Cooperatively Competitive

Dastardly

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Apr 19, 2010
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Cooperatively Competitive

Too much competition and not enough cooperation takes the fun out of gaming

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Garompeta

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great articled really enjoyed it, sometimes it happens when me and my brother play fighting games, when one keeps losing, it starts to get frustrating and tedious, even for the one who is winning (sometimes me sometimes him)because the experience gets less and less enjoyable, then we realize we should be having fun and take it all on poor zombies in left 4 dead ^^
 

Baresark

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Great article. My one complaint is with your definition of competition. It's not about one has and another has not. It's about determining who uses the resources best, and thereby benefits everyone. Also, the idea of a resource being so limited only one person or one group can control it doesn't have a real world counterpart. There is no such resource.

My issue with competitive-ness is simply that a gamer will use an exploit to persevere rather than concentrate on a good match. As an example, with Street Figher X Tekken, there is this terible thing where certain characters are almost completely invincible with a crouch and jab. it got ridiculous, so I literally stopped playing the MP because of it. Too bad, it had such potential for me since I loved the living hell out of 2D fighters. It's this same type of thing that made me hater Tatsunoko vs Capcom. The whole concept of an easier input mode ruins the competition in the game.

I am also first and foremost about having a good match. Many times I did not press the advantage in things and I lost because of it, but as you said, it's no fun knowing you can win after a few moves. Even in a losing state such as that, both players knew you could have won very easily. But an easy match is not fun.
 

Covarr

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May 29, 2009
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This competitive mindset has all but ruined the Left 4 Dead 2 community. A few months ago, one could join a versus game and just relax and have fun. Now, though, it seems like a few groups of tournament-tier players have basically cleared everyone else out.

I've always considered myself an average player (something my ~50% win-loss ratio would support), not a master at the game, but not particularly bad, either. Unfortunately, the playerbase has reached the point where I simply can't get a good versus game. Most of the time, I get my butt handed to me by people who clearly play the game for hours a day. If the game is on sale, I might get lucky and run into a team of newbies who don't really know what they're doing. But it's becoming increasingly rare to join a game where I have a good challenge, but still a good chance.

The blame for this goes mostly to the aggressive, competitive players. They are so good as to make the game frustrating for anyone who doesn't also practice on their level. And by deliberately pubstomping, by deliberately going out of their way to team up with other competitive players and against average players, they've created an environment akin to if professional sports teams regularly challenged high school students at their sport of choice.

Not that I blame them for being good. But the need to win at all costs, even if it means actively looking for people to play against that you know you'll outclass, isn't that different from playground bullying. And even though I've used Left 4 Dead 2 as an example, I've seen this problem in any number of games. It's downright saddening.

I think perhaps the best the solution to this is for games to have better matchmaking systems. Left 4 Dead 2's matchmaking system is really basic and not very good: it sticks you into the first available server for the map and mode you choose. Campaign mode offers the option of sticking you at an appropriate difficulty for your skill level, but this is not helpful in Versus. Matchmaking systems seem to be gaining popularity, and I really hope that they become more sophisticated and more widely used in the industry over time.

P.S. Thanks
 

Dastardly

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Baresark said:
Great article. My one complaint is with your definition of competition. It's not about one has and another has not. It's about determining who uses the resources best, and thereby benefits everyone. Also, the idea of a resource being so limited only one person or one group can control it doesn't have a real world counterpart. There is no such resource.
That's certainly a fair criticism, and I agree... to an extent. Take two lions, fighting over territory -- in the end, one lion wins, the other lion leaves. I'm talking competition at its most basic here. Now, as you rightly mentioned, it's hard to find an example of something that is absolutely ruled by competition in this way, but we don't really get to the meat of the problem by staying in the middle all the time.

The water company in my town doesn't control the whole world's water supply, but they basically control mine. If I want my bath to run, my toilets to flush, and my dishwasher to live up to its name, I'd better pay them. Granted, I could move... or buy gallons of water at the store... or collect rainwater... but the fact that I would have to do these insanely inconvenient things is just further proof that they've got more control than I do. Awkward example, but I think it demonstrates my point.

