Guest Column: Accepting the Suck

Online multiplayer games make me feel lonely.

It's not that I don't like online multiplayer games. I love them. Or at least I love the idea of them. One of my most distinct childhood gaming memories is marveling at the idea of two-player Mario Kart. Stay with me on this because I know this isn't online multiplayer.

The idea that a character I'm controlling exists in a fictional space with characters controlled by other people is still fascinating to me. When I first played two-player Mario Kart, I didn't care about winning or losing (which means I mostly lost). I was amazed that somehow me and my friends and siblings were driving around and jumping over each other.

Do we still value how interesting that is on a human level? To simultaneously exist in our garbage bodies and also inhabit a space with Donkey Kong Jr.'s garbage body? Hell, I bought Faceball 2000 for both the SNES and the Game Boy because I genuinely believed that I would one day leave behind my body and live in virtual reality.

So I'm on board with multiplayer, but playing online fills me with a deep sense of dread and sorrow. It's the same feeling I get when I attend a friend's spouse's birthday party: Sure, I understand all the underlying mechanics of this experience, but I'm going to do the wrong thing. And when I do the wrong thing, it'll either be called out or--even worse--I'll have silently made everyone else's experience terrible.

Do any of you remember Camp Hyrule? Back when America Online was a thing and Away Messages ruled the Earth, fans of The Legend of Zelda could sign up for a virtual summer camp and play virtual games and be on virtual teams and make virtual friends whom you hoped were being honest about saying they were girls but probably not because you were lying about being under 250 pounds.

The point being, here was a chance to pretend to be someone else in a fun, fictional universe run by Nintendo.

And it horrified me.

Social anxiety crippled me. How do I act at Camp Hyrule. Is there a primer? Do I full role-play the part of a child in Hyrule? Do I act aloof like an asshole, but an asshole in the way that 12-year-olds think is cool? Should my strong opinions about Captain N: The Game Master be kept a secret? Would I ever stop writing in rhetorical questions as shorthand for fear?

So I quit. I told everyone that I had a “personal emergency” and had to leave my group immediately. And then I quietly stalked and read every post to see if they missed me, which is what sociopaths do.

Point being, I couldn't handle the pressure in Camp Hyrule.

Or Diablo.

Or Rainbow Six.

Or StarCraft.

Or Everquest.

Or City of Heroes.

Or every online multiplayer experience that I thought, “Okay, this will be the one! This will be the one where I will overcome my social anxiety and be able to be the best fictional version of me that I can be. No more giving up after one bad experience! Unless that experience is really bad. And we're at the top of the emotional roller coaster and here we goooooooooo!”

My gamer friends like to complain that I'm never online. And that I refer to them as “my gamer friends,” as if there were another category of friend I had. Comedy friends? Ehhhhh. Let's not go down that rabbit hole.

I'm never online because playing online scares me. I get so mad at myself when I lose that it's almost unbearable. It's not that I want to win. It's that I want to not lose. That's my whole life. I've never cared about being number one. Being number one at a video game is like being a movie star. Sure, in some universe I could've put in the time and effort, but that's not happening in this universe.

I just don't want to be last.

Last is loneliness. Last is not knowing what you're doing. Last is the feeling that this would've been the same game without you – or even better without you. You know that feeling when you say you suck and everyone softly goes, “Hey, no. Stop that. You're great"? That's last.

And it took me a long time to realize that's all in my head. Nobody cares if you suck at a game. Sure, some racist kid is going to tell you that he fucked your mom last night. But he's just being an asshole and also all of our moms need love. My mom has been in a bad mood for years. I don't know. Maybe this is what she needs. Maybe this would be good for her.

One of the big unspoken promises of video games is being good at something with less effort than it would take to actually be good at something. Very few of us are professional athletes. Very many of us have played one on TV. Be good instantly! Play guitar like the guitar protagonists of stage and film! Shoot other people without shaking and throwing up in a bathroom.

But the other unspoken rule is that we need to meet those games halfway.

Some people rise to this challenge. They're the eSports champions and the Destiny players who beat a raid the moment it goes live. They learn how to be good at pretending to be good at things. It takes time and effort and a dedication to a craft, whether they be Star or Mine.

