; if you do something bad to a player on the other team, the rest of that team (if not your own as well) will do worse to you. Sports fan(atic)s get pretty viscious and unruly, but the players (generally) conduct themselves in a decent manner.
How much better would online gaming be if the players stopping acting like the unruly fans and more like the professional players?
Well, games aren't a sport, that's part of the answer.
Two, you never look your opponent in the eye, you look at a computer monitor of a digital representation of the others avatar.
So there's no way to solve this I'm afraid, not to the level recognized sports are.
Games are meant to be entertaining and
accessible , thus they can't be too taxing on the reflexes or the brain.
Let me elaborate.
A video game player that is really good, say, at micro-ing, is still a talentless sack of potatoes in real-life. He's as good as the machine and program allows him to be.
You can be the best headshotter on the planet, you are king of a universe that dies when the machine is turned off. Really, excellence in games means little as long as games allow idiotic stuff like "360 , no scope".
Difficulty through realism and games don't get along, not today anyway.
Moreover, it's never eye-to-eye. It's all through a screen, at best you can hear the other through a headset, that's it. And all the social implications that would come with looking the other in the eye when you talk about his mother are gone. Because rest, assured, the kind of language that passes for "acceptable" over the "tubes", in real life, you would get your face smashed into a wall, 11 year old or not.
It's unfortunate, but there's no way out, not when "competitive" gaming means bunny-hopping around the map like an idiot. I'd like to see half of those loud and proud FPS-Dougs do their in-game routines in real-life with a US Army veteran watching.
Games means escapism, multiplayer games mean,unfortunately, escapism from social norms. And the fact that the mechanics of a mainstream WW2 game are laughable doesn't help. Very little, to no games are "mature" enough in the sense of mechanics, of consequences.
That's the bottom line : games are in their adolescence, and it shows.
