I value winning in competitive games too much

[Zappy]

I think two things are getting confused here and need stripping out....

1) Wanting to win and being competitive is fun for many people. Loads play tennis or squash or whatever, not because they enjoy the particular sport but because they enjoy competing and trying to win. That isn't an unusual attitude and a lot of people share this - only some admit it.

2) Letting a desire for competition and winning get to the point where it takes over and leads to you getting angry or emotional outside the moment. Clearly this stage like with many other "addictions" suggests that the habit and hobby is out of control and becoming an addiction.

In the heat of a competitive game I want to win. But as soon as the game has finished I can switch off and not give it a second though beyond thinking what I might do to improve or whatever.

There is a test for this sort of problem. If after losing and making a mistake you can rationalise that losing makes absolutely zero difference to your life, then you're probably ok. If on the other hand you can only focus on the loss or mistake and think about it continually until next time you win, then its a problem.

 

[パンダさん]

For me multiplayer games get more infuriating the more I play them. In the beginning I know I'm bad, so I don't care. Then I hit my skill ceiling very early on and after a short amount of time most multiplayer games get really frustrating for me (I think mainly shooters).
I'll put them down for a longer period and pick them up again after a few months.

My current example is Overwatch, haven't played it since the beginning of season 6 (beginning of September) and at the end of season 7 (end of December) I wanted to get my ranking for s7, so I played it into season 8 and last weekend was the time where I couldn't stand the game anymore.
It was just to frustrating for me and I raged-quited my game so hard that I've uninstalled it directly.

Now I've moved to Titanfall 2 again, but I already can see, that this won't last long.

 

[art_vandelay]

Do you have any other hobbies that can provide a bit of a release? Any sports you're interested in? Granted, I've never really taken video games very seriously in that way so it's never been an issue for me, but I do find that I'm generally more centred and chilled out when playing sports or cycling on the regular.

EDIT: as others have mentioned, this could also work in tandem with your competitive nature - too much of it isn't good, but it's not an inherently terrible quality and you shouldn't beat yourself up (literally or figuratively) over it.

 

[Deleted member 5727]

The usual belief people have is that competition brings out the best in people. In fact, it often brings out the worst and interferes with all sorts of things (e.g., creativity, feeling good about yourself and others, enjoyment of the activity, etc.). See Alfie Kohn's No Contest for a good discussion of the downsides of competition.

 

[low-G]

I feel you OP, I've felt exactly this many times. Moreso in the past, but still. Depends highly on the game though.

Alternatively (and simultaneously), I wish other gamers took winning less seriously, but because they take it so seriously I feel that I also must take it seriously. So I feel a social guilt when I don't think it seriously. And when in a fighting game and people just want to win, I think they really have a stick up their ass. Try experimenting. If other people liked goofing around in games more, I could have more serious fun with the games.

 

[ffvorax]

I actually take it too personal when I lose online too and i get angry, a lot... never broken anything, but it's bad for my health... so i stopped playing competitive, and when i do i first try to be calm and understand that when i lose it's ok, and accept that, and try to learn something.
that doesnt' work with games like fifa/pes where too often luck is a nice part of the game... i just play them with friends.
for some reasons, playing and losing with friends have no impact on me, i always have fun, with stranger is much more personal... no sense i know....

 

[potatohead]

Avoid competitive games and look for other things to enjoy in career or family or friends or other things.

I suspect your focus on winning in games is because you're not at this moment focused on anything else really very much so the perspective is skewed and overblown from your success in a videogame

 

[ALittleLion]

A few weeks back, two friends from our D&D Group stayed after to play HOTS, I went the rancor valla build since we had tanks and shielding.

Game 1: Perfect execution, flawless win.
Game 2: Same
Game 3: One person swaps toons to something really specialized, second player does, I adjust to even strategy. Still pull out win.
Game 4: Everyone else is tired, I am enjoying the win streak, I am so hyped by it that I start getting cocky on engages. I get left behind and ganked as the team retreats a few times, I blame them in my mind but reality is I was at fault.
Game 5: Predictable. everyone is just fucking around, except me. Lose game breaking team fight. I snap. yell at people in room.

