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After today's day9 daily, there was a little argument about gamers who are serious about improving themselves and getting frustrated and angry during the process.
One of the guys said people who get angry while playing a game are morons. Another said it's pointless to get frustrated or stressed out at their hobbies, in this case Starcraft 2. A pretty nasty one was calling people who get mad at games "children".
Personally I felt pretty ticked off by those comments. But I did think about it with a clear head. I mean of course when you get home after a long day of work you'd want to sit back and relax with whatever you do in your spare time. For some people, their hobbies aren't things like knitting or painting. For some, like us, it's competitive gaming.
I'm pretty sure that a lot of us out there, no matter how much self-control we have, at some point in our competitive gaming careers have lost our cool and exert our frustration in ways we would later regret. But does that make us idiots?
If I type it out and put it in nice and plain text it'd be like "It's silly to get angry at a video game." That's something a lot of us would agree on, but for the people who play these video games and get their satisfaction from watching themselves improve and win the games they've seen themselves lose to, we will get frustrated at ourselves at some point.
Perhaps the way we deal with the anger is a better way to define which angry gamer is the real moron. Players who get frustrated and use the that frustration to motivate themselves to get better, at least in my opinion, are not morons. Example: "Urgh, I hate hellion harrass and cloaked bancheese. I really want to beat this build because it really pisses me off." Then the player proceeds to watch his replays, take his notes, plays another game against the same build and wins. Huge satisfaction- I don't see anything wrong with that type of anger.
Then on the other hand players who get angry and queue up for the next game immediately still fuming with anger and begin to BM the crap out of the other player- that sort of anger is bad. Because it's just not a productive way to deal with your anger.
So all in all I think getting angry while playing a game is alright, as long as you know how to deal with it....
God I got so worked up over this... but those guys did essentially call every Competitive gamer a moron. So that means EVERY professional gamer is an immature child/moron. Someone's gotta step up right?
 
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who doesn't get angry at video games? they're gonna spark emotions, they're competitive, just like sports. and sometimes it's fun to be non-productive with your anger 
EDIT: i think a better word for it is frustration
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United States22883 Posts
People that shrug off competition generally aren't very good. I generally stay very calm, but it's not a trait I picked up from playing games, it's something I do in real life too. Even then, I very occasionally will mini-rage or if its a team game, stop talking to people. D:
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
I never get mad at losing, because I know that I'm a terrible player and that I can improve. After a loss, I think about what I did wrong with a sense of calm, and I start the next game hoping to get the same race on the same map so that I can show my improvement with a win.
And yet, even though I don't get mad, I still think of myself as a competitive gamer. I don't play for pure fun; I play to get better. So I don't think that it's accurate to say that getting angry at your losses is something that every competitive gamer feels.
That's not to say that people who *do* get angry are immature or getting "worked up over nothing." It's only natural to get angry after putting a lot of effort into a task, only to fail.
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If I can quickly grasp what I could improve from my loss I'm generally in a better mood. If I get out played I'm ok because I know it's macro + speed to improve. However If I feel I should have won and can't understand how to resolve a strategical problem I get very frustrated/angry.
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Well, if you're level-headed all the time you can call those who get angry at games childish because the lack of importance it holds in their lives, their personal bias leads them to that conclusion.
And also, you can't think with a "level-headed" point of view if you just admitted you were angry several words ago. :\
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I feel that people should really not care about winning or losing. Because lets face it- I suck, you suck and it's going to stay that way forever. Play the game to enjoy it, not to try and become the next jaedong. I see people that don't have any skill at all rage so hard at games, and i wonder why they play.
Kids these days are so delusional thinking that they are somehow going to go pro..... or care so much about their rank. In the grand scheme of things, its going to be pointless- and if you are just starting to play sc again because of sc2- then you will be playing another game in 3 years max, so even more so- just play to have fun  because three years from now it's not going to matter, and your not going to remember it anyway
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On September 16 2010 12:52 er.misrah wrote:I feel that people should really not care about winning or losing. Because lets face it- I suck, you suck and it's going to stay that way forever. Play the game to enjoy it, not to try and become the next jaedong. I see people that don't have any skill at all rage so hard at games, and i wonder why they play. Kids these days are so delusional thinking that they are somehow going to go pro..... or care so much about their rank. In the grand scheme of things, its going to be pointless- and if you are just starting to play sc again because of sc2- then you will be playing another game in 3 years max, so even more so- just play to have fun because three years from now it's not going to matter, and your not going to remember it anyway
What a load of shit.
OP, it's not hard to make any of those friends of yours rage over the course of a bo5. Toy with them, diminish their ego by laughing at them, make fun of their mistakes, see how they start getting riled up - it's that easy. As long as you can pull this off you will win the argument.
