Sportsmanship in video games

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Fighting gamers are a detriment to the genre as a whole.

[The Derrit]

Me and this friend of mine, we used to play Soul Calibur 4 quite a bit and in all honesty he was better than on a lot of levels,I might eek out a win every once in a while, but for the most part he beat me, did I ever get upset.. no.

We both just enjoyed the fun of the game, we never got all egotistical he knew he was better than me but he never rubbed my face in it.

See? that's not so hard is it.

What is dick is when competitive gamers play against casual gamers the way they would against another competitive player. I think we all agree with that. On the other hand, two competitive players can respect each other (and often do). The place where it becomes a problem is when casual players try to "be pro" and then get frustrated by players who play to win.

Its a very simple concept, if you don't want people to play "dirty" as most of you would seem to call it, play your friends and people you trust to be "fair" players. Now that's part of what sucks about online play, I get that, but then play with your friends. You did it when N64 and PlayStation were still around, I'm sure you still can. Online play will never turn into the "we play just for fun" fest that people here seem to want it to be, so recognize that.

[BardicKnowledge]

First of all, though I'm not great, I take my SF2 fairly seriously when I play, and would be pissed if anyone ever played short of their top potential. If that includes touch-of-death combos with Bison and Guile, fine -- it just teaches me how to avoid those situations.

That being said, everyone playing has to be in the same mindset when a group starts. If one guy wants to fuck around as a boxing Heavy, one guy wants to use his bow to snipe when the rifle is much more practical, and everyone else tries to play a serious match on 2fort, the two guys dicking around will rage.

If everyone feels like being crazy though, we all play the Pac-Man map and it works out fine

[PriZm]

See? that's not so hard is it.

What is dick is when competitive gamers play against casual gamers the way they would against another competitive player. I think we all agree with that. On the other hand, two competitive players can respect each other (and often do). The place where it becomes a problem is when casual players try to "be pro" and then get frustrated by players who play to win.

Its a very simple concept, if you don't want people to play "dirty" as most of you would seem to call it, play your friends and people you trust to be "fair" players. Now that's part of what sucks about online play, I get that, but then play with your friends. You did it when N64 and PlayStation were still around, I'm sure you still can. Online play will never turn into the "we play just for fun" fest that people here seem to want it to be, so recognize that.

There is such a thing as playing "dirty" which is accepted even amongst competitive players though. That's why some characters in some games are banned in tournaments.

Take this concept and transpose it to casuals. In most non-competitive players minds, some moves should be banned because defending against them surpasses their skill level. The same way that some characters are banned because their moves/combos are too hard for competitive players to defend against.

It's all a matter of defining how you wanna play the game. Non-competitive players think the game should be played one way and competitive players think it should be played another way. The thing is, no one is right. So in my mind it is unfair to call non-competitive players "scrubs", which is definitely pejorative.

[The Derrit]

It's all a matter of defining how you wanna play the game. Non-competitive players think the game should be played one way and competitive players think it should be played another way. The thing is, no one is right. So in my mind it is unfair to call non-competitive players "scrubs", which is definitely pejorative.

Well of course. I'm just saying in that we're talking about sportsmanship, it would be applied to competitive games. And so we're all clear, the definition of a scrub is not a casual player. No one hates casual players, its just the way they play the game, and that's fine. A scrub is a player who is either a casual or competitive player, who tries to play competitively and then whines about things that are within the defined rules of the game.

And its true, there are some things in some games that are just too much, as you mentioned with the bannings and such. While most people here seem to abhor competitive fighters/gamers, these bans happen because a community as a whole wants fairness.

This is kind of off topic, but relevant if you ask me. I believe in these kinds of games there absolutely can be sportsmanship.

EDIT: and bardic you're a sweet dude don't ever change

[PriZm]

This is kind of off topic, but relevant if you ask me. I believe in these kinds of games there absolutely can be sportsmanship.

Well I can certainly agree to that.

Anyways it would be very hard for me to continue this discussion without game-specific examples, which would detract from the topic, so carry on.

[zircon]

I'm with Bardic here.

The entire fighting game section of competitive games shares this philosophy. They learned it (in part) from a man named David Sirlin. Go ahead and Google him; find his work and read it, and I guarantee you'll want to gag at how self-serving it is. If pro sports IRL worked the way these people view competitive gaming, we'd be looking at a very different world (of sports).

