Why I Quit Competitive Games

you know there's nothing really better than hopping on a game with your friends and having one of those nights you know the ones where it feels like it lasts forever and by the end of it your stomach hurts from laughing so much well I don't know about you but it seems like these experiences are few and far between I mean let's be realistic when is this happening in a valerant or legal Legends game those kind of nights to remember happen more in games like Minecraft GTA or even Team Fortress 2 look the point is things

seem to be a bit different nowadays and I wanted to figure out why why are we all addicted to these glorified rage games why are we willing to to spend 45 minutes on a game that we'll probably lose most importantly why do we spend so much money on a free game well what I found is a lot deeper than I thought $70 games seem to be one of the biggest topics of discussion this year I mean with the releases of Tears of the Kingdom Starfield and Spider-Man 2 people are probably a little confused about what

the deal is while I have already made a video about that topic I think it ties in well with a discussion about these free-to-play competitive games it doesn't take a genius to know why all these games are free now it's clear that a free-to-play multiplayer model will almost almost always be more profitable than a one-time purchase of course many have tried and failed but usually if a big company tries it out once they don't go back just take OverWatch 2 for example the original was a billion doll company yet they decided to go free to

play in return they made a100 million in the first 3 months and yes that is very good for a game that is functionally the same as the original obviously we know how successful other games like fortnite and Call of Duty war zone AR so let's not waste any more time on them I don't really care whether or not a game is free or not I care if it's good let me be clear I'm not going to spend all video bashing free-to-play games but I would like to point out that there are examples of free to-

play somewhat hurting good games the best example of this in my opinion is rocket League I still firmly believe that this game has one of the best gameplay and ranking systems out of any of these modern competitive games but I also can't deny that smurfing has HT it significantly for those who aren't familiar smurfing is essentially when highly ranked players plan low ranked accounts for various reasons some people Smurf in order to play with friends others just like to see people rage regardless smurfing is nearly always frowned upon in ranked matches free-to-play games suffer the

most since you can literally make as many burner accounts as you'd like some games like OverWatch 2 don't really have as bad of a time with Smurfs due to the team aspect of the game but rocket league is typically played in twos meaning that sometimes you'll just get destroyed by one guy while the other sits in goal many games have taken great measures to place these Smurfs back in their proper ranks but it's quite hard to detect sometimes free games aren't all necessarily bad though in fact I love that they're so accessible to everyone allowing

folks who don't usually play games to participate with friends think about how generation defining a game like fortnite was now think about if the game had cost money who knows how many more kids would have missed out on those classic memories of course most kids ended up spending their parents money via microtransactions anyway but the fact is that they wanted to do that only because the game was fun besides prices there's a lot more to why I think modern competitive games are bad perhaps my number one reason is the sheer amount of time required to

progress in them a lot of people only have time for one or two hours of gaming a day especially if they're workers or students if you want to progress in a game like valerant it's a 30 minute plus sacrifice nearly every time not even counting the Q time potential dodging and the character select screens and if you lose you'll need to spend another game trying to recoup that loss and to be honest valerant isn't even that bad at progressing you to your correct rank if you want to see a true grind go ahead and try

and rank up fast in League of Legends bringing up rocket League again I think that game handles ranking best at of almost all other competitive games and I think this is for two reasons number one you only need to have one or two good friends to climb together and number two rocket League heavily favors wins and losses over actual gameplay metrics while that sounds bad at the end of the day winning is what matters in a competition also higher ranked players will be able to Quee with low ranks but the matches will be balanced so

it won't just be an easy boost to the top ultimately if you deserve a higher rank in rocket League you can literally play with a high ranked friend and prove that you're actually that good I think that if you truly wanted to find the most accurate and fair competitive system though you'd likely find a strong correlation with the amount of teammates in a game in my opinion the most Fair ranked game in the whole world is chess it's 1V one has rules that never change and a specific ELO for every player if you lose it's