Adults with jobs like to complain that good online players are non-adults who don't have jobs. And that's not really true. Or it is, but it doesn't matter. Getting better at any activity requires work. The problem is that many of us play video games as a release from work, not to take on more work. Realizing that we might need to put effort into being good at our release from other effort sucks.

For all their storytelling value, single player games rarely challenge you to compare the progression of your skills. Yes, yes, yes, many single player games require a great amount of talent and work. But they rarely require you to show your work and get judged for your work by other living people with feelings.

Enter Overwatch.

Overwatch is my favorite online multiplayer game ever. Or put another way, Overwatch is the first online multiplayer game where disappointing strangers isn't my primary fear. Because it's the first multiplayer game to make me feel like losing was fine. Sure, other games still give out XP for losses and they don't punch you in the solar plexus if you don't quit. But in Overwatch, losing feels okay!

It's okay! Here's some XP. And listen--you might not have shot enough people in the face. But some strangers are willing to give you props for healing a bit. Isn't that nice? Positive feedback!

Overwatch also creates roles for people who suck at shooters. Instead of just one medic, there are a bunch of healers and buffers and tanks that can actually tank. Shit, there's now a healing sniper. Being considered a useful member of the group without the pressure of offense or actually being near people? Yes, please.

Other games aren't doing something wrong. Overwatch just feels--I dunno--comfortable? I want to get better at Overwatch because not being very good at Overwatch is still fun. Does that make sense? It's easier to do more work when I don't feel like I'm disappointing strangers because I don't know how to strategize or snipe or crouch walk away from gunfire rather than into gunfire. Overwatch removes the social pressure of online multiplayer games.

A lot of this is my own baggage, of which there's clearly a lot. And Overwatch won't make me very good at parties with other human beings who want to discuss human topics. But it is a reminder (at least to me) that you (meaning I) can embrace what you're (I'm) bad at and still enjoy the experience.

It's also a reminder that I'm playing games to pretend to be good at something. And not being good at something fake is not a failure in real life. Letting down a stranger named xXxDankmeme420xXx isn't the same as not knowing what to say at a party. But avoiding both situations rather than growing from them is fucking stupid.

You don't need to be good at games to enjoy them. It's taken me 20 years to realize that. You can suck at a fun game and it's still fun. You can be the worst at something and still enjoy yourself. Nobody will remember your missed shots. Nobody will remember your dumb strategies. Everyone is too self-absorbed to think about other people.

And I'm definitely playing Mercy because I've got no other idea what to do.

Mike Drucker is a Giant Bomb contributor and co-head writer for “Bill Nye Saves the World,” coming to Netflix in 2017. He's also written for The Tonight Show, Nintendo, The Onion, and SNL. He also co-hosts the podcast, “How To Be a Person” which can be found here. You can follow him on Twitter and watch him on Twitch under the surprising name “MikeDrucker.”

I share a lot of the sentiments here. Maybe with a little less of the anxiety, but I definitely agree with a lot of the article.

It really surprises me that you would find Overwatch to be so accepting of people who are "bad".

To me it ranks somewhere not far below Counter-Strike (and games like it) in terms of not being friendly to people who are bad at the game. This is because of the heavy team-oriented tactics and strategy involved and because the team size is very small so each member and class of the team becomes far more important.

You could join a TF2 server and spend half of the match shooting at the wall and be fine because there is very little pressure and there are plenty of other people there to pick up the slack.

I also find the medic role to be one of the more demanding ones in games like these. Sure you don't usually have to be very good at fast-twitch aiming but a Medic is often key to success. Every death matters a lot. Everyone needs to be constantly topped off or overhealed. You're the core mover of your team and therefore usually at the centre point of team strategy. It's a demanding class to play.

... I hope this doesn't put more pressure on you the next time you play. Accepting the suck is one thing, embracing it is another.

I can really relate to this feeling. Every time I get ready for competitive online play of any kind my guy just starts going upside down.

For me, it's meant an attraction to co-op multiplayer when I don't have to worry about losing to another person. Somehow the disappointment of losing to the computer means we all lost together.

