Why do I choose to play Counter-strike, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, hell even Pacman, over playing real sports? If you're like me then you strive for that adrenaline rush, a feeling of dominance, that feeling of, "Yeah, I'm better than you." To me, that's a real rush, I love it.
It's a bright sunny day and it has been for a couple of weeks and yet I find myself indoors, hunched over a keyboard or hugging an X-box controller, curtains drawn, windows wide open and a sweat on my forehead. My parents and relatives ask, "Why aren't you outside in this lovely weather?" Well two immediate answers spring to mind:
1. College has ended, I'm enjoying my freedom. No, not the freedom of not having to leave my house, but the freedom of not having to do anything, not having to meet deadlines, not having to worry about how late I'm staying up and how early I have to get out of bed, and not worrying about getting to college and exams on time.
And 2. My cars broke so...
But that aside, I have to say I genuinely prefer gaming. But why would I rather play say Counter-Strike than go and play, say a game of football? Well there's the availability of games, you just pick up and play, you've got a console or pc, got an internet connection and then you're set. There's an endless number of other people out there instantly accessible through the internet to pit yourself against, this, I believe is what appeals to online gamers at large. Compare this to football, I need a football, easy. But then I need people to play against or with, its not likeonline where I just log on and can choose from millions of players, with sport you have a select number, if any, of people that enjoy that sport, then each of these you have to contact, so if you've decided to play a football on a whim, then trying to find people that are both available and willing is a hell ofa lot easier said than done.
Online games also have the advantage of variety of players to play against, the lists are endless, even old games still have quite a wide selection of players. TakeAvP 2 as an example, I played this game for a few years, it was the first game I played online and it was about 5 or 6 years ago. I recently re-installed the game, went online and despite the server list taking forever to load I found there to still be well over 200 people playing the game. I'd be lucky to get 10 people out to play a game of football.
I could join a league, but again, this is a lot easier and more fun online. To join a football 5 a side or 11 a side league then to meet up and play requires a lot of effort, arrangement, transport and a place to play. I can join an online league at the click of a button, set a time me and my team are willing to play and the requests will come flooding in.
I played for a local football team, Hareclive Pumas, for 4 years, in 3 seasons. We had our ups and downs, the first season I played we did terribly and ended the season somewhere near the bottom, but I enjoyed playing, I actually enjoyed losing because I viewed it as a challenge. At the end of the first season we completely reformed the team, forming 2 new teams and we trained hard, hoping to beat the other half of the old team. And that we did, we played the next 2 seasons and I think we lost a total of 2 games in 2 seasons, but I didn't enjoy this. Don't get me wrong steamrolling people is fun for a while, everyone enjoys winning but after a while I didn't look forward to the weekend, to the game on Sunday. It was after this third season I turned to video games.
I started playing Counter-Strike with a few friends and in a couple of months we had a team together in ED. The adrenaline rush I got from playing 5 on 5 matches, and even a little in public servers, was something I just hadn't felt before and I loved it. This combined with the sense of achievement from moments where my team was dead and I'd go on to win a 3 or 4 on 1 and score the bomb defuse or the bomb plant felt incredible. The, "Well played." Or, "Good job"s from team mates were worth as much to me as winning the match itself. The level of challenge that I love is just not available in sport without loosing all chance of victory.
As any of my friends will tell you, I'm super competitive. Anything with leagues, levels, achievements or player on player action and I have to be the best, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. After a long time of nagging friends I finallysuccumbed to the pressure and joined Facebook, now all I find myself doing on there is playing Mafia Wars and Pirates, yet more competitiveness.
It's not just the playing though, watching professionals in e-sport cups and championships is much more entertaining than watching the FA cup orEuropean cups. I challenge anyone who's played Counter-Strike to watch one of the many frag videos on youtube or google videos and not want to play again, I recommend the eoLithic video as its my personal favourite. But just watching one of these videos gives a slight adrenaline rush.
I have since, moved onto WoW arena. This is all I find myself doing when I'm online. The 2 versus 2 or 3 versus 3 match setups make the competition here a hell of a lot more personal and the constant change of pace, player setups, maps, race, gear and of course skill level that you can come across in the space of an hour makes this even more challenging, to me, than the FPS games that I have played.
The challenge, variety and availability I think are all big factors in why some people choose games over sports, but for me the deciding factor is definitely the adrenaline rush. It's a perfectly legal rush, available in your own home. In the words of FPS Doug, " What can I say there's nothing like the rush of hunting people down and killing 'em!"