My issue with competitive-ness is simply that a gamer will use an exploit to persevere rather than concentrate on a good match. ... The whole concept of an easier input mode ruins the competition in the game.
That's a huge problem, and it's exactly that kind of thing I'm talking about. When the focus is on the win and not the game, the competition bleeds from the game into the meta-game. Put simply, instead of the characters fighting, now the players are, and usually it ends with one player having more fun at the other player's expense.

And hey, there's a time and place for that, there really is! It's just this type of mentality is naturally inclined to spread and consume beyond its due, so it needs a more watchful eye to keep it in check.


Covarr said:
Not that I blame them for being good. But the need to win at all costs, even if it means actively looking for people to play against that you know you'll outclass, isn't that different from playground bullying. And even though I've used Left 4 Dead 2 as an example, I've seen this problem in any number of games. It's downright saddening.
Slam dunk, right there. I see it with my younger students all the time (especially the smart ones). They place so much weight on being "A Winner" or "The Smartest," that the title begins to mean more than the concept behind it. Over time, they shy away from greater challenges, choosing instead to stay "King of the Kiddie Pool." Even worse, they'll find ways to cheat or skirt around challenges, because it's more important to keep the title of "Best" than it is to improve.
 

antipunt

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Why was I reminded of LoL after reading this?

Interesting thing is, some people just love being trolls. AKA "I just pwned you noob, lol/roflcopter"
 

AdamxD

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That was a good read. However, the idea of competition, one person winning, one losing is essentially the basis of all sport, a mega industry which gaming could learn from. It's not always the players who may enjoy it the most. Youtube has allowed gamers to upload their own skills and achievements, and is gaining millions of viewers.

Maybe you could introduce me to that MTG gal ;)
 

Dastardly

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AdamxD said:
That was a good read. However, the idea of competition, one person winning, one losing is essentially the basis of all sport, a mega industry which gaming could learn from. It's not always the players who may enjoy it the most. Youtube has allowed gamers to upload their own skills and achievements, and is gaining millions of viewers.

Maybe you could introduce me to that MTG gal ;)
I can agree with what you're saying about sports. It's important to remember, though, that "play" existed before "sport" did -- sports (and similar competitions) are just one type of play. And y'know what, I'm going to go ahead and say it's not even the best.

Sure, audiences get into sports, and it's an experience that goes beyond just the players themselves, but look at all the work that goes into making sure professional sports have interesting games. Not as many people tune in to watch one team utterly stomp the other, and they don't talk about games like that for quite as long.

To me, a clearer example comes not from what we enjoy in sports, but from what we enjoy in stories. Play is, in a sense, cooperatively writing a story, after all (even if that story is "We tossed around a ball, and then I won"). We like epic battles, on-the-ropes victories, we love a photo finish... things that generally don't happen in real competitive situations.

Let's say your team wins the Super Bowl by one point -- would you say, "Aw, c'mon, if they were only going to win by one point, why not just play a one-point game?" Of course not. That's not the point. The result is nice, but it's not why we watch. We watch to see the story unfold, and the story is just better with an even match-up.

In real life, especially gaming with friends, you can't always get a truly even match-up... so where's the harm in playing things a little less cutthroat, and making sure we're winning a good game?

(and, Alas!, MTG girl is married. Competition strikes again!)
 

Elf Defiler Korgan

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Competition is a many headed beast in regards to mp. Most will be heavily competitive, with only some options to co-op and make it less competitive and away from the vein of I kill you, you try to kill me. On competition taking away fun, we have all felt it. When others are better than you at a game, and you get pummeled. Now if you are good at a game, and can win pretty easily, this can also take away your fun. Superiority can make us horrible people, as we feel the urge to mock beginners, or those just a tad worse than us, who we just happened to get by a fluke or lucky shot/stab/throw and now we try to prove our superiority.

So competition in gaming can be a bad thing, it can drive us away from games we know and love, and it can drive us away from learning a game further.
 

Scow2

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Baresark said:
Great article. My one complaint is with your definition of competition. It's not about one has and another has not. It's about determining who uses the resources best, and thereby benefits everyone. Also, the idea of a resource being so limited only one person or one group can control it doesn't have a real world counterpart. There is no such resource.