Overwatch manages to do this for me since teams actually need each other even though we're playing other humans. The other key component is never turning on a chat feed ever. EVER.

I get so mad at myself when I lose that it's almost unbearable. It's not that I want to win. It's that I want to not lose.

Bingo. This is precisely why none of my attempts to get into fighting games or RTS ladders ever last more than a week or two at a time. That 5+ game streak of getting absolutely demolished that's necessary in any learning curve is simply too stressful for me.

I think what also helps with this is that there's no "last place" in Overwatch because there's no scoreboard. Unless you're actively paying attention to every single team mate's mistakes, I don't think there's really a visible sorta way to find out who's doing 'bad' on your team.

As someone who plays a lot of League of Legends, that's a nice change.

Overwatch is probably the only PVP multiplayer shooter I've played in the last decade due to the happy-go-lucky gameplay. It's one of the few games where I rarely see any bad comments from the peanut gallery - and when there are bad comments I feel they're easily ignored since I'm not playing competitively. There's literally no pressure except the one I apply to myself.

The same goes for my wife. Overwatch drew her in due to the character designs (and in turn me). She prefers to be females in games and TF2 for that reason never spoke to her; though in Overwatch she has fully embraced Junkrat and she's scary fun to watch controlling that guy.

Back when I played Overwatch, I got the image that losing and being bad was very much not okay.

After a loss, people flew off the handle - even in quickplay - and immediately started blaming their teammates (or anyone else except themselves, really).

I guess that aligns with most online shooters (on PC), but close to their launch, the PC versions of Rocket League and Overwatch were a cesspool of bad players blaming others and I dropped them pretty quickly.

Great article. I can't really relate to this, but it helps me understand how other people might feel. For me, video games are not a release from work. Video games are the main thing. I work so I can get money so that I can keep playing video games.

I can absolutely relate to this article. I've actually been a fan of Mike's work for a while now, so I'm very surprised to hear he has the same sort of loser's anxiety I do. When I play games with friends, I am almost always at the bottom of the leaderboard. I practice and I play non-stop but still I'm trash. Eventually, I just sort of accepted that I wasn't very good, so I play more forgiving games, like Overwatch or Rocket League

I can relate to this, except I started out embracing the suck and have regressed from there.

I used to play SOCOM and SOCOM 2 constantly. My friends and I weren't the best, but we weren't there to be. We just wanted to shoot some things and imitate the fantastic "GRENADE!" shouts that the non-English speaking characters made. No one cared about how good/bad we were. I just had fun.

As I've grown older, I've also noticed that I inherited my father's extremely short fuse when it comes to dealing with other people. Right about the time I started letting things bother me, was the time that my roommate and I were having marathon Modern Warfare 2 sessions. I got to the point where I was always angry when I played. I generally kept my mouth shut and just fumed about it, but it soured me on the whole FPS experience.

I picked up Overwatch when it came out so I could play with some friends from my old job. I immediately started feeling the same anger and anxiety as when I played MW2. I was having fun, but with a constant, albeit low, level of anxiety. I stopped playing right after the Olympic event, and I haven't jumped back in since.

@hassun: That might be true if you're playing ranked but quick play is extremely relaxed. That's where you go to just chill out or play dumb comps like all Dva. I rarely run into people who get aggro in Quick Play. I'm guessing that's what Mike plays mostly.

Great article Mike. I can relate somewhat, although my anxiety comes from having anyone I know see me play. Sucking in front of randos on the internet? I could not give a crap. But being invited into a friend's party for a round of Halo? I become a puddle of insecurities.

I've always done alright for myself with competitive games, even high-stress stuff like League of Legends didn't rattle me as much because most of the time I'm not the worst person on the team. Hell, depending on the time of day and who I'm facing against, I might be the best player on my team.

But fighting games? Fighting games drive me up the wall when I play them online, to the point where I've still never played an online match in Street Fighter V. It might be because it's just me versus some other dope, or maybe because I never managed to get over the mid-level learning curve (I know how to do the moves, and can sometimes do the moves together, but I've never been great at learning when to do the moves) but getting stomped over and over again has always been super demoralizing. I've never learned how to overcome that, and as a result I've kinda left that genre behind.