Lets just say I have had to take a look at myself in the mirror recently, I know I did this when I was a teenager sometimes in competitive games, but I am nearly 30 now. I can't let myself play any blizzard games comp. I'm scared of playing rainbow six siege after I picked it up on sale for this reason. Mostly I've been playing around with builds in darksouls and there is something cathartic about farming and getting killed for my own stupidity. But when I solve the boss or build, its a pretty wild rush of accomplishment.

I can attest to "victory" in games being the one little thing that feels like its going my way in life.

EDIT: Oh dont remind me how much I hate that my reaction speeds have dropped, my head is still that of a young/good gamer, but my body just can't do it sometimes. per the "people always better than you"

 

[Bhonar]

People attach their own self worth to money, possessions, jobs, political parties, sports teams, girlfriend/boyfriend, kids abilities, clothes we wear, you name it, it's very common for people to measure themselves this way, but it often results in all sorts of unhealthy anxiety

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there's nothing wrong with some of the things in ur list

 

[Cleve]

there will always be someone better than me

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This is true of almost all things in life. Learning to use failure as an opportunity to grow is the key to really get better. Sit down, watch your replays, watch your opponent. Dissect your own responses to pressure to see where you need to improve. Look for missed opportunities. Work with people better than you to improve your own skills. Take a break from playing if you need to, find something to clear your mind so you can come back refocused.

I'm glad you're getting help for your anger and self worth issues, don't let it eat you up.

 

[Segafreak]

Competitive Overwatch is da worst.

 

[ALittleLion]

Competitive Overwatch is da worst.

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When it placed me silver after having climbed... I nearly broke my keyboard.

 

[noob-noob]

I've been involved in competitive gaming for years so here's my advice from what I've learned over the years;

Firstly you need to look at competitive gaming the same as you look at any other competitive activity. Do you win every single basketball game or ping pong game you play, of course not. Everyone will have their hot and cold days and you have to just accept that, if you're having a off day just take a break and do something else.

The second thing and this is maybe the harder one is that effort does not equal good outcome in gaming. If I'm playing basketball and I'm down a bucket I can just use my size and strength to bulldoze my way to the rim for a layup. My effort directly leads to a score. In gaming there is no ability to physically dominate your opponent since everything from strength to speed is a pre-determined program. Instead you need to approach competitive gaming more like high speed chess. It's about assessing your options and outputting the correct option based on your opponents actions. If your just trying really "hard" and you're attacking thoughtlessly your going to get bodied over and over again.

This also ties into the emotional aspect because if your'e simply putting in greater effort and keep getting destroyed then you become emotional resulting in even worse decision making. Basically to be good at competitive gaming you need to be able to keep your emotional zen at all times while making good quick decisions consistently.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

what worked for me is just not losing, ever
but more seriously -

this might be the root of your problem. Do you have hobbies outside of gaming?

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Illustration but that's about it

 

[Feral]

Illustration but that's about it

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to be fair, that's a pretty good hobby to have
you should try to estimate how much time you spend playing games, or talking and reading about games and other vapid stuff on the internet, each day. That regularly leads me to "what the hell am I doing with my life" moments. Maybe it's not an issue for you. It's just that, from my experience, escapist entertainment can consume years of your life without gaining anything in return, and when the realization hits you, you enter panic mode and wish for nothing more than to rewind the clock

 

[anthraxus]

Stay away from competitive/online stuff and stick with single player/co-op games.

I got into it a while back and realized I was getting more annoyed than actually having fun. Went back to sp games and haven't looked back.

 

[En-ou]

Friend of mine told me he got SFV the other day after having played it for he first time at my house. Few days later I asked how it's going, he said he broke his controller out of rage.

 

[Comet]

I find that generally people who take losing so hard is because it ends up being that the game is really the only major thing they got going on in their life so when they lose that, they're losing practically everything.

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I came to post this. This was very true of me during high school when I binged on WarCraft 3 tournaments. I was good, not great, won more than I lost, but took it way too seriously. Then as time went on and I got a relationship, went to college, got a job, etc. I didn't care. I picked up StarCraft 2 and was a pretty good player as well but at that point I was in grad school and getting married that I started to just have fun and not give a shit about my winning percentage (to the point that I would only play "garbage tier 4v4" games but I loved how goofy those matches could be - I was having fun).