Anyone gets mad or frustrated over a video game, especially while playing vs other people.
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On September 16 2010 12:52 er.misrah wrote:I feel that people should really not care about winning or losing. Because lets face it- I suck, you suck and it's going to stay that way forever. Play the game to enjoy it, not to try and become the next jaedong. I see people that don't have any skill at all rage so hard at games, and i wonder why they play. Kids these days are so delusional thinking that they are somehow going to go pro..... or care so much about their rank. In the grand scheme of things, its going to be pointless- and if you are just starting to play sc again because of sc2- then you will be playing another game in 3 years max, so even more so- just play to have fun because three years from now it's not going to matter, and your not going to remember it anyway
But here's the thing I'm curious about. What about the people who think that playing games for "fun" is pointless? There are definitely people out there who cannot enjoy their hobbies without being competitive, and not all of them aspire to become the next Flash or JD, they simply just want to be a very high level player. There's also the question of "Is striving to become the best wrong and pointless?". Great things have been achieved by people who push themselves to the limits.
I agree that hey it is true that we all suck, but I think that its more childish to restrict ourselves from pushing ourselves further to at least "not suck". In fact it sounds quit cowardly to have that kind of mindset. Don't get me wrong, if you're a casual gamer, then none of this should matter, because the game doesn't matter at all to you at that point. But if you were a competitive gamer with this attitude, then why were you competitive in the first place? If we all shared this, "we all suck, there's no point" mindset we wouldn't be having great Starcraft games casted on TV with loads of viewers.
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half the fun in video game is raging when u lose or bming when you win.
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The only people who don't get angry at video games are those who don't play video games at all. ;D
Well that's not really the case, but its okay to get mad in the ways that the OP described as reasonable. There has been many a time where I would gain a huge lead in PvZ, only to end up losing it all later on because I failed to do something. That's what really ticks me off, and I use that kind of anger to motivate myself.
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Personally when I invest a significant amount of time into something, I demand excellence from myself. I know people might say "but hobbies are hobbies!" but it holds true regardless of whether I'm playing video games, playing an instrument, or painting a Warhammer army. I do it to the best of my ability, striving to reach the level of "professionals," because that's what motivates me. Do I expect I'll actually reach their level? Probably not, as these things are in the realms of "hobbies" as opposed to "profession" hence implying a significant time investment differential. That doesn't mean I have to be terrible at it or not place effort into the action, though.
When I first started playing games "competitively" (relatively speaking) back in university, I was known as your consummate rager, kind of like Idra. But is it childish? Now in retrospect it's not a quality I am proud of, nor was I ever really proud of it, and I'm aware of how useless it is to rage, especially in a team game, but I also feel that becoming angry "over just a video game" is a projection of how emotionally invested you are into a game... and hence by relation your desire to get better at it. I play (not so much now due to time constraints) League of Legends at a pretty high skill level - I expect myself to place in the top 100/200 (I've fallen off the solo ladder, I think, because I haven't played that in like 3 weeks). I am still prone to getting frustrated/angry, although I have over the years learned to tone it down a lot, and take a more pragmatic view to losing. You can argue the merits of controlling your anger, and I doubt anyone can really tell you anger is ever a "good" thing (unless you're Jaedong), but being emotionally invested in something to the point where you can feel anger over a loss, that's something I will stand up in support of any day.
Edit:
Incidentally, a lot of people often say "it's just a game" I don't think there's any point in getting angry at them. It's a matter of perspective. Their perspective on the game is, quite frankly, why they'll forever suck/not get better, unless they have incredible innate talent. Either that or they're being hypocrites because they're too ashamed of themselves and their investment of time and effort into games.
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On September 16 2010 13:02 Snuggles wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2010 12:52 er.misrah wrote:I feel that people should really not care about winning or losing. Because lets face it- I suck, you suck and it's going to stay that way forever. Play the game to enjoy it, not to try and become the next jaedong. I see people that don't have any skill at all rage so hard at games, and i wonder why they play. Kids these days are so delusional thinking that they are somehow going to go pro..... or care so much about their rank. In the grand scheme of things, its going to be pointless- and if you are just starting to play sc again because of sc2- then you will be playing another game in 3 years max, so even more so- just play to have fun because three years from now it's not going to matter, and your not going to remember it anyway But here's the thing I'm curious about. What about the people who think that playing games for "fun" is pointless? There are definitely people out there who cannot enjoy their hobbies without being competitive, and not all of them aspire to become the next Flash or JD, they simply just want to be a very high level player. There's also the question of "Is striving to become the best wrong and pointless?". Great things have been achieved by people who push themselves to the limits. I agree that hey it is true that we all suck, but I think that its more childish to restrict ourselves from pushing ourselves further to at least "not suck". In fact it sounds quit cowardly to have that kind of mindset. Don't get me wrong, if you're a casual gamer, then none of this should matter, because the game doesn't matter at all to you at that point. But if you were a competitive gamer with this attitude, then why were you competitive in the first place? If we all shared this, "we all suck, there's no point" mindset we wouldn't be having great Starcraft games casted on TV with loads of viewers.