Case in point; I am on a couple of ~200 person discords specifically for pickup groups, so I usually play in 6 stacks on PC. This means that I, in a group of people I have played with occasionally (or regularly, but with a bunch of others too) are going up against 6 people that play with each other and noone else every day. Well, most of them. It's a great challenge, taking a pickup group against pre-mades, and good for skill, and everything... but it's fucking rough.

When you play 6-stack PC quickplay, I swear that shit is like competitive when I started. Don't pick a character you're not good at (ostensibly, the point of quickplay), don't chill and have a couple beers or whatever, fucking get on the mic and be on point or we're all wrecked. It's pretty intimidating to be honest.

But the same "sharing an online space" thing comes into play heavily here; I know and like all the people on these discords. They fill my entire b.net friends list. I'm not going to solo queue to get a group of 4 goobers and a duo of goobers. If I have to play against tryhards, that's how it is. And I'm like 2300 gold, I fucking suck. It's rough. But the social aspect is worth it.

Also, I'm going to put it out there that quickplay is a lot more toxic than it used to be, on PC at least. And ever since the october seasonal shit brought back everyone from other games for the fancy special lootboxes, the amount of gimmick 6-stacks has skyrocketed since last tuesday.

But man do I fucking love Overwatch.

I was totally in this boat for a long time, and some games still bring it up in me. I cant play MOBAs because the pressure of bringing the team down + the idea of being yelled at for sucking (which actually does happen in those games, a lot) just dilutes the fun part for me to the point where I might as well just do something else though. I can totally do an online shooter, or something less intensely team-focused

I used to be a lot worse, though. I played WoW for many many years as a teen before attempting to play it with other people regularly, and only did it then because I got actively recruited. Ended up making some friends, and then briefly taking it more seriously than my actual life before quitting it cold turkey.

Actually, maybe I never did get better about it.

Good article. I have a bit of anxiety as well when it comes to multiplayer games, though for different reasons i guess. But MAN have we had different experiences in Overwatch! I've only tried quickplay, but it has been as toxic and shitty as any multiplayer game I've played.

"You don't need to be good at games to enjoy them. It's taken me 20 years to realize that. You can suck at a fun game and it's still fun. You can be the worst at something and still enjoy yourself. Nobody will remember your missed shots. Nobody will remember your dumb strategies. Everyone is too self-absorbed to think about other people."

This is spot on. I stepped back and finally realized this a few years ago and now I have much more fun and play a lot more multiplayer online games. Nobody really cares about how good you are and they will forget you 10 seconds after a game is over. I still play hard and try but I've lost a ton of the anxiety and had a ton more fun

This is one of the best, if not the best, Giantbomb Guest Columns I've ever read. Certainly the first time I've ever laughed out loud reading one.

I definitely suffer from the same "I don't want to lose" anxiety, except for me instead of quitting games I keep playing them and get better or get frustrated. Starcraft 2 was/is my biggest anxiety but greatest achievement in being good at a fake thing. I went from having absolutely no clue about strategy, micro, macro or anything at all to eventually reaching top Diamond and hitting Masters players on ladder. I made top 8% on the North America server during Heart of the Swarm. It felt really really good to be "ok" at Starcraft but no matter what, even after playing over 2,000 games, I still couldn't shake the idea that I "needed" to win. I hated losing and felt like shit when I dropped down the ladder. I was always terrified of losing my rank. When I did start playing Master league people, I lost most of the time because I would get nervous and think how they would be so much better than me. They really weren't but my negative mindset made them be better.

I quit during Heart of the Swarm and picked it back up again with Legacy of the Void and then quit again. A combination of frustration, not wanting to spend time practicing, and loser anxiety has kept me away from the game. Even so I still consider it to be the best competitive multiplayer game ever created and hopefully with the new patch allowing every player to have a separate rank with each race it will allow my brain to stop caring so damn much about ranks and just play to have fun. It really is so silly to care so much about something on a computer screen, that doesn't actually "exist" in the real world. And yet my brains always demands I do well and get better.

