A flurry of thoughts regarding competitive gaming/professional sports in general:
This post is partly inspired due to some recent emails I read recently about people quitting SC or just competitive StarCraft because they become too stressed out about it. For those of you who would like a more detailed background, I recommend this article: (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_248/7377-Slave-to-the-Overmind).
I’ll be honest here. I, too, was victim to this syndrome. Which gamer doesn’t dream at least once or twice about making a living off playing the game? Who wouldn’t love to join a game and prove to themselves how great they are by winning the game? Who wouldn’t love to join a game of StarCraft, one of the most difficult competitive games, and utterly obliterate their opponent’s base?
Let’s face the truth in its purest form: people gain pleasure from winning.
Why is winning such an addiction? Most of us are brought up to believe that losing is bad. That losing brings shame to your family. That you are a lesser being because you lose. There is nothing wrong with any of these concepts, but people obsess. Our minds become engrossed in seeking the pleasure of victory. The feeling of triumph as we watch our little troops march into our opponents base and relentlessly open fire in a sense, validates our existence. It is human nature to desire pleasure; to want to win.
When does a little competitive spirit turn into a cut-throat showdown? I think that this is not exclusive to video games. At any prestigious institution, you can find people who obsess about earning the best grades, winning all the awards, and being recognized above their peers. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be successful, but when it eats away at your well being, you know something is wrong.
When losing in a virtual space battle frustrates you and loses you sleep, you know you have become addicted. Not to the game, but to the victory. You have gained an emotional attachment to the thrill from winning. This leads to incredible stress as you spend more time attempting to experience the thrill in a virtual world and less time in the real world. The truth is, to successfully become good at competitive gaming, or any other technical skill oriented activity, be it programming, gaming, music, sports, business, etc, we should be obsessed with the activity itself.
Let me clarify this. A competitor should be obsessed not with the thrill of victory, but with the thrill of battle. People need to learn to accept losses, and enjoy being alive and playing the very game in the first place. StarCraft is, after all, a game of strategy. It has often been compared to chess. It should be something where you can enjoy sitting down and having a battle of skill and wits with another person. Otherwise, as you strive to improve in the competitive scene, you will lose. You will be frustrated, and your health will deteriorate. Those people never make it to the top. The best gamers are the ones who are obsessed more with the game than more with the concept of winning.
This concept is not exclusive to Blizzard’s game. In life, everything is the same. As we go through our college education, we need to obsess less with the results of our grades, and learn to love the process of learning. At the end, you will still be able to earn great grades without the stress. Yes, your GPA will determine your future, and yes, I understand that you are premed and need that perfect 4.0. But what will benefit you the most in life is the YOU that you have changed from your experiences. One day, that perfect 4.0 will not matter anymore. What will be important is that you honestly worked to earn it, and that you had a great time while doing so.
Cutting throats with the knife that is our mind only spills more blood on the battlefield. Let’s try to accomplish something great: something that will need unity more than anything else.