Listen its never bad to strive for the top. But if you are a full time student, and only play for like 3 hours max a day, you are NEVER going to become a high level player. You will always be stuck in mediocrity because you are putting life first. Now if all you did was play sc2 18 hours a day, and then got mad i could understand but that never seems to be the case hehe It's just people only playing a little bit if at all each day, and then raging when some one else beats them lol
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Yes, you can get angry at video games. So what? You are not your emotions.
You don't need to connect with it, just accept what you felt and move on.
Day[9] also said in an old daily IIRC, "It's just chemicals, man." And it is.
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Just because you're angry at losing, you don't act like it.
There's a big difference between being mad at a video game and screaming at somebody who just beat you
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I usually just get mad at myself for losing a game. A video game is a lot better of an outlet for anger than getting mad at other people in real life and making a fool of yourself.
Video games are actually pretty much the only time I feel an emotion resembling anger. After years of growing up getting picked on by my older family members, I've learned that it's better in general to keep a cool head...
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This is so lame but hey - it's not feelings that are right or wrong, it's what you do with them.
Raging, bm, that stuff - no good.
But everyone (who takes the game at all seriously) gets the adreneline and the heartrate and the shakes. That's part of being a human animal. As the Thoughthammer would say "The most normal thing in the world".
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Getting angry after a loss is acceptable, and normal. SC2 is an intense game, you work up a lot of adrenaline while playing it. Just like in a team sport or a race you can experience some cathartic emotions as your body suddenly brings itself down from a sustained fight-or-flight response. Just don't break any keyboards.
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On September 16 2010 12:59 News wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2010 12:52 er.misrah wrote:I feel that people should really not care about winning or losing. Because lets face it- I suck, you suck and it's going to stay that way forever. Play the game to enjoy it, not to try and become the next jaedong. I see people that don't have any skill at all rage so hard at games, and i wonder why they play. Kids these days are so delusional thinking that they are somehow going to go pro..... or care so much about their rank. In the grand scheme of things, its going to be pointless- and if you are just starting to play sc again because of sc2- then you will be playing another game in 3 years max, so even more so- just play to have fun because three years from now it's not going to matter, and your not going to remember it anyway What a load of shit. OP, it's not hard to make any of those friends of yours rage over the course of a bo5. Toy with them, diminish their ego by laughing at them, make fun of their mistakes, see how they start getting riled up - it's that easy. As long as you can pull this off you will win the argument. Anyone gets mad or frustrated over a video game, especially while playing vs other people.
Agreed News. Misrah is so well-mannered and controlled he's managed to get his first (I assume it's just your first) account perma-banned. And I hate people who call others "kids". You're not 80, so you don't get the right. On a side note, I've noticed in gaming that people who call others 'kids' or bring up age generally are usually just out of their teens or younger years, like 19-21. It's like they've just worked out how immature they were when they were 16 and now enjoy trying to patronise others regardless of whether they are in fact, younger. I've never seen anyone 30 try and demean someone else by referring to them as 'son' or 'kid'.
I agree with you OP. I remember another thread where Hawk called someone a moron because he hit a wall. And I immediately thought of a Day[9] post where he recounted the number of keyboards, mice, mouse pads etc that he had destroyed through frustration in gaming. I don't get mad enough to hurt myself or my equipment but I fume plenty and like most people, have bm'ed another for my own anger. I think most people do things that they might regret in frustration, it's perfectly normal. What's sad is people trying to get one up over others by claiming some moral or emotional high-ground.
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I feel your pain. Everytime I play Mario Golf 64 and hit it in the rough, I throw my controller onto the ground and hammer it repeatedly. Pretty stressful.
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Nothing wrong with getting angry over a video game in and of itself. You can argue that anger /raging/ inability to control anger are negative, but that's a different topic. The comparison here is whether getting mad at games is inherently worse than getting mad about anything else.
The stigma is really just an oversimplification. We like to make stupid general social rules like that, which are totally meaningless without context. The only grain of truth I can see is that there should be things in your life that you care about more than video games. (Eg if you rage about video games but are indifferent to more "important" things, that is sort of a problem.) The problem there would be more the lack of strong reaction to the other area though.
That is subjective and situational as hell though, for example progamers SHOULD be highly invested in video game success relative to other things. As long as the passion is in proportion to the importance it's all good. Like I said, generic social rules are pretty meaningless.
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EPT