It's a bright sunny day and it has been for a couple of weeks and yet I find myself indoors, hunched over a keyboard or hugging an X-box controller, curtains drawn, windows wide open and a sweat on my forehead. My parents and relatives ask, "Why aren't you outside in this lovely weather?" Well two immediate answers spring to mind:
1. College has ended, I'm enjoying my freedom. No, not the freedom of not having to leave my house, but the freedom of not having to do anything, not having to meet deadlines, not having to worry about how late I'm staying up and how early I have to get out of bed, and not worrying about getting to college and exams on time.
And 2. My cars broke so...
But that aside, I have to say I genuinely prefer gaming. But why would I rather play say Counter-Strike than go and play, say a game of football? Well there's the availability of games, you just pick up and play, you've got a console or pc, got an internet connection and then you're set. There's an endless number of other people out there instantly accessible through the internet to pit yourself against, this, I believe is what appeals to online gamers at large. Compare this to football, I need a football, easy. But then I need people to play against or with, its not likeonline where I just log on and can choose from millions of players, with sport you have a select number, if any, of people that enjoy that sport, then each of these you have to contact, so if you've decided to play a football on a whim, then trying to find people that are both available and willing is a hell ofa lot easier said than done.
Online games also have the advantage of variety of players to play against, the lists are endless, even old games still have quite a wide selection of players. TakeAvP 2 as an example, I played this game for a few years, it was the first game I played online and it was about 5 or 6 years ago. I recently re-installed the game, went online and despite the server list taking forever to load I found there to still be well over 200 people playing the game. I'd be lucky to get 10 people out to play a game of football.
I could join a league, but again, this is a lot easier and more fun online. To join a football 5 a side or 11 a side league then to meet up and play requires a lot of effort, arrangement, transport and a place to play. I can join an online league at the click of a button, set a time me and my team are willing to play and the requests will come flooding in.
I played for a local football team, Hareclive Pumas, for 4 years, in 3 seasons. We had our ups and downs, the first season I played we did terribly and ended the season somewhere near the bottom, but I enjoyed playing, I actually enjoyed losing because I viewed it as a challenge. At the end of the first season we completely reformed the team, forming 2 new teams and we trained hard, hoping to beat the other half of the old team. And that we did, we played the next 2 seasons and I think we lost a total of 2 games in 2 seasons, but I didn't enjoy this. Don't get me wrong steamrolling people is fun for a while, everyone enjoys winning but after a while I didn't look forward to the weekend, to the game on Sunday. It was after this third season I turned to video games.
I started playing Counter-Strike with a few friends and in a couple of months we had a team together in ED. The adrenaline rush I got from playing 5 on 5 matches, and even a little in public servers, was something I just hadn't felt before and I loved it. This combined with the sense of achievement from moments where my team was dead and I'd go on to win a 3 or 4 on 1 and score the bomb defuse or the bomb plant felt incredible. The, "Well played." Or, "Good job"s from team mates were worth as much to me as winning the match itself. The level of challenge that I love is just not available in sport without loosing all chance of victory.
As any of my friends will tell you, I'm super competitive. Anything with leagues, levels, achievements or player on player action and I have to be the best, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. After a long time of nagging friends I finallysuccumbed to the pressure and joined Facebook, now all I find myself doing on there is playing Mafia Wars and Pirates, yet more competitiveness.
It's not just the playing though, watching professionals in e-sport cups and championships is much more entertaining than watching the FA cup orEuropean cups. I challenge anyone who's played Counter-Strike to watch one of the many frag videos on youtube or google videos and not want to play again, I recommend the eoLithic video as its my personal favourite. But just watching one of these videos gives a slight adrenaline rush.
I have since, moved onto WoW arena. This is all I find myself doing when I'm online. The 2 versus 2 or 3 versus 3 match setups make the competition here a hell of a lot more personal and the constant change of pace, player setups, maps, race, gear and of course skill level that you can come across in the space of an hour makes this even more challenging, to me, than the FPS games that I have played.
The challenge, variety and availability I think are all big factors in why some people choose games over sports, but for me the deciding factor is definitely the adrenaline rush. It's a perfectly legal rush, available in your own home. In the words of FPS Doug, " What can I say there's nothing like the rush of hunting people down and killing 'em!"