Not at all. He's exactly on the mark. All sports have evolved over the years. I'm sure at one point in the world of baseball, people weren't bunting or using curveballs. Is a bunt "cheap"? Should we ban it? No. It has its strengths and weaknesses. What Sirlin speaks out against is the mentality that some people have, basically creating a set of rules for themselves that don't actually exist in a game, and then getting upset when people break these made-up, arbitrary rules.

He has written at length about how there ARE some things in some games that make them "degenerate" and supports the idea of bans in some cases. But these cases are more rare than many people make them out to be.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html

In some cases, even if something is bugged and completely unfair, if it is not "discrete" or enforceable, it can't really be banned. Moreover, many tactics or techniques that might have been unintended by the developers can be countered or done by many players. Someone spamming the same move against you over and over in SF? Learn the counter, or play that character yourself. It's simple.

I think a lot of people have some sense of entitlement in games. For example, that every hero/character/team/class/tactic has to be just as effective. The sports world CERTAINLY isn't like this. Every sport has certain techniques that are far superior than others and are adopted by basically everyone who plays.

Sirlin does NOT advocate being a dick, or ONLY playing to win. In fact he wrote quite a bit on this too.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/love-of-the-game-not-playing-to-win.html

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win-part-3-not-playing-to-win.html

[JackKieser]

If that's what a scrub is, then there are a LOT more scrubs than competitive communities want to admit to. SWF has right now debates on:

* Metaknight

* Stages

* Chain grabs

* Infinites / infinite grabs (not the same as simple chain grabs)

* A minor (very minor) kerfuffle over items (still)

And these aren't because of casual players registering and bitching. I'm talking about people like Xyro, one of Texas' premiere TOs. Members of the highest eschalon of Smash still complain about parts of our rules (or at least, the Shadowy Board of Pro Players' rules). If wanting to change accepted rules qualifies you to be a scrub, then every player HAS to be conservative all the time. Nothing changes, which means nothing gets better. That, simply put, is BS.

Planking (ledgecamping, especially with good ole' Meta) is beatable. Doesn't mean it doesn't devolve the game into a camp-fest and ultimately hurt the competitive environment. What's worse is that this is usually an American problem. Japanese Brawl doesn't have NEARLY the problems that American Brawl has because they have sportsmanship and won't use techs that risk actively hurting the game field. The state of play is more important than a single win. That's what true sportsmanship is: not allowing a single win to be to the detriment of the competitive atmosphere as a whole. Gaming, especially fighters, doesn't have that kind of sportsmanship: they have a kind of sportsmanship that allows them to shit all over lesser players and force them to quit playing before they have a chance to get good (which only helps a pro's odds, btw).

Are there any explicit rules that prevent a sports team from stealing and studying their opponent's playbook? No. Would it benefit them? Of course. Would everyone doing it degenerate any sport? Naturally. When it comes right down to it, EVERY SET OF RULES IS ARBITRARY. Every one of them. No sport, IRL or video game, has a set of rules that is any less arbitrary than the other. Sirlin, whether he says it explicitly or not, lays the groundwork for justifying anything you want and having a pre-made argument to shut everyone else's down. Basically, the only counter to a Sirlin "play to win" argument is to be the first person to write the rules.

[Gollgagh]

I might eek out a win every once in a while

the word is eke

[zircon]

Are there any explicit rules that prevent a sports team from stealing and studying their opponent's playbook? No. Would it benefit them? Of course. Would everyone doing it degenerate any sport? Naturally. When it comes right down to it, EVERY SET OF RULES IS ARBITRARY. Every one of them. No sport, IRL or video game, has a set of rules that is any less arbitrary than the other. Sirlin, whether he says it explicitly or not, lays the groundwork for justifying anything you want and having a pre-made argument to shut everyone else's down. Basically, the only counter to a Sirlin "play to win" argument is to be the first person to write the rules.

Not at all. Unlike sports - where rules are more arbitrary - games have clear rules, those being the game code itself and what the developer has enabled you to do. A properly-designed, non-degenerate video game will ideally have the perfect set of rules built-in. But not all games are like that; some of tons of bugs and are either unpatachable or the developer simply doesn't care enough to address the issues.

Bans in competitive games aren't arbitrary. One person doesn't decide on them, typically the entire competitive community does. Typically what scrubs complain about are things that are clearly built into the game and are game mechanics, like throws in Street Fighter; things that the developer clearly intended and designed around. Bugs or techniques that were unintended are more of a grey area, but as Sirlin said, it requires a lot of thought to really decide on whether a ban is appropriate.