I do agree that Overwatch is helpful to get involved in team games and fun, but it being a team game makes it have its own set of frustrations. I think what Blizzard did best with the game is create that MOBA feel for players, where people like the look, feel, and personality of the characters. This makes people like playing certain characters and keep people coming back to the game even if someone is an ass to them in chat. It's certainly an easier game to get into than Starcraft.

I really really love Overwatch, but I'm surprised at this. Overwatch is one of the first games to make me physically uncomfortable because of the consistently mean people. Not every match but at least one person on your team every three or so matches. And the matches where people give up, insult everyone, call people out for not playing a certain way or character. It's exhausting. I really love the character designs and style of the world, and I love how all the unique play styles come together. But even in quickplay I've seen people tell others to quit because they "aren't good enough" to even play. It's disheartening, and even with reporting and moderation it doesn't stop. Sometimes, I've even seen competitive matches with people trying to play nice but also trying to direct teammates on how to play the whole game, not out of anger or contempt but because they feel the match is hopeless unless they get everyone to play perfectly. I keep coming back because it's so fun to play, and then leaving out of disappointment only a few hours later.

I suffer from a lot of the same anxieties, but I also don't like the commitment of online gaming. I have very limited time to play games, and that time could be interrupted at any moment by a screaming kid. Not being able to press the pause button, and the potential of letting people down or ruining THEIR gameplay time, really bothers me.

That said, I played some online multiplayer for the first time in years last week. Forza Horizon 3 seems like another good game for people with multiplayer anxiety. I set it to mini-game only mode, which means only capture the flag, infected and king. It's pretty much everyone for themselves, so if you're sucking, that's actually good for the other players. I even won 2 rounds of flag rush. It was pretty fun. I might even try online racing later - but then your poor driving has the potential to screw other people up.

Overwatch sounds terrifying though. I can't handle anything where a group of people are counting on you to do well.

Great article.

Great column, Mr. Drucker.

For the longest time I had a lot of anxiety about competitive multiplayer. As a teenager I took it all personally for some reason. I might have been able to articulate it properly back then, but now I have no clue what to say to make it make sense. All I know is that when my friend blew me up with a grenade when I was hiding in a vent in GoldenEye, I would look over at him and wonder if he was trying to tell me that he would be willing to actually literally murder me in real life.

I was unable to get into Counter-Strike or Halo for the same reasons. The idea of a stranger killing my in-game avatar with gleeful abandon was kind of terrifying. For some reason I took it really personally. I couldn't handle knowing that somewhere out there someone wanted me dead, even though it was a game and I had just been trying to kill their character too. Weird.

What helped me get through this was co-op gaming. World of Warcraft, Timesplitters, Left 4 Dead. I was able to play with friends without being pitted against them. The diversity of roles that comes with cooperative gaming allowed me to fill other roles beyond that of the one billion APM precision-aiming murder machine. I could protect my teammates as a tank or look after their health as the designated healer. Games like Team Fortress 2 and Overwatch allowed me to continue filling those roles in a competitive environment. Just this year I've started to branch out even further. I now enjoy feeding on the frustration of my enemies as I pull them around corners with Roadhog's hook and creating gardens of twisted, screaming ice sculptures as Mei. I've really grown as a person, obviously.

In the end, strangers don't really care that much about you. They don't care if you're a boon to the team, they don't care if you're the weak link, and when your enemies kill you, you might as well have been AI-controlled. Even when they call you out by your online handle, they don't know you and any sort of personal attack made against you is made within the vacuum that is their total lack of knowledge about who you are as a person. Realizing that made it easier for me to be bad at games and to practice until I became not so bad.

I'm really looking forward to Bill Nye Saves The World!

@hassun: I agree completely with the part about TF2. It really surprises me to hear how people talk about Overwatch as if TF2 never existed, but I suppose I'm of a rarer breed who got to play TF2 during its prime. I also find myself getting really frustrated at Overwatch, way more than I ever did with TF2 but that's totally on me. I know it wouldn't happen but I wonder what a TF3 would look like.

