Is Competition Bad for Video Games?

Gaming has become rather mainstream these days compared to when I was growing up in the late 90s and early 2000s. With that popularity has come tremendous financial growth for the industry, bigger and better games for players, and a host of other benefits for anyone involved. However, this rise to societal acceptance has not come without introducing new issues. One of the bigger issues that is impacting many gamers who play online multiplayer games is the question of competition. How much is too much? Are games and gamers becoming too competitive? These are valid questions that have been raised and vehemently debated on many social platforms such as Twitter and Reddit. A divide seems to be forming between the more casual gamers, gamers who play every so often and with the intention of immersing themselves into the sandbox of the game, and the more serious gamers often referred to as “sweats.” Despite both kinds of gamers playing to have fun, it seems that we can agree on nothing. But how did we get here?

Growing up interested in video games for people of my age group(I’m 24) was very different from how it is to grow up a gamer today. Growing up with Halo was very different from growing up with a game like Fortnite. Games have become much bigger, both in terms of the scope and scale of the games themselves as well as their societal impact. Fortnite has accomplished things that older franchises like Halo never dreamed of. A few months ago in April, during quarantine for many people around the world, Fortnite held an in game concert performance by Travis Scott. Players all over the world were experiencing the same concert from the comforts of their home, a truly momentous accomplishment. Games are becoming so much more than just games. Needless to say, gaming is here to stay as it has even become a viable career path.

The competitive gaming scene, commonly referred to as esports, has seen massive success across many titles the past few years and the money involved has exponentially increased. Prize pools for tournaments in the Black Ops 2 era of Call of Duty (2013) were in the tens of thousands and was the major source of income for players. This past year, the prize pool for the biggest Call of Duty tournament of the year was 4.6 million dollars. Not to mention that player salaries are rumored to be in the hundreds of thousands and the sponsorships that players can get. Competing isn’t the only way players can make money in the game scene either, as streaming continues to grow with platforms like Twitch and Youtube being the primary websites. Streamers make money from advertisements during the stream, donations from viewers, and monthly subscriptions. The very big streamers have received contracts that are rumored to be in the millions. These conditions have made it possible for nearly anyone to become a gaming legend if they are lucky enough and good enough to stick out from the rest. Naturally, with such opportunities at stake, some players would seek to try their hands at rising to the top.

This brings us to where we are today and the question of whether or not competition is ruining games. The answer to that question depends on who you ask. In my opinion, competition is what games are all about and the opportunity to test my skills against other players is crucial to the online gaming experience. But I am just one person and there are many voices that have chimed in on this question. Game developers have also chimed in by implementing a system known as skill based matchmaking into many modern multiplayer games. Skill based matchmaking, or SBMM, is not a new concept to gamers as it has been in the competitive ranked playlists of many past and present games. Historically, it has been in the ranked playlist where players could test their skills against others of similar skill and strive to become better by rising through the ranks. Today, SBMM is being implemented into the unranked playlists as well, resulting in a very different experience to what gamers are used to.

The issue with SBMM in unranked matches is that it gives no reward to players for playing in a ranked like environment. In normal ranked matches, there are emblems and actual ranks to display a player’s accomplishments, but that is not the case with the current SBMM implementation into regular matches. Speaking from experience, it is excruciatingly frustrating, and many players towards the higher end of the skill spectrum that I have talked to believe SBMM is designed to protect the players in the middle and towards the bottom of the spectrum. In essence, the better you are, the harder you have to play to win a match that has no rewards for winning. It divides the casual players and the sweats and results in very different experiences between players.

In my personal experience, the matches I play by myself are very different to the matches some of my less skilled friends play in. It is almost like we are playing two different games at times. But when we play together, my friends do not have fun because the SBMM compensates for my presence and ensures that my friends are pulled into matches closer to my solo experience than theirs. This has resulted in my friends no longer wanting to play games that have SBMM with me. Not only does SBMM hurt friendships it also hurts players, like my friends, because they will never feel the need to improve their skills since they can do comfortably well at their current skill level. SBMM tricks lowered skilled players into a sense of complacency. In the past, in unranked matches, you would face players of varying skill levels and be challenged by someone better than you. I can only speak for myself, but facing better players motivated me to get better myself. SBMM robs players of that experience and the opportunity to learn.

The counter argument to that perspective is that lower skilled players shouldn’t have to face top tier players and be demolished with no hope of fighting back. It is not fun to constantly be beat down after all. This brings us to a seeming impasse. You have players who want to enjoy the game and not have to play at their best all the times on the one side, and on the other players who also want to have fun but are not as mechanically skilled as other players. There are a few possible solutions. One would be to keep the current system and do nothing, angering the skilled minority. Another would be to revert to the old system, angering the unskilled majority which many believe would drive those players away.

Before giving another option, I must say something about the belief that the unskilled majority would leave if faced with the adversity of playing against the skilled minority. I do not believe that every player should have to be incredibly talented to enjoy a game, but neither do I believe that players should be allowed to thrive in their mediocrity. Which brings me to another possible solution; keeping SBMM but loosening the restrictions a bit. A player in the top tenth percentile should not play against a player in the bottom tenth, that will not result in an enjoyable experience for either player. However, if a player is above average then they should be able to feel what it’s like to play against a player who is very good. Similarly, a player who is not good at all, should be able to learn from someone who is average to below average.

There are many more gamers these days and they each bring their own expectations to the table. Game developers have the incredibly difficult task of making a online multiplayer game that many people can enjoy. SBMM can help them accomplish that, but it should not be at the cost of alienating the skilled minority and allowing the majority to remain comfortable. Some of my fondest memories in gaming are when I was beaten by someone better and then attempted to learn from how I was beat. Gaming has a bright and lucrative future, but it can only get there if it takes everyone with it. Competition is inherent to life itself and should not be avoided. Instead we should embrace it with the intention of bettering ourselves, without discouraging ourselves in the process.