You say that Japanese Brawl doesn't have the problems American Brawl does. OK. It's not like that in Street Fighter. If you actually read Sirlin's site more, you'd learn a thing or two; for example, the game Capcom vs. SNK 2 has a ridiculous technique called "roll canceling" which is extremely hard to do (and impossible to ban due to the nature of the game.) When the game came out, American players never really used this technique because it was so difficult, or maybe they never discovered its power. Regardless, the American CVS2 players eventually matched up against the Japanese and were dominated. All the Japanese guys used the same small handful of characters and abused the same technique over and over, a technique that you literally HAVE to use now to be competitive in that game. So much for the "sportsmanship" of the Japanese, huh? But this is really a misnomer. We'll get to that later.

Sirlin points out that this is basically unavoidable because it's not possible to really ban roll-canceling due to the way mechanics work, but it means CVS2 is not a good game. It's degenerate, and that's not the fault of the players.

Gaming, especially fighters, doesn't have that kind of sportsmanship: they have a kind of sportsmanship that allows them to shit all over lesser players and force them to quit playing before they have a chance to get good (which only helps a pro's odds, btw).

You're mixing up "common decency" with "playing to win". The Japanese are generally considered to be better than Americans at serious fighting games like Super Turbo, SFIV, etc. Yet the best players share techniques all the time. In fact, the very best SF player (and arguably the best fighting game player) in the world, Daigo Umehara, is known to pretty much hang out all day at arcades with the other top JP SF players and basically just practice, learn from each other, etc. You can have sportsmanship and still play to win. The scrub mindset doesn't mean you never complain about anything or discuss certain things in a game that could be bannable, it's the mindset of encountering a challenge and not trying to overcome it, but instead simply crying foul and trying to avoid the challenge.

[JackKieser]

I'e read nearly every one of Sirlin's articles, with the exception of his multiple articles over his changes to SSF2THDR. It's why I think he's so overblown. Not a single one of Sirlin's articles or arguments lays out something that is not only important, but crucial to the survival of any competitive game: an objective ban criteria.

When is something "too good"? If the game's code is law, but game code can be glitchy, buggy, or whatever, then it's up to players to fix the problem. But, how many characters have to be made unviable for something to be considered "broken"? 1? 5? 20? All but 1? How strong does something have to be, how many options does it have to shut down, how many frames of advantage must it have, what is the maximum range, the fastest speed, the strongest power something has to have to be "bannable"?

Sirlin's entire site boils down to "hey guys, make sure to remember to justify yourselves", but anything can be justified because everything is arbitrary, even the game's code! The first time we ban something the code allows because we think it's broken becomes the point where even game code isn't sacred; at that point, we can literally do anything we want because everything is arbitrary.

This is the problem I have with Sirlin and competitive gamers in general. They use these flimsy arguments and lofty logical strings to justify looking down on other players for thinking differently. MvC2 is a terribly balanced game, I'll admit that, and I don't know how to perform roll cancelling so I can't say how hard it is to ban; I'll take your word, though, and say that you can't ban it. Just because you have to use something to play doesn't mean it's unsportsmanlike. What's unsportmanlike is if roll cancelling turns the game into a game where everyone has to use the same team of 3 to play at all.

Games become unsportsmanlike when the players would rather win than foster the health of the community. If roll cancelling is so hard to do that it reduces the entire competitive community to the 100 people worldwide who can move fast enough to do it, it's degenerate and the players are unsportsmanlike. Ledgehogging in Brawl is mean, sure, but it doesn't force the size of the community down; it may be mean, but it's not unsportsmanlike because it doesn't hurt the health of the competitive community.

[K.B.]

Right. I'm with zircon. I don't understand the Sirlin hate at all; though folks say they've read him, this disgust seems to be founded in heresay, not from his words.

As to Sirlin not nailing down objective criteria for techs that go to far: why the hell would that be his job? Why would you even assume there's objective criteria for something so obviously subjective? People get together, find things that detract from the game when used, and then they don't allow them in their competition. It doesn't matter how or where they draw the line; it's their line. What Sirlin says is essentially that there are rules of the game and of any given competition/situation: if you play within them, you are not wrong. And really, the only way competitions know to ban certain techs is when they're overused and become obvious. Want to "foster the health of the community"? Foster a competitive environment where whining is ignored. And spam the shit out of that winning tech: if it's shown to be fair, it's fair; if not, you've brought it to the attention of the rule-makers and you've bettered the entire scene by highlighting it for a ban. Rules are the very thing that are designed to prevent unfair techs; if there's something wrong then it's with the rules, not with the player.

