I've spent the past few months nurturing a fascination with competition. I've been playing a lot more board games, have developed an interest in sports and have picked up a few competitive video games I probably would not have normally. It's one of those universal constants that people take part in every day for various reasons, whether it's strategizing ways to get a good parking space or having an argument with someone. In some cases our desire to compete and win provides some tangible benefit. Other times the only purpose is to experience the thrill of victory. It is not impossible for a competition to end without the loser feeling inferior, however. Often the very act of competing or playing the game is enough to satisfy to expectations that the player had going in. Occasionally when I'm in a scenario where I am competing it won't be about determining the winner, simply about experiencing the mechanics of the contest.
This came to my mind after observing how seriously people become frustrated and downright angry when they are struggling through a conflict. Maybe you didn't get that parking space despite getting up earlier or maybe the game you are playing is too demanding. I've witnessed and participated in many different situations where despite my best efforts i was not skilled or prepared enough to cope with it and reacted with anger and occasionally damage to self or property.
I like to think that competition is something more then just multiple interests attempting to secure the same goal. Generally we see relatively minor events like sporting events or personal confrontation as the most obvious sources of competition. We don't, however, tend to apply this term to more serious clashes. The word "competition" inadequately conveys the gravity behind an extremely serious conflict such as a war or a murder. Competition is something that people can enjoy either by participating or observing. The higher the stakes, however, the more likely it is that the rush of winning and the pain of losing are amplified that much more. Competition for the attention of a potential mate or the recognition of a figure of power have much higher stakes but also trend towards less regulated "rules of the game" insofar as unfair advantages are permitted. The perception of a loss in a system where the stakes are so high is further exacerbated when the player cannot counter that advantage in some way.
This is where I believe the "gamer rage" comes from. Many of us have experienced the sheer blood-boiling rage when your reflexes were just a nanosecond too slow or you weren't thinking the right way and you fall into the hole or catch a rocket in the face. Just a few months ago I was playing Halo 3 for the first time and came across a point in the campaign the game decided that it wasn't good enough for you to just brute force your way through. (Just as a side note. Not a Halo fan. This was my first one.) Maybe the other Halos taught you to use cover more but even on Heroic you get along just fine before that point hopping around and finding creative ways to hide so enemies practically mow themselves down coming around corners for you. At the point where I started raging out and finding alternate ways of getting my aggression out I was being killed over and over by a tank that was lobbing volley after volley of one hit kill plasma blasts at me who was completely boxed in. After some experimenting I discovered that it was impossible for me to destroy this thing by just shooting at it. You had to creep around the debris on the battlefield until you could run out behind it and perform a quick-time event to toss a grenade in and blow it up (I believe I found this out by running out of ammo and rushing it with a mind to pistol whip it to death). The reason this made me so frustrated was that up to that point even if it was hard you would probably get through any battle event by shooting and hiding. Once you figure out the puzzle the whole battle becomes something you can manage and strategize around but until you figure out that puzzle you are doomed to die repeatedly.
My skills as a game and how well Halo 3 was designed aside, the perception of that battle puzzle being practically impossible infuriated me. The more I lost the more I hated the game until I finally solved the puzzle. After that the blissful rush of endorphins was easily satisfying enough to make up for the frustration built up during the battle. Even if I didn't enter the battle feeling especially competitive I was quickly thrown into a state where it was extremely important that I beat this game and prove to it and myself that I would not be stopped by it's inability to show me important, non-obvious, techniques. I hope this illustrates just how competitive anyone can be by nature. Not so say that I'm not a competitive person. I am. Very much so. But the quality of the competitive experience is crucial to how invested I am in the outcome. I don't generally react to trivia contests, for example, in nearly as strong a manner. They're both far less immersive and most are designed in such a way that even when a question is hard it's rarely something so difficult a real buff on the subject wouldn't know. Both of these, I feel, are valid forms of competing and both provoke very different results depending on what kind of a competitive experience you are looking for. Likewise rooting for a favorite sports team can range from a connection so close that you share their excitement or disappointment or a much more muted experience.
The breadth of the experiences that we receive from going up against obstacles whether from our peers, ourselves or our environment is wide and the basis for much of what we consider fun. Crafting that rush of victory or exercising our mind or body is such an important part of our lives that it is often impossible to fully understand just what each one of us pursues as entertainment. I don't feel like I fully discovered or answered many of questions I hoped to in the writing of this but I can tell you that the experience has certainly helped me to come to a much more solid appreciation of how hard it is to craft a thoughtful piece of writing in an extremely short time frame.
I've been driving myself a lot lately to do some form of writing of substantial length as often as possible. I'm aiming for one piece a day but I'm not quite there yet in terms of hours per day I can dedicate and ability to select topics.
