What does the Escapist think about....

[TerranReaper]

.....competitive gaming and the people who adopt the mindset of playing to win? It seems like they get quite a bit of flak for it as well as being stereotyped into being smug, elitist assholes who cannot have fun, but I want to know what you think of them, and any experiences that you might have.

 

[Julianking93]

If that's how someone wants to make a living, then good for them...

... but every "competitive" gamer I've ever met is a total fuckhead who thinks he's better than everyone else and can't have fun with a game anymore. It becomes their work and it's become only a competition.

 

[likalaruku]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

 

[theComposer]

I've met a couple of MLG gamers (played against them in a tournament at my college actually), and although they can (and did) kick my ass, they were nice, polite, and humble about it (or at least had the courtesy to not be elitist jerks about it).

Overall, I'm ok with professional gaming. I play sports for fun and I don't despise professional athletes. In the same way, I play video games for fun and don't despise professional gamers.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

Define cheating? If you mean like mem/packet hacking, well... sort of, that's got a competitive community of sorts on its own.

As for "exploits", then yeah. A lot of competitive gameplay stems from such glitches and exploits. Trick jumps in almost every FPS, creep blocking in DoTA, damage canceling in games with fall damage, etc.

 

[zehydra]

playing to win can be good or bad. What is really bad is when people cheat to win, because it destroys the game. Sometimes always playing to meet the conditions of victory will lead people to cheat (which is of course stupid, because you cannot actually win any game with pre-determined rules by breaking them.)

But playing to win also allows for "noob" behavior, which can be good. Often times when people play a massively competitive online game, they find tactics and behaviors which they find unfair, because they don't understand how to beat it. They call such behaviors as "noobish" and verbally abuse people who use such tactics, even if they are legitimate tactics within the game. A person playing to win will ignore these people, who are largely responsible for the intensely hostile game environments you see in many online shooters.

 

[zehydra]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

A game is a set of predetermined rules, which all members have agreed to abide by upon playing. When someone cheats, they are no longer playing the same game as the players who are playing legitimately. They are playing by different rules, which makes it a different game.

So it is actually impossible to "win" a game by cheating. So no.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

A game is a set of predetermined rules, which all members have agreed to abide by upon playing. When someone cheats, they are no longer playing the same game as the players who are playing legitimately. They are playing by different rules, which makes it a different game.

So it is actually impossible to "win" a game by cheating. So no.

A game has a predefined set of rules, thus cheating doesn't exist unless a third party program is being used or some sort of file editing. "Cheating" is a term thrown around by noobs who don't understand how something was done.

 

[crudus]

If that's how someone wants to make a living, then good for them...

If they can you mean >.>

But yeah, most of the ones I have met are jerks. Yeah, the "not playing for fun" is stupid. People like that lose sight of the purpose of games.

 

[zehydra]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

A game is a set of predetermined rules, which all members have agreed to abide by upon playing. When someone cheats, they are no longer playing the same game as the players who are playing legitimately. They are playing by different rules, which makes it a different game.

So it is actually impossible to "win" a game by cheating. So no.

A game has a predefined set of rules, thus cheating doesn't exist unless a third party program is being used or some sort of file editing. "Cheating" is a term thrown around by noobs who don't understand how something was done.

Yeah, unfortunately what the predetermined rules are in a video games gets a little hazy sometimes because of the existence of two kinds of rules: Physical rules (laws, like gravity, and all other game mechanics), and Rules rules (rules you accept to follow upon playing. These usually encompass "no breaking physical rules" by using hacks or other tools).

 

[shreedder]

I always play to win, while having fun doing it. In magic I like thinking up decks, and trying to make them win. Winning is the goal, but the fun is getting to that win. I have this mentality for all games, and that stops me from being a dick if I win. It does this because I had fun actually playing the game, with winning being a bonus, my time was not wasted even if I rofl stomped your face.

 

[mindlesspuppet]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

A game is a set of predetermined rules, which all members have agreed to abide by upon playing. When someone cheats, they are no longer playing the same game as the players who are playing legitimately. They are playing by different rules, which makes it a different game.

So it is actually impossible to "win" a game by cheating. So no.

A game has a predefined set of rules, thus cheating doesn't exist unless a third party program is being used or some sort of file editing. "Cheating" is a term thrown around by noobs who don't understand how something was done.

Yeah, unfortunately what the predetermined rules are in a video games gets a little hazy sometimes because of the existence of two kinds of rules: Physical rules (laws, like gravity, and all other game mechanics), and Rules rules (rules you accept to follow upon playing. These usually encompass "no breaking physical rules" by using hacks or other tools).

The way I see it is if the game allows it without any out of game manipulation it's fair game.

There was a popular trick jump in the Normandy map of RTCW which would take you right over the wall and into the base, thus by passing the need for blowing up entrances and saving tons of time for the Allies.

It was not an easy jump by any means to pull off, especially being shot at. Pretty much everyone knew about it, and anyone who could pull it off did. id banned it from a tournament they had at QuakeCon, and quite a few people were angry. If it's something they didn't intend for and thought was game breaking then it should have been patched out not simply deemed off limits.

Like you said things can be hazy.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I'm a fighting game nut and, for me, the competition is the fun. Of course, I always want to win but I have more fun and learn more in a competitive loss than I ever would in a "non-competitive" match where I win.