@hassun: The biggest thing for me in the concept of not feeling bad at sucking in Overwatch is that there is no giant scoreboard at the end that readily shows everyone's kills and deaths. If you do bad in other multiplayer shooters, your name will be on the bottom of the list, and everyone can see that. Sure, if people pay attention, they can probably tell who is dying a lot, but especially in the casual game mode, it doesn't really matter. The matches are quick, and there are other things that matter other than your KDA. It's easier to stay hidden while you get better at the game, than in other games.

Wow, do I relate to this article (which made me audibly 'lol' several times). I still yearn for the days where I could play multiplayer games with friends in my childhood home/dorm/apartment because of these anxieties. I, like yourself, have fallen in deep with Overwatch for many of the same reasons. My problem with online gaming is that it's still difficult for me to have meaningful or long lasting relations in an online space. There's something about befriending people that I will likely never meet or see that freaks me out. Even on a site as (generally) friendly as GB. Which reminds me.....

Sorry duders if I've ever denied your friend requests or party invites. I promise I don't hate you. <3 Being online is hard stuff.

Great article, Mike!

It's interesting that it was also Overwatch for me that got me to stick with an online multiplayer game. I only play with a couple friends, but even when we lose, we have fun and it's not a big deal.

I have none of the anxiety issues you have. I can't stand Overwatch. I still very much enjoyed your article. Cheers! :)

@arbitrarywater: Have you consulted with other people of similar or higher skill level to see what's lacking in your playstyle? That's something I see a bit more often when newer players have trouble dissecting what their problems are. Resources are aplenty and people are not all bad when talking about relevant things. They probably wont change you immediately but they should give you a mindset to understand a bit clearly.

I am the pot monster in fighting games. I don't progress in a tournament as much as better players. I still however enjoy it a lot and accept my losses because it's part of it. I am willing to learn the mistakes or the things I don't see in my play and willing to improve for future endeavors. For me there is fun in that since it's part of the journey to win more and lose less. I will add is that fighting games is my first genre to really make me think deeper so I find it more appealing to me. It might not be the same for others though which is understandable.

@hassun: If I had to guess, I'd say that Mike plays on console, not PC. By nature of not having text chat, the console versions are waaaaay friendlier than PC. As to your comments about Medic being a complex role and tactics and all that fun stuff- those aren't considerations that non-competitive players make. Hardcore gamers and FPS fans care about all that, but the casual base (whom Overwatch definitely appeals to) doesn't, and self-described "bad" players like Mike almost certainly don't.

I think the author is interested but for some reason has never really played games designed to be co-operative in nature rather than competitive.

I think you should try getting into a co-operative PVE experience with online people. These games thrive on players actively helping other players regardless of experience level. While there are bad apples in every community, games like Warframe, Dungeon Defenders or the upcoming Fortnite are designed to build relationships and eventually filter people together in mutual experiences.

While there is an anxiety with disappointing team mates these communities typically have active members who are publicly available to help you. Asking for help or just participating in match making will probably net you a friendly response right away.

I guess the point I'm making is that there are games out there where everyone shares the same outcome no matter who's playing. It might be a great idea to try out some of those too.

I do not feel like this in the least about team games but wow do I feel this way about sports games. I have been a sports game player for my whole life and I really never want to play anyone. When I was living with friends in college and stuff they'd want to play and I sometimes would but mostly I would avoid it if I could and I never, NEVER, play online because of how I feel. You just are so solely the loser in that situation and I just can't take it.

I have this in other compeititive spaces too. I used to a lot in real life sports, which is why I gravitated towards defense (always easier for me to ruin someone else's plan and execution rather than bringing about my own) but I got over that big time. Still, I feel that way about sports games. I play like 300 hours of NBA 2K for the last few years and I never play anyone else.

Mike, great article and I'm right there with you in many respects.

Mine is more about just being a complete social retard though which I've always been. I'm terrified of voice chat. Dunno why.

@dick_mohawk: Welcome to 2016, nobody voice chats in public. After people got annoyed with kids yelling a bit too much or people just blasting music in a low bitrate VOIP channel, people gave up.