If you don't like the rules, change the existing rules. Or don't play and create your own game with your own rules. It's really that simple. Also, Bardic and Durr.

But really, none of that, NONE of it at all is unsportsmanlike.

To something closer to what is unsportsmanlike, head games: you should be able to see them for what they are. Trash talk is meant to get into your head. If you let this happen, your opponent has won. If you see how silly it is to get pissed about it, you can get a good chuckle at such a feeble attempt to get an edge. And, though I don't do it or advocate it, a little bit of trash talk can still fit within the realm of good sportsmanship. It's when it switches to vulgarity or being mean-spirited that it crosses the line. Going with the sports thing: Muhammad Ali was not a poor sport. Saying that he was the greatest and giving witty taunts on tv were simply head games; in fact, they were head games he was more playing with himself than with his opponents. Now, if he had been lewd, made serious threats, or gone and taken off an ear, then he would have been a poor sport.

But in the end, even if someone does cross the line and doesn't get caught by the rules, you can always offer to meet them outside afterward.

This post brought to you with a little TLC.

[The Derrit]

If that's what a scrub is, then there are a LOT more scrubs than competitive communities want to admit to. SWF has right now debates on:

* Metaknight

* Stages

* Chain grabs

* Infinites / infinite grabs (not the same as simple chain grabs)

* A minor (very minor) kerfuffle over items (still)

And these aren't because of casual players registering and bitching. I'm talking about people like Xyro, one of Texas' premiere TOs. Members of the highest eschalon of Smash still complain about parts of our rules (or at least, the Shadowy Board of Pro Players' rules). If wanting to change accepted rules qualifies you to be a scrub, then every player HAS to be conservative all the time. Nothing changes, which means nothing gets better. That, simply put, is BS.

Planking (ledgecamping, especially with good ole' Meta) is beatable. Doesn't mean it doesn't devolve the game into a camp-fest and ultimately hurt the competitive environment. What's worse is that this is usually an American problem. Japanese Brawl doesn't have NEARLY the problems that American Brawl has because they have sportsmanship and won't use techs that risk actively hurting the game field. The state of play is more important than a single win. That's what true sportsmanship is: not allowing a single win to be to the detriment of the competitive atmosphere as a whole. Gaming, especially fighters, doesn't have that kind of sportsmanship: they have a kind of sportsmanship that allows them to shit all over lesser players and force them to quit playing before they have a chance to get good (which only helps a pro's odds, btw).

Are there any explicit rules that prevent a sports team from stealing and studying their opponent's playbook? YES. Would it benefit them? Of course. Would everyone doing it degenerate any sport? Naturally. When it comes right down to it, EVERY SET OF RULES IS ARBITRARY. Every one of them. No sport, IRL or video game, has a set of rules that is any less arbitrary than the other. Sirlin, whether he says it explicitly or not, lays the groundwork for justifying anything you want and having a pre-made argument to shut everyone else's down. Basically, the only counter to a Sirlin "play to win" argument is to be the first person to write the rules.

For starters, the reason there is so much dissent in the Brawl community is because Brawl is a game that does not have fair and balanced competition at even a casual level, much less a competitive one. I'm sure you disagree.

Second of all, that's why the rules are still IN DEBATE. Sure there's a set of rules, but plenty of people disagree on them and plenty of people don't use them. Thus these rules are not DEFINED and thus your example doesn't fit the definition at all.

And this is a response to the bold; what would you rather have them do? Let shitty people beat them for funsies and then be all like "good job"? That's stupid. No one loses for fun. Yes there are some douchebags, and a lot of them play Brawl. But in most established communities there's a respect for new players who want to learn. I hosted a SSBM tournament in my hometown (which actual people came to, including Darc, Dazwa and SleepyK) and they were all amped to meet new people in the community, even though a lot of the kids who showed up weren't as good as they were.

Games become unsportsmanlike when the players would rather win than foster the health of the community.

Isn't that every game ever made though? Games and competitions are made to decide who is better at a certain thing, even down to checkers and rock-paper-scissors. Its all about who can win. So if you're not playing to win, then what are you doing? The community will not become a healthy one if everyone feels the need to limit themselves to what everyone else is doing; that stifles the creativity of the players and the motivation to keep playing.

edit YES I HAVE BACKUP way to be zirc and KB

[Geeky Stoner]

the word is eke

huh weird spell check didn't correct me maybe it thought i meant the sound,

oh well live and learn

[zircon]

I'e read nearly every one of Sirlin's articles, with the exception of his multiple articles over his changes to SSF2THDR. It's why I think he's so overblown. Not a single one of Sirlin's articles or arguments lays out something that is not only important, but crucial to the survival of any competitive game: an objective ban criteria.