Now I have kids, a really nice job with tons of responsibilities that tickles my fancy and excites me each day, and I find myself never touching competitive multiplayer games at all. I can still have fun playing Halo MCC, don't get me wrong, but I just don't care about winning. And when you don't care about winning, the addiction to multiplayer games dissipates real fast.

 

[KrillinLikeAVillan]

I used to be super competitive, i raged at any loss and was generally miserable when i played multiplayer games, then i just reached a point where i stopped caring about always being number one and just played for fun.

It was a combination of soul searching and getting old, i enjoy games a lot more now.

 

[Brannon]

But do you trash your basement and frighten your dog tho

 

[LucidMomentum]

But do you trash your basement and frighten your dog tho

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Oh my god the Tekken thread from GAF was legendary.

 

[Poppy]

honestly i cant play single player competitive games for that same reason, i beat myself up for it and can get way too upset that it manifests physically

and then highly competitive team games make me terrified of failure because i dont want to be a game ruiner

so what works best for me is to play games with friends and definitely try to win, but not act like it is the end of the world if we don't

basically play to win without it turning into that dota comic about kyle

 

[Papi]

Don't even try PUBG. The shitty servers and hit recognition make me go mad.

 

[Mesoian]

You can have fun while losing, but losing ain't fun. I get you OP.

All we can do is try and take every loss as a learning experience, figure out where you went wrong and try again.

 

[Custódio]

It's good that you are seeking help, OP. Like some people have said, it's a good ideia to try to look for other things that you might end up loving. Just for the love of God, don't go play MOBAs.

Also, there's indeed a Simpsons quote to everything.

 

[Deleted member 8001]

It seems a lot of people in this thread merely just stopped caring about the competitive aspect and that's how they dealt with it. That's fine and all, but what if someone still wants to care about the competitive aspect while also not turning into a rage machine solely focused on winning every single match? That's where the real dilemma lies.

To continue your path as a competitive player you'll have to learn to be humble, you'll have to come to a certain point and realize that you aren't hot shit and you won't ever be hot shit unless you practice A LOT and lose A LOT. You have to lose, that's how you learn, you don't learn anything from winning. People who end up beating your ass at video games have gotten their shit kicked hundreds of times. If you go in expecting you're just gonna be this king of the game without ever losing, without ever putting in the effort, without taking all those hundreds of ass beatings, then you aren't actually being truly competitive, you're doing this to merely satiate your ego.

Then, when you finally lose, you feel worthless as if you consider yourself so highly that someone beating you knocks away all of your confidence, thus proving you aren't focused on the competitive aspect. I'm not saying don't have emotions and that you cannot be upset at a loss, but when it gets to the point where all you play for is the win, no longer the game itself, cannot acknowledge others doing things too, your mind is being clouded by your own ego.

You're gonna lose, use that to learn, use that to motivate you to continue. That's the beauty of competition, it's never truly free to win, it's a constant challenge that you have to earn.

 

[Dance Inferno]

You probably don't want to hear this, but stop playing competitive multiplayer games. They're not worth it if they cause this much psychological and emotional damage to you. Stick to single player games and you'll feel much better.

Either that or play multiplayer games that don't make you feel bad when you lose. I've discovered that games with huge teams tend to dull the blow of a defeat, because there's only so much one person can do in that situation to affect the outcome. Battlefield 1 has been my go-to multiplayer game for a while; the cinematic experience of being in the middle of a 64-person battle is so engaging that even losing can be fun because it's so much more epic than your average Overwatch or Call of Duty match.

 

[gdt]

Yeah man you need a hand. Good on you for recognizing.

 

[Prince David]

If you aren't having fun then you need to reevaluate things here. Games are supposed to be about fun. Even losing is supposed to be fun and a learning experience. This is your free time and it's best not to stress yourself in your free time.

