In Defense of Competitive Gaming

There are many people in this club who dislike the idea of competitive gaming. The concern is that competitiveness discourages a social atmosphere in favor of a competitive atmosphere where the only concern is to beat the guy who is higher up on the competitive ladder then you. Its why this club is called the "Social" Gaming Club; the "Social" is meant to indicate that we are a group of friends that play video games, instead of a group that focuses on tearing each other up on some sort of competitive ladder.


So here's my argument: There is actually very little difference between a social gamer and a competitive gamer.



This club does try to distinguish from the "casual" gamer and the "social" gamer. This distinction is important to make; otherwise, it would be impossible to make my case.


We are not "casual" gamers. We do not play Farmville at club meetings. We do play what most would consider to be "real" games, and many of these games are competitive games. Magic. League of Legends. Brawl. So what defines a competitive gamer is not what kinds of games he or she plays. A game like League of Legends is designed to be a competitive game, but its mostly played by casuals. A game like Pokemon is designed to be casual, but there is a very large competitive Pokemon scene.

SO. MANY. NUMBERS.

  
I will agree, of course, that there are certain games that cannot be played casually. StarCraft is one of these. I play this game- not very much, and there are a lot of people who are better than me at this game. But even at my mediocre level, the game is hard. Its not something that people can simply jump into playing.

Here's a StarCraft game, in case you're not convinced. I won this, by the way.

But so what? The game is definitely competitive, yes, but does that really mean that its not social? Players are nice to each other. The community is based off the Korean tradition- think martial artists bowing to each other before fights, etc. There is certainly a flourishing competitive scene, as I mentioned in the previous post I wrote, but that doesn't mean that players can't be friends with each other, and learn from each other through practice matches.

Pictured: The University of Illinois StarCraft team being social.

In fact, it would be impossible for a competitive player to play at a high level if he or she was not social with other players. The idea of competitive gaming is inextricably linked to being social with other gamers. It is definitely not enough to interact with other players solely through competitive matches, and practice in a dark room alone.


Its also not true that all "hardcore" games are competitive. MMORPGs, like World of Warcraft or RuneScape, are definitely hardcore, and they are not competitive. Other kinds of RPGs, such as the Elder Scrolls series, are also hardcore games but are not competitive games. But its the hardcore element of competitive games that is demonized. So why is this standard not held up to these other kinds of games? I enjoy playing Plants v Zombies and I definitely strategize more about this then most people, to the point where I have layouts for optimal farming of gold and sun.

Here's my gold farming layout in Last Stand. Its pretty good.

So why does a game like this not have the same popular conception as a "competitive game?" Its because the negative notion of a "competitive" game, in addition to being inaccurate, is also internally inconsistent.


But if the general stereotype is completely untrue, then where does it even come from?


The stereotype comes from mid-2000s FPS games, specifically Halo 2. This was because this game had an extensive matchmaking system, which ranked players with Microsoft's proprietary Trueskill system. People would compete, down to the lowest levels, for these ranks, because even the worst player could be distinguished from the second-worse player. This is the "competitive gamer". This is why in most modern games, you are often not shown your true matchmaking rating if you are below a certain (reasonably high) level.


Its not even because they were competitive gamers; it was because they were middle schoolers. I was one of them. I was not good; I'm still terrible at FPS games.

But this isn't even an accurate depiction of the actual competitive Halo 2 scene. At some point, some of the higher level players discovered something called the BXR cancel. Basically, what you would do is press that combination of buttons and, through a game glitch, score an instant kill on your opponent using the Battle Rifle (which was a standard weapon in Halo 2). Many people were opposed to this idea, so the highest level players broke off and formed their own league, with separate forums and a separate community. The competitive Halo 2 community played with different rules from the preteen kids who yelled at each other on XboX Live- vehicles were banned, for instance.

They eventually became these guys. You may have heard of them.

Basically, what I'm saying is that the stereotypical competitive gamer isn't even a competitive gamer.


So to recap:


1. The stereotypical "competitive" gamer paints a picture of a person who takes a game extremely seriously and is socially awkward as a result. However, the same is not always said for people who play non-competitive games seriously; this is a double standard. It should also be pointed out that it is impossible for competitive gamers to not interact with each other in a social environment.


2. The stereotype of a competitive gamer comes from a community that is not actually a community of competitive gamers.

-Henry Cao "ChairYeoman"


Author's note: None of these blog posts represent the position of the club, but it should be especially noted that this post does not represent the position of the club.