I also don't see the connection between enjoying competitive play and being a jackass. If you're a sore loser/winner, or are an elitist jerk, that's totally separate from enjoying competition. Most of the elite fighting game crowd, for example, are proud of their skills and love to jaw at eachother but they aren't the elitists.. generally the elitists are just the ones who think they can play because they've read some frame data and watched a couple of tournaments.

 

[shreedder]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

A game is a set of predetermined rules, which all members have agreed to abide by upon playing. When someone cheats, they are no longer playing the same game as the players who are playing legitimately. They are playing by different rules, which makes it a different game.

So it is actually impossible to "win" a game by cheating. So no.

A game has a predefined set of rules, thus cheating doesn't exist unless a third party program is being used or some sort of file editing. "Cheating" is a term thrown around by noobs who don't understand how something was done.

Yeah, unfortunately what the predetermined rules are in a video games gets a little hazy sometimes because of the existence of two kinds of rules: Physical rules (laws, like gravity, and all other game mechanics), and Rules rules (rules you accept to follow upon playing. These usually encompass "no breaking physical rules" by using hacks or other tools).

The way I see it is if the game allows it without any out of game manipulation it's fair game.

There was a popular trick jump in the Normandy map of RTCW which would take you right over the wall and into the base, thus by passing the need for blowing up entrances and saving tons of time for the Allies.

It was not an easy jump by any means to pull off, especially being shot at. Pretty much everyone knew about it, and anyone who could pull it off did. id banned it from a tournament they had at QuakeCon, and quite a few people were angry. If it's something they didn't intend for and thought was game breaking then it should have been patched out not simply deemed off limits.

Like you said things can be hazy.

What if the developers did not have the time or resources to patch that bug? What if they tried, but it caused more problems? It is very easy for us to say "they should just patch it" but in reality it is probably a long and difficult task. Just banning it from tournaments is much easier for the publisher, in both time, and money.

 

[shreedder]

I would also like to say that it appears that most of the SC2 pros are very kind helpful people.(besides IDRA) Are most real pros like this? From what I could guess I bet they are.(I say real pros as opposed to those kids that say they are on Xbox live)

 

[Silentsmoke1990]

.....competitive gaming and the people who adopt the mindset of playing to win? It seems like they get quite a bit of flak for it as well as being stereotyped into being smug, elitist assholes who cannot have fun, but I want to know what you think of them, and any experiences that you might have.

I veiw myself as a competitve gamer, I pride myself on my tactical and technical knowledge and strive to full take advantage of all mechanics to ensure I get at least a podium finish when it matters...but...I also enjoy having abit've fun (sniping in black ops for example, i'll usually finish real low but every kill is such a moment of percision and skill that I just <3 myself for it.)

however, saying that, I do myself turn "eliteist and nerd-rage=1" when you come across people in games who play team games without the interest of playing as a team; TK'ers, Boosters and all around time wasters...but then...since there's only two of you, and 4 other people on the team including myself...it's majority rule so...am I really being eliteist?

 

[mindlesspuppet]

I guess unlike me, they have energy, goals, & a competitive spirit. If you're cheating, does that count as playing to win?

A game is a set of predetermined rules, which all members have agreed to abide by upon playing. When someone cheats, they are no longer playing the same game as the players who are playing legitimately. They are playing by different rules, which makes it a different game.

So it is actually impossible to "win" a game by cheating. So no.

A game has a predefined set of rules, thus cheating doesn't exist unless a third party program is being used or some sort of file editing. "Cheating" is a term thrown around by noobs who don't understand how something was done.

Yeah, unfortunately what the predetermined rules are in a video games gets a little hazy sometimes because of the existence of two kinds of rules: Physical rules (laws, like gravity, and all other game mechanics), and Rules rules (rules you accept to follow upon playing. These usually encompass "no breaking physical rules" by using hacks or other tools).

The way I see it is if the game allows it without any out of game manipulation it's fair game.

There was a popular trick jump in the Normandy map of RTCW which would take you right over the wall and into the base, thus by passing the need for blowing up entrances and saving tons of time for the Allies.

It was not an easy jump by any means to pull off, especially being shot at. Pretty much everyone knew about it, and anyone who could pull it off did. id banned it from a tournament they had at QuakeCon, and quite a few people were angry. If it's something they didn't intend for and thought was game breaking then it should have been patched out not simply deemed off limits.

Like you said things can be hazy.

What if the developers did not have the time or resources to patch that bug? What if they tried, but it caused more problems? It is very easy for us to say "they should just patch it" but in reality it is probably a long and difficult task. Just banning it from tournaments is much easier for the publisher, in both time, and money.

That's not really true, map changes are pretty damn easy to make. Especially in the example I gave of RTCW; the Q3 engine used BSP mapping, it would have taken them seriously about 15 seconds to adjust things to prevent the jump. Moreover it was an 'exploit' they knew about before the game had even been released.

Even if it had been difficult; if developers are not fixing things they find game breaking, then they are not worth giving our money to.

 

[8bitmaster]

I think about food. Mainly because food is importante

 

[Erana]

I generally don't like to play competitively, and to be honest, I'm not all that good at games. I don't really like the idea of, "Playing to win," though- it has connotations of superiority. What I do admire is when people strive to be the best they themselves can be- this has inherient implications of competition, but it generally eliminates the people who, say, go to "Strictly newbie!" servers and bragging about having the highest score, or spam PVP challanges at lowbies in RPGs.

I wish the "Play to win" mentality included more teamwork- so often, it seems like people want to say the two are mutually exclusive.

 

[ThatLankyBastard]

I play for fun!

winning is just a by-product...