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United States15536 Posts
I love all kinds of games. Tabletop games like Sentinels of the Multiverse, Settlers of Catan, Puerto Rico, and Dominion. Real-time strategy and MOBA games like Starcraft 2, League of Legends, and DotA2. Deck-building card games (digital and physical) like Magic: the Gathering and Hearthstone. First-person shooters and fighters like Titanfall, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Super Smash Bros. Melee, and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. I play many different games on many forms of media and occupying many genres. My gaming is so disparate that there’s only one thing that all the games have in common.
I’m terrible at them.
Realizing that I’m simply bad at many of the things which make up my greatest passion was strange. Take League of Legends for example. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on the game (literally) and yet I am ranked in Silver League, otherwise known as “marginally better than the worst players in the world.” Similarly, my DotA2 play is laughable, even though I regularly find myself in games with players who are actually worse than I am (astoundingly). I’m decent at Magic: the Gathering (within my group of friends), but I consistently lose to players with even a bit more experience than I. I lose more often than I win in Hearthstone. I’ve played dozens of Settlers of Catan games with my friends, but I can still count my wins on one hand. Despite the overwhelming evidence, I only arrived at this conclusion recently, during a few hours of Coup with my regular gaming pals and my outspoken strategy-game-hating girlfriend. For a long time, everyone had won a game except for me, which my girlfriend found highly amusing. At that point I realized just how infrequently I win any of the many games that I play.
Competitive games, by definition, make victory of utmost importance. The victory conditions are listed at the top of nearly every rulebook because the very first thing one needs to know about a game is how to win. The remainder of these manuals is devoted to explaining how a player is empowered or constrained in their road to the win. Winning is why the strategies in “strategy games” are created. To come out on top in a competitive game of League of Legends or DotA2, most players will choose the Heroes/Champions they believe to be the strongest, even if they find others more fun. The best cards and combinations thereof lead to dominant deck lists in games like Netrunner, Hearthstone, and MtG, and people will play those decks to death in an effort to get that W. Competitive games incentivize wins above all else; you get the most EXP, IP, battle points, rare cards, gold, items, or even real money (if you’re really good) when you hold the gold medal. As such, many competitive players equate winning with fun. If victory is the fun part of the game, losing must be antithetical to amusement.
This dichotomy generates some critical questions for frequent losers such as myself. Is gaming really any fun? Why would a terrible player expend so much effort when they’re likely to lose? Why do gamers like me waste time on games in which their successes are so rare when they could be playing games that are not win-centric? On one hand, I’m not above getting frustrated when I lose. A losing streak in LoL makes me crabby, and I swear profusely when my lead is taken from me in Settlers of Catan. However, those losses never spawn the gamer rage that causes people to smash their keyboards or throw controllers through walls. Similarly, I’m elated whenever I do manage to win a game, just like everyone else. Yet not all wins are enjoyable or even worth the time it takes to achieve them (anyone who has played with jerks online knows what I’m talking about). Since neither winning nor losing is particular important to me, there must be another element in competitive games from which I find my enjoyment.
In fact, there are three elements of competitive gaming that are more important to me than winning: the community of players, the development of my skills, and the appreciation of a good game. I’ve written many times about my love of gaming communities, so no one will be surprised that playing with other people makes even losing games worthwhile to me. When you’re on team that’s tried hard, gotten along, and played well, winning or losing makes little difference. My friends in high school and college rarely discussed who won a game of Halo 3. We usually laughed about who had the most ridiculous kill or death in the match instead. When I’m heavily invested in a game, I don’t mind losing so long as I’ve gained knowledge or experience that helps me play the game better. If you achieve a goal that you intended to practice in the game, then that’s a win, no matter what the scoreboard says. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a game that is well-made or well-played should always be thrilling. The victory and defeat messages are merely lines of text on a screen that appear after the more important part: playing. The experience of playing through the game should matter far more who wins or loses. Sometimes it’s hard to realize how wonderful a game is while you’re playing it, but the beauty of a game’s visuals or design strikes me even if I’m losing. A good game of Settlers (particularly with the Cities and Knights expansion) is incredibly fun despite my essentially inevitable defeat. The game becomes great if I get to see awesome plays from my friends, even if it’s how they beat me. The same is true of drafting Magic: witnessing an awesome deck in action is worth a loss because it shows off just how powerful the cards in the set can be when expertly assembled. These elements of competitive games put losses in a larger context for me, a context where losing isn’t all that important.
Part of me wishes that more people could share this mindset. It would make competitive games a lot less stressful if losing weren’t as important. On the other hand, my beloved esports are based around the mindset that winning is everything. What would inspire people to reach such mechanical and strategic heights if not the prizes of victory? I’m glad to be at peace with my crap ability to play the games I love. If nothing else, it definitely makes me fun to play with.
