(For the purposes of this study, I will be using the term pro gamer, to refer to anyone who plays games competitively, much like a sport, and casual gamer to refer to … well … basically everyone else. I do not mean to imply that every pro gamer is making money off their trade, nor do I mean to imply that every casual gamer only plays games in passing.)

Let’s face it, gaming isn’t exactly the most respected past-time in the world. When you tell someone you are a pro gamer, you might as well be telling them you are a pro nose-picker or a pro napper. When you think of the world’s top sports, you probably don’t put video-games on that list, and why not? More kids are playing video games now than ever. Millions of copies of games are sold every day, and you are generally more likely to see a kid at home with his Xbox than waiting around a park for a pickup game of basketball.

The obvious response is “video games aren’t a sport” and this, is the first reason pro gamers are assholes. Games, to most people, are a toy. While baseball and football are manly games and chess has been elevated to the level of a sophisticated thinking man’s competition, video games are still those things you hook up to your TV to see some shiny lights for a while. They, by and large, aren’t respected sport. They are a distraction, a sophisticated tinker toy that brings us joy and entertainment along the lines of watching a good movie, and you never hear anyone talking about competitive movie watching now do you?

This is actually fine. Far be it from me to criticize anyone for doing what makes them feel good. The prospect of guided chaos is appealing, to pretty much everyone. Sitting down in front of BlazBlue for the first time and seeing your character swing a bloody sword around or freeze someone solid just by hammering on the buttons randomly is actually an enjoyable experience. These are basically high flying anime fights we are watching, and watching high flying anime fights is cool, especially if you are the one directing the fighting.

Two generally unskilled players can joystick waggle and button mash at each other till the cows come home. Characters will randomly do cool things as players stumble upon important button combinations, and the winner is generally the person who is either A, luckiest, or B, has a slight idea of what they are doing, and can make something purposefully happen more often than not. See classic Street Fighter hadoken spam for an example. However, once someone gets beyond this level and actually has a basic grasp of how the game operates, everything changes.

Button-mashing (or low level play of any type in instances of competitive gaming outside of the fighting genre) is easily punishable, and as soon as one person fights out how to punish otherwise random tactics, he will do so over, and over, and over again. This, of course, will result in the button masher losing over, and over, and over again. It may not even be the masher’s fault. In fact, he might be hot on the trail of learning the deeper mechanics of whatever game he is playing, but it doesn’t matter now because he is losing and not only is he losing, he is losing in a non flashy manner.

We all like to win. Even button-mashers like coming out on top when all is said and done. One member of my playgroup who participated in this little study said “Winning is fun, sometimes even losing is fun, but getting pwned is never fun.” When someone starts getting better at, say, a fighting game, a large group of people will inevitably quit that game. This is because random button mashing, which is perhaps one of the easiest things you can do in a videogame, no longer makes their character do awesome anime style things. Instead, it makes their character get punched in the face, which frustrates the player, and makes the game cease to be a shiny happy fun-time distraction. Now it is something they are bad at, and being reminded how bad you are is not a good way to relieve the stress of day to day life.

As you learn a fighting game (or any game for that matter) your climb to greatness will be … mostly boring. It will be lots of learning combos and strategies, getting punished for accidental inputs or sloppy movements, and losing, a lot, a whooooole lot. This is where the game makes a transition from distraction to sport for most pro gamers. Instead of being impressed by random cool things happening and the occasional “you win” message erupting out of sheer randomness, pro gamers now find enjoyment through learning to do cool things reliably and earning victories. Their play style becomes tighter, more focused, less sloppy, which in turn makes games they play in less flashy, and more direct. Gamers who are learning won’t use flashy moves or strategies that they can’t do reliably, and will focus on the essentials and fundamentals before anything else and this, to someone who is looking to a game for nothing more than a distraction, is not only frustrating, it is boring.

So the gamers who look at the game as a sport continue to get better, and the gamers who look at the game as a distraction don’t, which results in a large gap of skill forming, which results in more losses on the distraction side, which simply perpetuates itself until people start quitting the game. A gamer who finds enjoyment in learning the game, getting better, and really earning his victories will find a reason to continue on, even if they are playing against the world’s best and are sure to lose, while everyone else will just stop giving a crap, and there is the split. Pro gamers on one side. Casual gamers on the other.

There is no good solution to this conundrum. Really, the two groups simply shouldn’t play against each other. A group playing for distraction who encounters someone playing for sport, eventually finds the fun sucked out of one of their favorite pastimes. At the same time, a gamer playing for sport has to suffer through punishment for getting better. As his skills rise, his playgroup diminishes, his friends become critical, and the overall fun level of the group plummets. Of course, the pro gamer can go out and find people of similar mindsets and skill levels, but this means ditching his existing playgroup and friend structure, and further ostracizing himself from the general public. To most people, it will appear as if he is choosing the game over his friends. Any way you look at it, the pro gamer is an asshole.

So what happens when all is said and done? Well, sometimes the pro gamer does find another friend group, with better opponents, and hopefully better company, and thus has to eat the fallout from his previous group. Sometimes everybody simply stops playing the game that caused the split in the first place, with the pro gamers simply accepting that they can’t play one of their favorite games in order to keep the peace. Sometimes pro gamers feign ignorance for months on end, playing to a mere fraction of their ability and letting the rest of their playgroup win so they can feel good about themselves. Finally, sometimes the whole situation works itself out, whether by the playgroup accepting that the game will have to be played competitively, the pro gamer effectively juggling his gamer and non gamer friends, or through some other new game coming out and making the cycle repeat itself, possibly for the better.

However, if there is anything I want you to take away from this particular tale, it’s that pro gamers are having fun learning to be the best they can at any particular game. They aren’t trying to make you have less fun, they are just trying to get better. It’s actually quite hurtful to have your friends stop playing with you because you have gotten better than them. It feels petty, it’s just bad sportsmanship, and yet somehow it is always the pro gamer’s fault. Put yourself in their shoes, and maybe take the time to learn a game through and through yourself. Who knows, you just might like it.
Tune in next time when we look into the psychology of “Having better things to do than videogames”