First of all, given that he's a competitive SF player and basically studies/designs competitive games full time, I think he might know a thing or two about what makes competitive games survive. He DID explain the criteria for a ban.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html

Please read it again:

A ban must be enforceable, discrete, and warranted.

Also read this again:

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/cheating.html

To some extent there are no objective criteria because every game is completely different, but Sirlin EXTENSIVELY discusses a wide variety of situations and why it's generally better to NOT just ban stuff left and right. You need a lot of data before you can even realistically think about banning most things. IMO, the other bottom line is that bans should be left in the hands of the most competitive players. If someone really good can deal with a certain technique reliably, and they don't think that technique is overpowered, then it shouldn't be banned.

[Poke'G]

Isn't that every game ever made though? Games and competitions are made to decide who is better at a certain thing, even down to checkers and rock-paper-scissors. Its all about who can win. So if you're not playing to win, then what are you doing?

Playing to have fun. That's what every game ever made was for. Competitions are for deciding who is better. It's unsportsmanlike to fail to differentiate the two. You shouldn't wail on those just looking to enjoy their pastime in an effort to show they are wasting their time. Smash Bros. is full of these people.

The reverse is true as well. When competition is active, you shouldn't seek to destroy that competition out of amusement, ala the griefing common in many online games.

Second of all, that's why the rules are still IN DEBATE. Sure there's a set of rules, but plenty of people disagree on them and plenty of people don't use them.

The problem is that the dicks who do use them lord it over those who don't, in an attempt to establish superiority, either in skill, devotion to the hobby, or some combination of petty reasons.

I ran a Smash Bros. Melee tournament once for a convention at my university, and in an attempt to appease the Smash Nazis I knew on campus I held two separate tournaments. One for them on Final Destination with no items. The other was on Hyrule Temple with all items.

The first complaint I got from the Final D tournament was that the other tournament even existed in the first place. Then a group approached me over the fact that I wasn't using the MLG established rules of play, and the matches were four man free for alls. Then I got assholes bitching about wanting to use their own controllers. I gave them our reason for not allowing it; that in the middle of an event with 1000 people using generously loaned equipment we could not feasibly have people walking in an out of the game room with controllers. The equipment that had been loaned was tested before hand and found to be in working order. They still whined.

Compare this to the Hyrule Temple tournament (which had a bigger attendance in both players and viewers) and who's participants had the heart to say "thanks" for running a large event for people to enjoy.

And this is a response to the bold; what would you rather have them do? Let shitty people beat them for funsies and then be all like "good job"? That's stupid. No one loses for fun. Yes there are some douchebags, and a lot of them play Brawl.

They don't have to throw a match, but neither do they have to rub in their skill and completely dominate a game when they clearly are the better player. In the story above, the reason I had even bothered with an itemless tournament was because among all the Smash Nazis I knew on campus, there were some who were great sports. Their skill was undisputed, but when they played with friends, they cut back a notch. They'd also take the time playing with weaker players as a chance to practice with other characters unfamiliar to them. They were the only reason I have any ounce of respect for organized Smash Bros. play.

Bottom line, a good sport in gaming finds ways to keep himself challenged, regardless of the opponent's skill level. They also don't attribute failure to flukes.

[Geeky Stoner]

.

Bottom line' date=' a good sport in gaming finds ways to keep himself challenged, regardless of the opponent's skill level. They also don't attribute failure to flukes.[/quote']

Seconded.

Granted i can be quite dominant against some of my RL friends but i wont crush them,

nor will i toy with them to humiliate or demoralize them

I just find some other way to keep it fun and friendly like a handicap in tetris attack, or some characters I'm so so with in fighting games.

[PriZm]

Just to clarify, I wasn't criticizing Sirlin when I said his article had done a terrible thing to fighting communities. The guy is obviously smart and coherent in his ideas. But if you are part of any fighting community, you will notice that everyone is calling everybody a scrub and mediocre players are advocating "playing to win" etc etc.

Belial of Soul Calibur wrote a very interesting paragraph that can summarize what I call sportsmanship in games.

