This is a topic that might be a sore spot with a lot of people, but it is one that I’ve been thinking about lately and trying to come to terms with, and that is competitive online gaming. In a way, I love competitive online gaming, I love the concept of going online and playing against other real live people and being able to best them in whatever game it is. After the match is over, though, that is when it is time to let it go and move on, but as many are aware, that is not always how it works.
I’ve been online gaming in a competitive setting since about 1999 when I found myself completely obsessed with Unreal Tournament and playing it online. In fact, there really was no value to the single player in that game, and games like Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 Arena just proved that some gamers just want a comprehensive multiplayer suite and don’t want to bother with your emotionally-charged and bloated single player campaigns unless it is really good. Back then, voice chat was a lot more of a rarity and most of the chat took place via text, and if you really wanted to take time out of playing or leave yourself open for yet another death in a shooter, you probably weren’t pulling open the game’s console to just type in some form of insult at the competition.
We all know the stigma that comes with playing games online nowadays, and that is that if you are playing a game on Xbox Live that you are going to be surrounded by a bunch of kids who just discovered curse words and an outlet for them. In a way, that is both true and false. When I booted up Black Ops 2 for the first time, I was kind of shocked by just how friendly everyone was being with each other. “Oh man, that was sweet, I gotta say,” and “great job” were among the things that I was hearing from competitors in the post-game lobby, not the usual string of expletives and insults, but that could have just been a weird day, because most of the usual stuff still exists in online gaming.
Every now and then I do stumble upon some of those awful players, the ones who curse you out for doing better than them, or the ones who are too good for their own good, and anyone who can’t keep up needs to be demeaned with hate speech. I also fondly remember my time playing online fighting games and how the ingame speech wasn’t as hefty, but the post-match messages containing a string of insults because whatever beat them was clearly something only a cigarette (cough cough) would do.
It might be time for people to take a step back and take a deep breath, remembering that it is just a game, and if that isn’t an option, turn your mic off before you shout obscenities. Honestly, it is alright to get worked up and to find yourself frustrated, but the world doesn’t need to hear it. Online gaming is supposed to be fun for everyone, keep it that way.
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