 

[Deleted member 33533]

Sometimes I slip into this though it's not nearly as severe as you described. But there are specific games where I just had to turn them off because competitive play was making me super frustrated whenever I lost or was losing. I couldn't even play For Glory on Smash 4 without getting really annoyed or tense against really good players and sometimes I would play for hours because in my head I needed one victory to turn the game off satisfied. Then it was one good victory. Then it was a streak of good victories. I would get upset when people taunted me or talked shit with their nicknames after the match (that was seriously the dumbest thing."

This is why I mainly avoid fighting games even though a few have come out that I'm interested in. At least in Smash, I could just play For Fun Teams where there wasn't any major competitive aspect. I can play a competitive game like Overwatch since it's team based but even then I never touch the actual competitive mode. I just do Free Play and sometimes Arcade.

I find that generally people who take losing so hard is because it ends up being that the game is really the only major thing they got going on in their life so when they lose that, they're losing practically everything.

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This is pretty accurate. In the example I shared above, I definitely wasn't in a good place in my life at that moment in time. Games were a major relief from that and having to deal with being a "loser" there definitely played into my frustrations. I'm sure I could handle losing in a fighting game a lot better nowadays.

 

[OniBaka]

It seems a lot of people in this thread merely just stopped caring about the competitive aspect and that's how they dealt with it. That's fine and all, but what if someone still wants to care about the competitive aspect while also not turning into a rage machine solely focused on winning every single match? That's where the real dilemma lies.

To continue your path as a competitive player you'll have to learn to be humble, you'll have to come to a certain point and realize that you aren't hot shit and you won't ever be hot shit unless you practice A LOT and lose A LOT. You have to lose, that's how you learn, you don't learn anything from winning. People who end up beating your ass at video games have gotten their shit kicked hundreds of times. If you go in expecting you're just gonna be this king of the game without ever losing, without ever putting in the effort, without taking all those hundreds of ass beatings, then you aren't actually being truly competitive, you're doing this to merely satiate your ego.

Then, when you finally lose, you feel worthless as if you consider yourself so highly that someone beating you knocks away all of your confidence, thus proving you aren't focused on the competitive aspect. I'm not saying don't have emotions and that you cannot be upset at a loss, but when it gets to the point where all you play for is the win, no longer the game itself, cannot acknowledge others doing things too, your mind is being clouded by your own ego.

You're gonna lose, use that to learn, use that to motivate you to continue. That's the beauty of competition, it's never truly free to win, it's a constant challenge that you have to earn.

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Pretty much this hence why I said it was they need to change their mentality in my previous post, it will help a lot for future things.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Pretty much this hence why I said it was they need to change their mentality in my previous post, it will help a lot for future things.

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Something I struggle with is the mentality of wanting a challenge because with every game I play I tend to dislike struggling with winning. Getting perfect games, no matter easy they were, I've had far more enjoyment with than a match that came down to the wire.

 

[TyGuy]

Well, you're doing the right thing. Is your goal to still be able to enjoy the games when you lose or so you want to play less games?

I'm sure the therapist will ask you that question.

This problem certainly isn't unique to you and is found in sports. Some people don't take losing that well. In fact that seems to be a desirable trait in sports up to a certain point. Guys that are okay with losing you tend to think aren't as competitive and that could be a detriment to the team.

 

[Kayo Police]

Competitive Overwatch is da worst.

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Yea, I've never personally played Comp in OW, but when I hear stories about how people literally only play Comp for gold weapons or to troll it really makes me uneasy and never want to try Comp, I've done the whole Comp/Ranked bit with LOL the past 4 years and it has its ups and downs.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Well, you're doing the right thing. Is your goal to still be able to enjoy the games when you lose or so you want to play less games?

I'm sure the therapist will ask you that question.

This problem certainly isn't unique to you and is found in sports. Some people don't take losing that well. In fact that seems to be a desirable trait in sports up to a certain point. Guys that are okay with losing you tend to think aren't as competitive and that could be a detriment to the team.

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The former, I want to be able to enjoy competition even when I lose, because I still want to he able to play casuals with friends and not get hung up on winning or losing

 

[Herbz]

Video gaming is a serious business. Some people take it so far it ruins 'em. Like what happened to me with CS GO - messed me up.