Remember when you played a game for a high score? Remember playing a game for the sake of having fun?
It feels like years since people have talked and/or bragged about their single-player accomplishments in video games.
Now we are stuck in some sort of bastardized version of gaming that has been essentially raped by money driven tournaments that have caused some to become obsessed with ‘going pro’. Is this the NBA? Sorry, but it is far from the NBA and anyone that wants to be a ‘pro’ gamer is far from an athlete.
It has become an obsession for people to achieve some sort of status on these leaderboards. I have been hoping for years that there would be some sort of way to enjoy game without having someone in my match screaming about their KDR (Kill Death Ratio) or their Win/Loss Record.
Again, I will be the first to admit that I hate losing and get frustrated when I have someone on my team that doesn’t know what they are doing. However, it is a different thing entirely for someone to put so much stock into their leaderboard rank that it supersedes everything else in life.
I have heard stories about marriages ending because of obsessions with Madden, World of Warcraft, Halo and Call of Duty. I don’t think leaderboards are the only thing to blame for something to this extent but you can’t tell me that it isn’t there at all.
While youtube and facebook have brought in a new era of non-privacy, leaderboards have brought a certain competitive stupidity to gaming that I think might do more harm than good.
What do you think?
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