@thephantomnaut: Sweet. I'm not completely deranged! That's good to know.

Thank you for the enlightenment.

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and have heard similar stories and lived parts of it, but I feel the article leans too much into personal examples and overstates the point. You do make a good point. It's something I've seen with uploading creative content online or realizing the first time what it means to be part of a team at work. Some young people and a lot of adults are very afraid to embarrass themselves or have their shortcomings exposed. At that point we can cry, fume and curse as much as we want, what's important is to pick up the pieces afterwards and try to better ourselves or, if we are feel exceptionally existentialist, laugh and revel in the absurdity of our plights.

Article headlines LIKE A BOSS

@thephantomnaut: I did get into playing SF with some GB duders who gave me pointers back in the early days of Super Street Fighter IV (none of whom are still around) but for the most part I played with people I knew in real life who were as bad as I was. Admittedly, my specific issues with fighting games are as much "I don't have the time/willpower to invest in getting good right now." as they are about my own weird anxieties about getting curbstomped over and over again.

More people should reference Captain N: The Dream Master, dammit.

Great article! I definitely have similar anxieties about not wanting to be the worst or let others down when I'm playing online. It's a big factor in why I didn't want to go after a lot of endgame content in FFXIV (the other being time commitment). I was always too afraid of being a shitty DRG or shitty tank, so I didn't bother. I managed to overcome a little bit of tanking anxiety while leveling warrior but I never ran endgame content as a tank.

@arbitrarywater: That's fair. time management does go hand in hand with learning. For some, it's easy to put in a bit of time while others who might not be able to squeeze in will eventually end up a bit frustrated. If you ever do have the time, you are always welcome to return. There is always just watching the many streams nonetheless!

@hanorian: I definitely think that's at least partially due to the smaller team size. There's a lot more attention on you when there are 12 or 16 players on the team compared to when there are only 6.

@pickledscoot: Reading about his fear of coming last I definitely think that Overwatch not showing a scoreboard of that nature is a major factor in liking it more. I personally think more objective-oriented team-based games need to adopt that model. I've wanted it for a long time.

All in all I think Mr Drucker is a competitive person by nature but he does not have the time/does not want to spend the time necessary to get very good at a particular game. I think the abunance of stats and ways to compare yourself to others can hurt the enjoyment you get out of a game. I still remember how Battlelog really started making me enjoy playing Battlefield 3 and 4 less because I couldn't help but try to beat all my in-game friends. It made me play the game in a way that was both not enjoyable to play but also less useful to the team.

Interesting article, I can't say that I really understand why it hurts so much for someone who knows that they're bad to be called bad. I'm bad at drawing and whenever I'm playing some game like Pictionary or something, I'm the weak link and I know it but it doesn't stop me from having fun. People pointing it out to me isn't some soul-shattering revelation so why does it bother others that much? Maybe I have a thick skin from playing sports but I just don't see how people have such social anxiety for strangers who they'll never see again (that goes for more than just gameplay but insults as well).

Great, insightful, funny article! I always love when Mike does writing for GB.

I know where you are coming with regards to Overwatch, I've been averse to most modern multi-player games for the same reasons you laid out here, but have totally gotten hooked on Overwatch. I just have fun playing, and feel like I can contribute even without being an immaculate sharpshooter or something like that.

So I just stick to Halo because I'm not a garbage man at it.

Woah, I remember camp Hyrule! I was in that too... i think? The Nintendo forums were crazy, the Zelda ones before that.

Online multiplayer anxiety is definitely still a threat. But it helps when you can't see people's expressions (and read far too much into them). And being able to walk away and never see (play) with that person again. Because online multiplayer is a hoot! It's intense. It's unpredictable. And people are hilarious (you just need to embrace the fact that you may be hilarious from time to time, too). The hardest part of online multiplayer relationships, in my opinion, is the closer you get to online players, the stronger the multiplayer anxiety gets. But like most things in life, you need to ignore the voice and just jump in.

Great piece. Thank you.

Nice

@hassun said:

Frankly, most explosive classes end up doing this whether they like it or not. Half the time people are missing shots left and right, anyway.