My issue with competitive-ness is simply that a gamer will use an exploit to persevere rather than concentrate on a good match. As an example, with Street Figher X Tekken, there is this terible thing where certain characters are almost completely invincible with a crouch and jab. it got ridiculous, so I literally stopped playing the MP because of it. Too bad, it had such potential for me since I loved the living hell out of 2D fighters. It's this same type of thing that made me hater Tatsunoko vs Capcom. The whole concept of an easier input mode ruins the competition in the game.

I am also first and foremost about having a good match. Many times I did not press the advantage in things and I lost because of it, but as you said, it's no fun knowing you can win after a few moves. Even in a losing state such as that, both players knew you could have won very easily. But an easy match is not fun.
Actually, there is such a resource. Hell, ALL resources in the real world are limited. Why do you think we have wars? And as Fallout notes: War never changes. It's always about limited resources.

Games are simulations of microcosms of real life, distilled to a "pure" essence of cooperation and competition.

I can't think of any game people play for fun that ISN'T competitive and about resource acquisition/denial. Want a list of popular kids games? Tag, Hide'n'Seek, Red Rover, Cops and Robbers, and all sorts of competitive board games, from Monopoly to Don't Break the Ice.

All those games that we play are competitive at their core, even the cooperative ones. So, I'm afraid this article is trying to make a point that doesn't really exist.
 

Dastardly

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Scow2 said:
All those games that we play are competitive at their core, even the cooperative ones. So, I'm afraid this article is trying to make a point that doesn't really exist.
Actually, you're just restating my point -- I'm not saying we have to seek out purely cooperative games (but make no mistake, those exist), but rather that we need to work some cooperative spirit into our competitive games.

It can be as simple as a group of kids playing tag, and it's clear that one of the kids is tall enough to climb a tree and the others aren't, and all of the kids (the tall one included) agree that the tree is off-limits. Is there any reason, in the game's rules, that the tall kid shouldn't be able to use that natural advantage? Nope. But the group might agree to it so the game can remain fun.

As to entirely cooperative gaming, do you honestly believe there's no such thing?
 

cricket chirps

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Yep, i agree with every bit of this. I'ld go to the extreme that competition ruins gameplay. I got SUPER competitive in League of Legends and what started out as a lot of fun nearly ruined some friendships over the game. Since then i've nearly stoped playing multiplayer games and when i do play it just isn't as fun as bot games, well crafted story modes, or open world fun.

To adress the guy above me. Yep played starcraft 2 as well and it had the same problem. I almost couldnt get into it at all because people didnt even play the game. They ran through a script of "do this, this, then this, and win."
 
Jan 12, 2012
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Scow2 said:
All those games that we play are competitive at their core, even the cooperative ones. So, I'm afraid this article is trying to make a point that doesn't really exist.
I think the point is that we focus too much on winning the game, rather than enjoying it; we allow the competitive possibilities to outweigh all others.

As for cooperative games, how about Journey? I don't think it's even possible to 'win' against the person you're playing with; you both win together. But Journey is somewhat unique in it's approach; I think that the author wants to foster an environment that is more Settlers of Catan than Monopoly. He wants a place where you can play against each other without trying to destroy one another; where you can enjoy the experience of playing and remember the great moments, rather than focus on winning and forget all else.

Your points about resource acquisition and denial are true, and using skillful play to gain resources while denying them to opponents is at the heart of games; however, fun doesn't have to be such a resource.
 

Callate

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Elsewhere, I noted that part of my definition of a really good game is one I enjoy even when I lose. There are plenty of games- some I have to admit are actually rather good, at least on a technical level- that I feel irritated with even when I win.

The card game Dominion is a good example. I quite enjoy the game, in part because I can observe everyone's strategy and maybe come to some likely conclusions about who will win, but the actual outcome is often in doubt until the final point-count. And then I can muse about why a particular strategy was successful with the other players, or why another might have worked in a different context.

The exception to my enjoyment of the game is when Dominion is played like Magic- when the "deck" chosen has a particular design, a particular one or two paths to winning in mind which not all players might be clear on. It becomes, much like the author says, more about competition than play, a race to see who understands the riddle of the deck's design first (assuming the person who chose it doesn't know to begin with.) Much less question of victory, much less experimentation, much less fun.
 