Chapter 2: Analysing move patterns

This is something that defines a mediocre player from a good player and is another basic thing. You should pay particular attention to the overall picture of your opponent game. What moves does he use to start the round, which mixups does he use. Another imprortant and easy aspect of this is to analyze which moves do hit your opponent, which moves he is unfamiliar with. This is something that is only achievable through a lot of practice. keep in mind, however, that dominating a weak player by a stronger pattern is easy, but it is much harder to learn and adapt to his move pattern and beat him in that. Thus even if you're head and shoulders above everybody else you can still learn from weaker players even if they can't overcome teh deadly frame trap. This is really going to help you a lot later on.

Of course, this is pretty similar, albeit a little less abstract, than Sirlin's "love of the game" article.

[Native Jovian]

He DID explain the criteria for a ban.

http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned.html

Please read it again:

Enforceable and discrete I can buy, (if only because the logistics of a ban don't work otherwise), but what does "warranted" mean? In that article, he basically says "if everyone agrees to it", which is no different than how he describes scrubs (with their own personal added rules) except that they get the Playing To Win Seal of Approval™.

My problem with the "playing to win" community -- largely championed by Sirlin -- is that they don't accept that there are other ways to play the game. Anyone who isn't playing "their" version is a scrub, to be ignored at best and ridiculed at worst. The entire idea of the community is that if you're not playing to win, you're a scrub, and therefore not as good as people playing to win. I don't mean in the sense of "not as good at the game", I mean in the sense of "those that play to win are better people/gamers/fans than scrubs". They suggest that playing to win is the only "right" way to play competitive games -- which is just silly. Even Sirlin's section on "not playing to win" basically boils down to "not playing to win in the short run is acceptable in order to maximize your chances of winning in the long run". Winning, according to Sirlin and those who follow his philosophy, is literally the only point in playing the game. Maybe this isn't what Sirlin is trying to say, but that's what it comes across as -- and the attitude of the community as a whole (though not necessarily every member of the community individually, of course) backs up that impression.

I am an incredibly uncompetitive person. This doesn't mean I don't like to win, it just means that I don't "play to win". We play TF2 together -- I'm sure you've noticed how much I loathe spies. It's not because I think they're overpowered -- spies are a good balance against static defenses in general and engineers/snipers in particular. I hate spies because I don't think they're fun. I don't have fun playing as a spy. I don't have fun playing against spies. If spies were forevermore removed from the game, I would like the game better. I'm not going to suggest that such a thing be done, because I recognize both that spies are important to game balance and that some people DO enjoy playing against/as them, but that doesn't change how I feel about them. The "playing to win" attitude is basically that I'm lame for disliking spies and I should learn to deal with them and/or stop complaining. They're basically telling me that my opinion is wrong, and that spies are fun if you're just playing the right way (ie their way). To which my response is that they can fuck right off; my opinion is what it is, and to tell me that I'm wrong isn't just annoying, it actually pisses me off.

On the more general "gaming sportsmanship" (gamesmanship?) topic, does trash talking annoy anyone else as much as it does me? Discuss.

[1337 1]

On the more general "gaming sportsmanship" (gamesmanship?) topic, does trash talking annoy anyone else as much as it does me? Discuss.

Especially in tf2, the whole "bodyshots need no skill" thing annoys me. As a sniper, people who complain when you kill them that it was a body shot, therefore not "valid" is just dumb. Who cares where I shot you, YOU ARE DEAD. (Not Surprise.)

Though on that note, yes, especially in the case of snipers, some of them do trash talk, but I've found cases where if you just treat them like they are "better" (mainly by replying with some modest praise to their petty boasting), some of them aren't total douche bags. They are playing to have fun, its just that the definition of fun is subjective.

I'm not advocating this method, I'm just saying this is what I've had experience with. In the end, who cares what other players think of X player, play to have fun, whatever makes you happy. Worrying about other players just ruins the experience for others, leading to CSS levels of rage.

[zircon]

Enforceable and discrete I can buy, (if only because the logistics of a ban don't work otherwise), but what does "warranted" mean? In that article, he basically says "if everyone agrees to it", which is no different than how he describes scrubs (with their own personal added rules) except that they get the Playing To Win Seal of Approval™.

Well, what other criteria do you want? That is the best possible 3rd criteria you can have. You can't have a ban if it's not warranted, but obviously you need some sort of consensus within the game's playerbase as to whether it is or isn't. If nobody thinks it is warranted, there's no way to objectively say "this should be banned." For example, new players of Heroes of Newerth want to ban Arachna because she's "too powerful." However, the better players, who have learned more about the game, realize she's not a very good character compared to many others, and is nowhere near worth banning. There's no consensus to ban her. On the other hand, everyone agrees that the Tempest character is extremely powerful, and thus he is rarely if ever used in competitive games.