your fault but if you win it's also your fault compare that to OverWatch where if your one tank decides to throw the game you literally can't win no matter what in League of Legends if one lane feeds the entire game everyone suffers not just the person feeding this lack of control is what ultimately led me to quitting these team-based games and exclusively playing chess.com if I wanted to play a competitive game I of course have to shout out fighting games as well since they are genuinely a test of skill between two parties the whole psychology

of these team-based games gets you attached to a results when in reality you only play about a fifth of a part in a win or loss sometimes sure if you're an extremely skilled player you can make it out of low ranks with no problem but eventually everyone gets stuck at a point especially if you're solo queuing it's also important to remember that these games will put you in queue with other people who have either been winning or losing a lot so be prepared to have huge win streaks and huge loss streaks truly this whole process

is the equivalent to skill-based gambling and I was definitely a victim to it for a time having your rank increase is literally like a drug being administered straight into your bloodstream and having that rank decrease is like having that all taken away from you you get angry and bitter gambling is supposed to be for adults right then why are kids nowadays getting addicted to this cycle of wins and losses before they're even in high school it's a shame too because this ranking system often tricks people into thinking they're better than there actually are kids will

neglect their studies physical health and their relationships just so they can get closer to Virtual validation I used to care so much about whether or not I was platin valerant looking up aiming tutorials and whatnot hours of my day was spent gaming and I didn't even enjoy it eventually it all bubbled up and I had enough now I mostly play single player games with heavy focus on story and atmosphere actually playing playing games for the sake of fun and relaxation of course these games are almost never free but I'm willing to pay the price for

Quality games are supposed to be an Escape From A busy life a time to unwind from a hard day or just a place to chill for a bit I like having the option to just hop in a game play for a bit and then save it for later I don't want to feel true anger when I play games if I wanted that I could just find that in the real world growing up I played games like Minecraft Pokemon and Animal Crossing these games gave me a feeling of comfort and enjoyment I never really got too

upset with games and if I got stuck I would always take a break and try again later I meet so many memories playing games with my mom or even just alone this was the case until I entered high school and was introduced to the world of competitive games as someone who always loved competition but was no good at real life Sports I fell in love with the idea of Esports finally I could be the best at something well I got humbled pretty quickly I had tried my hand at nearly every competitive game Smash Bros valerant

OverWatch but I wasn't getting anywhere with it I tried going to Smash Bros tournaments and got destroyed I got into rocket League trying to get super good at that but was again faced with difficulty I played in a pretty serious Discord league for OverWatch but how serious can you get when you're ranked Diamond I pretty much tried to get good at every competitive game and got embarrassed almost every time this is why my current mentality towards playing these games has changed instead of taking them so seriously actually play them to have fun at the end

of the day it's just pixels on a screen so there's no point in getting so worked up about it I know it can be incredibly annoying to waste time if you lose a long game but hey if you only play to win that's the risk you take you play games to purely have fun it's like you unlock those fun moments again from childhood recently I've jumped into a game now and then to have some fun with friends and yeah honestly it really is fun again when I don't care much about the result earlier this year

I restricted myself to only playing video games one week per month everyone called me crazy but it really did help me focus and not to mention whenever I did play games it was super fun now it's a bit different considering I've embraced gaming back into my life but this time I don't really play games for any serious reasons anymore if I spend all day writing or editing I'll spend an hour before bed just chilling out and having fun in my opinion this is the best way to game you aren't sitting at the computer all day

wasting away getting mad at teammates cuz they suck so anyone out there who might be mad at me too because I insulted your favorite game I get it I'm not saying that you shouldn't play your favorite game anymore I actually want you to enjoy video games again you shouldn't be screaming at a screen because you get killed in a game you shouldn't be getting headaches because you've been sitting on the computer all day queuing over and over in valerant if you're ever wondering why video games aren't fun anymore just try sitting back relaxing and play

a game Thinking let's have fun instead of let's win ironically you'll probably end up winning more games because of it