LostCrusader

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Why do I get the feeling the writer has been watching my friends and I on LoL. The community on there seems to be almost purely in each match for the win, and it definitely pulls everyone into that mentality. Everyone celebrates when a match is won by someone on the other team trolling/lagging out, but then go into rage when a match is well fought by both sides and is lost after a long fight.
 

Et3rnalLegend64

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Good article. I am reminded of how cutthroat the fighting game community can be. Go to any Youtube fighting game vid and see how many flame wars you can find.

I'm nothing if not competitive at my fighters. I don't want the other person to hold back so I can go without holding back too. The thing, however, is that I don't mind losing if we both gave it our all and we both stood a reasonable (if not equal) chance of winning. That is fun for me. A game that challenges me and brings out the best that I can be.

I don't like fighting newbies, especially now that we can't freely pick our characters before the match in BlazBlue. Before, I would pick my main if the other player was equal to or better than me. If the other player was much less skilled, then would pick a character I was less familiar with. That was my handicap and it made me try harder in order to get a win.
Nowadays, you determine the character you will use even before you begin matchmaking. If I'm in a mood to use my main and get caught with a string of newbies, then I'm forced to hold back since I feel bad about using my biggest attacks on someone who clearly isn't ready for it. I don't like holding back for long periods of time since it takes me a while to get back into gear when I have to play for real. I don't like demolishing newbies because I know how tough the genre is to new players just by itself. I think constantly holding back nowadays might be hurting my play. When I really have to go at it, I can't do it properly because I've been using inefficient playstyles for so long. It kinda sucks.
 

geizr

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There's two kinds of serious gaming, in my opinion. The first kind is the one with which we are familiar that tends to drive all the fun out of the game: the hyper-competitive, "winning equals life, losing equals death" type of serious where too much weight is placed on the meritocracy of winning (this is an attitude in which no mistake is tolerated). Under this kind of serious gaming, the gamer is focused on being the VIP or superstar of the game that carried the team to victory, and he desires this to be the case every single time. It's entirely focused on achieving bragging rights for having the most points, kills, highest score, or whatever.

The second kind is more about maintaining focused attention on the game, being aware of the situational changes in the game, and adapting to those changes. You still play to win, but you are more focused on the nature of simply playing the game properly and to the best of your ability rather than the meritocracy of winning or losing. Under this kind of serious gaming, you are focused on understanding what the key objectives are, what actions are most important to execute, and learning to set aside distractions (such as chasing kills) that pull you away from the primary objective or targets. It's about being able to read the flow of battle and adapt accordingly. Also, under this kind of serious gaming, you are more focused on actual teamwork rather than trying to be the singular superstar that carries the entire team to success (it's always interesting to watch an American Dream-Team olympic basketball team get drilled by some random foreign team using nothing but basic 101 tactics and teamwork. The reason the American team would lose is because the players are too concerned with show-boating and competing for who does the most work to carry the team). You focus on what your specific task is, and you do it, even if you are stuck at a flag or point doing boring guard-duty to keep some stealth character from ninja'ing it. The fact you stay and guard that point could make the difference between being able to win or lose (I can't tell you how many times I used to see a team lose Arathi Basin in WoW because no one wanted to stay and guard the flag). Under this kind of serious gaming, you let winning and losing take care of itself, and you just focus on playing the game.

As I see it, the basic problem is that winning and losing, for many gamers, has become the metric by which they measure the worth and value of the person. Their own sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and value in themselves as a person is being too much predicated on their ability to achieve a high win/loss ratio, most points, most kills, highest score, etc. This entire attitude of being "pro" is an unreasonable expectation that everyone should be able to play at the same level and skill as the top 5% of players (an obvious contradiction of possibility). So, they stop focusing on the playing and instead focus on just the numbers.

I don't know if any of that makes any sense. I rattled this off stream-of-conscious-like, so it may not be entirely consistent.
 

somonels

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I just skimmed through it and it's good for explaining MOBAs in general.

Btw, the capcha was: don't stop