Winning, according to Sirlin and those who follow his philosophy, is literally the only point in playing the game.

I think it is implied that playing a game is fun. Otherwise, why would you play it? Few people play games for reasons other than fun (ie. they are game testers or in it for tournament money.) That doesn't need to be explained by Sirlin or anyone else. So if you're going to have fun playing the game, would you rather have fun and win, or have fun and lose, all other things being equal? The former, of course. I have a great time playing TF2, or Heroes of Newerth, or Badminton, whether I win or lose. I'd still rather win and become better at all of these games, as the better you get, the more fun games tend to be.

[Toadofsky]

I wish it DID exsist in online gaming on consoles, most of the time, I never encountered it. All I encountered was sore losers/whiners. I can honestly say, overall, I didn't enjoy being on-line in Halo 3, or other on-line games...

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason I have no interest in online gaming on consoles, nor paying for online on them either....

[The Derrit]

My problem with the "playing to win" community -- largely championed by Sirlin -- is that they don't accept that there are other ways to play the game. Anyone who isn't playing "their" version is a scrub, to be ignored at best and ridiculed at worst. The entire idea of the community is that if you're not playing to win, you're a scrub, and therefore not as good as people playing to win. I don't mean in the sense of "not as good at the game", I mean in the sense of "those that play to win are better people/gamers/fans than scrubs". They suggest that playing to win is the only "right" way to play competitive games -- which is just silly.

I think this is a fair point to make, but just the same way that people who don't play to win don't enjoy playing to win, it goes the other way too. In general I think there is a belief that people who play to win consider themselves more devoted than those who don't, just due to the time put into the game and learning the trade. However, I don't think this usually becomes an issue until a very pivotal point, that I have never understood.

That is when a casual gamer comes to a tournament, competitive online hub, etc. and is upset at what happens there. It's akin to walking into the lion's den and not expecting to get eaten; when you go to a tournament or something similar, those are the types of people who are going to be there.

JackKeiser mentioned he's seen people get destroyed at tournaments and then get upset. Those people, wether they like it or not, are playing in a competitive arena. If you come to a tournament, people are going to play in a competitive fashion.

Now, one would think that if you don't want to play in a competitive fashion, you just wouldn't come to a tournament right? But somehow a lot of casual or "not playing to win" type people think its a good idea, and then get fed up with people not playing their way.

I feel like if not for those types of incidents, people would be able to co-exist, but so many times I've seen people come to events like this and then be appalled that their opponent used a "cheap move to win." Then they go complain about it, saying how much of a jerk their opponent was.

In my opinion, no player who plays to win goes around looking for casual players and telling them how bad they are. To the contrary, casual players come to tournaments and when they lose, accuse their opponent of being a douche. The agression comes from the casual, not the other way around.

[BardicKnowledge]

When it comes right down to it, EVERY SET OF RULES IS ARBITRARY. Every one of them. No sport, IRL or video game, has a set of rules that is any less arbitrary than the other. Sirlin, whether he says it explicitly or not, lays the groundwork for justifying anything you want and having a pre-made argument to shut everyone else's down. Basically, the only counter to a Sirlin "play to win" argument is to be the first person to write the rules.

I don't think Sirlin is arguing that rulesets aren't arbitrary. Think of how you helped decide which items to ban for the ISP? (Btw, huge fan, thanks for putting in all that thankless work).

Dragoon pieces completely dominate the game when they spawn, to the point of excluding all regular play. In 1v1 the Smash Ball has a similar problem (though nothing is as bad as the Dragoon). However, the Banana Peel and Lip Stick don't have these problems associated with them -- you could completely ignore either of those two items and not be behind (and if they don't know what they're doing with a melee weapon, you could be way ahead).

Therefore, you decided to ban the Dragoon and keep the Banana Peel. Sirling is arguing the same kinds of things to determine bans. Is it completely changing the entire metagame to the point that gameplay is focused solely on that one thing? If so, ban. If not, don't ban. Who decides that is the community at large...and it has to be.

That being said, I feel that playing with items on actually makes Smash more balanced, as items help to bring MK down a notch, while bumping up characters like Zelda and Peach. Apparently I'm in the minority though

[Native Jovian]

Well, what other criteria do you want? That is the best possible 3rd criteria you can have.