You can read this self-deprecating-yet-realistic post and other ones (some not self-deprecating) at the N3rd Dimension.
  
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I am a bit of a mix. I play to win, I still enjoy a loss. The moment I stop enjoying the average win/loss I quit a game and come back with a fresh mind a few weeks later.
I can't find all losses fun, sometimes they are so frustrating, things just don't work. But that is the drive I have to improve, if things work and I did my utmost I am happy.
Another thing I found out about myself when gaming to win, I don't handle set times for fun well. If I have to start playing at 18:00 sharp, then I can't enjoy it long term. Which kind of limits any possibility of actually playing on a serious level. I never break the .5% barrier due to the above mind sets meaning I don't find the details needed fun. 
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TLADT24920 Posts
I also seem to have a bad history of losing games lol. Whether its BW, SCII, Battlefield(looking at kill to death ratio), Catan which I played a bit and never won, monopoly etc... I can win some games but in general, I lose more than I win and I still go back for more XD
I think part of it is that this makes a win more satisfying but also, it's the thrill of it all. Playing with friends, winning or losing doesn't matter but it's the journey to get there. I remember once in Catan, realizing that I couldn't win so I "partnered" up with a friend and helped them win. We made our other friend rage because they were really close to winning XD Just the general fun experience is pretty much the reason I always go back which is what you touched on.
In games like BW or SCII where I'm not playing friends but complete strangers, a loss hits harder since it feels more serious seeing as you're staring at a screen and playing to win. If I play against a friend then a loss isn't a big deal especially if I consider them to be more skilled than I am
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Canada1094 Posts
Nice article. I can definitely relate to how you feel. I suck terribly at Titanfall, but it's still fun as hell to play!
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great blog post. i can certainly relate to it, yet for some reasons my friends say i am more competitive than i would like to admit  and to be honest, you sound like you loose a lot againt your friends!
for me it is about the appreciation for a game or game system (especially in boardgames) and exploring strategies that maybe even look like a road to total fail in the beginning. this is so nice about games: they manifest a whole world in themselves and you try to get its rules, explore all options and abuse every feature to the extent. doing this together with friends basically is the ultimate playground. this is why competitive multiplayer games are so great.
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Maybe you just play too many games so you can't master any of them. As long as you're having fun losing I don't see any problem with that.
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It seems to me like you may not be as bad as you think but you don't fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's truly difficult to gauge how good or bad you are at a game.
Stop spending hundreds of dollars on LoL though, that's not wise.
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On May 01 2014 23:53 Djzapz wrote:
It seems to me like you may not be as bad as you think but you don't fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's truly difficult to gauge how good or bad you are at a game.
Stop spending hundreds of dollars on LoL though, that's not wise.
Nowadays it seems each time someone consider himself good at something someone comes along screaming "you suck, Dunning-Kruger bro look it up", and when someone thinks he is bad, "you must be decent then, Dunning-Kruger". Said person can also be realist and make a fair assumption of his skill level at given activity : P Not aimed at you it's just that it seems that you can't make a good assumption of yourself anymore with this Dunning Kruger shit everywhere. /rant.
I think you can definitely find enjoyment in something even if you're bad (exemple : games) in part because of the matchmaking system. It makes sure you play with people that are of similar skill so you aren't reminded constantly of your skill level. Even if you are bad at Dota, you will dominate a game from time to time, because you don't play with people that are considered "good". The matchmaking gives you the illusion of being good, which keeps people interested and the game enjoyable Obv there are other, better reasons but I wanted to highlight this one.
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On May 02 2014 01:05 SpiZe wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2014 23:53 Djzapz wrote:
It seems to me like you may not be as bad as you think but you don't fall victim to the Dunning-Kruger effect. It's truly difficult to gauge how good or bad you are at a game.
Stop spending hundreds of dollars on LoL though, that's not wise. Nowadays it seems each time someone consider himself good at something someone comes along screaming "you suck, Dunning-Kruger bro look it up", and when someone thinks he is bad, "you must be decent then, Dunning-Kruger". Said person can also be realist and make a fair assumption of his skill level at given activity : P Not aimed at you it's just that it seems that you can't make a good assumption of yourself anymore with this Dunning Kruger shit everywhere. /rant. I think you can definitely find enjoyment in something even if you're bad (exemple : games) in part because of the matchmaking system. It makes sure you play with people that are of similar skill so you aren't reminded constantly of your skill level. Even if you are bad at Dota, you will dominate a game from time to time, because you don't play with people that are considered "good". The matchmaking gives you the illusion of being good, which keeps people interested and the game enjoyable Obv there are other, better reasons but I wanted to highlight this one.
When I wrote my post I nearly mentioned the fact that the Dunning-Kruger effect is used to explain way too many things. I'm not saying he's good, I don't know the guy - but if you know you're bad and you care, it's possible that you're not that bad. You at least know enough about the game to see just how much better others are. That's something.
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