Except that it's no different from the scrub's "arbitrary rules". In one of his articles, he mentions Akuma has an example of a legitimate ban. Akuma is apparently so overpowered that if he was legal, every tournement battle would be Akuma vs Akuma. What he fails to do is explain why this is a bad thing. He actively encourages players to forgo playing weaker characters if that's what it takes to win (with the caveat that "weaker" characters may have some hidden advantages that make them viable in competitive play). How is Akuma any different? If Akuma is the best character, and you're playing to win, then obviously you should play Akuma. But yet, this is an exception for some reason -- and Akuma is banned, even by those who play to win. Either there's some difference somewhere that he failed to make explicit and I'm not catching on my own, or else he (and the entire community) is contradicting itself.

Here's the thing, though: I have no problem with the ban itself. If that's what they do for fun, fine! That's awesome, I hope they have a good time with it. Just don't tell me that cutthroat use-whatever-advantages-you-can-get "playing to win" is the only "right" way to play the game and then fail to live up to your own philosophy. Obviously, there's some good that banning Akuma brings to table. What that good is isn't made explicit, and I think it's lazy thinking to say "oh, he's just an exception".

I think it is implied that playing a game is fun. Otherwise, why would you play it?

To win, obviously. Playing to win is fun, and obviously people like Sirlin have fun playing to win, but they somehow don't accept that there are other legitimate ways to have fun. If his point was "casual gamers who enter competitive play and then complain that other people are playing to win are stupid", then I'd agree with him. But he's not. He's saying that "anyone who doesn't play to win is a scrub, and therefore stupid". Maybe he's just so used to competitive play that he's forgotten that there's any other kind, or he assumes that anyone reading his articles will be doing so because they want to enter competitive play. I don't know.

Ah, here's a good quote.

A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which one tries to win at all costs is “boring” or “not fun.” Who knows what objective the scrub has, but we know his objective is not truly to win. Yours is. Your objective is good and right and true, and let no one tell you otherwise. You have the power to dispatch those who would tell you otherwise, anyway. Simply beat them.

That entire attitude sums up my problem with "playing to win". Scrubs are not playing to win. That's fine; everyone can accept that. What kills me is that what the competitive player does to the scrub -- or at least, the sort of competitive player represented by Sirlin -- is to beat them. Hooray! You've proven that you can beat a person who's not playing to win! Congratulations: all you've done is made him not want to play with you anymore. You get to feel high and mighty and superior because you won, which is what you were trying to do after all, while they get to find something else to do because you're ruining their fun.

If you're playing a game with someone, I would hope that you want them to have fun just as much as you want yourself to have fun. If you're "playing to win" and you're playing against a scrub, then that's not possible. Competitive players have fun by playing to win. Scrubs do not. What people like Sirlin encourage is to have fun at the expense of scrubs. Playing to win against a scrub ruins the game for the scrub. It's not fun for them. It discourages them from playing the game (or at least playing against you) again. And Sirlin sees this as a good thing! That is my issue with his philosophy.

In my opinion, no player who plays to win goes around looking for casual players and telling them how bad they are. To the contrary, casual players come to tournaments and when they lose, accuse their opponent of being a douche. The agression comes from the casual, not the other way around.

My experience has been the opposite -- perhaps because I'm coming from the opposite site of the argument. I totally agree with you that anyone going to a tournament and then complaining that they're beaten (however it happens) are being unreasonable. But I've never played in a tournament. I'm not a competitive player -- and "playing to win" people still piss me off. As an anecdotal example, I knew a pair of kids in college who were competitive Super Smash Bros Melee players. They actually traveled to tournaments and played for prize money and stuff. That's all well and good. But our group of friends were casual Melee players; we'd play for fun. But when they'd play with us (which was often, because they liked playing Melee and they'd join us when they saw us playing), they still played to win. They were undoubtedly better than us -- they would dominate the field, complaining all the while about how we were playing on stupid levels (ie not Final Destination or Battlefield), and that using items were dumb because they were pure luck, etc etc. And while they're doing this they're wave dashing around and only using top-tier characters and using I don't even know what other tricks to kick our asses seven ways from Sunday.

We stopped letting them play with us after not-too-particularly-long. Because it wasn't fun. But here's the thing: a competitive player can ruin a scrub's game by playing competitively, but the reverse is not true. A scrub in a tournament does not ruin the tournament; they just get knocked out and play moves on. A competitive player in a casual gaming session, however, does ruin the casual gaming. It's no longer fun for the casual gamers because that one "playing to win" guy is being a douchebag. One competitive gamer can ruin to for all the causal gamers playing. That's where the anger comes from. And the only solution is for the casual gamers to refuse to play with the competitive one, which isn't fun for anyone.