I'm writing an article and I could use some help.

Hello, First, If I'm breaking somekind of rule, I sincerely apologize. I'm working on a small article piece for a gaming conference. It's a speech I'm doing about my thoughts on multiplayer. But I have no one to use it on so I thought I'd come here and ask a host of gamers what they think. Please give me feedback, criticism, advice.

So here it is:

I love an engaging immersive single player gaming experience as much as the next guy. My all-time favorite games are No More Heroes, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, Advance Wars, Pokémon: Gold in fact if you ask me I actually prefer single player games all the time but, I also love tapping into my competitive side by playing /meeting new people as well as running into the occasional Xbox live asshole. I'm not talking about Call of Duty. I'm talking about the fighting games released this generation. You know all the homophobic, antisocial, verbal hellhole that Call of Duty is famous for? Yeah, online fighting games get that too, don't believe me? Play as Dhalsim and zone your ass off using his limbs, or jump into UMvC3 and play the ChrisG Morrigan and Doom setup and watch all the hate accumulate.

I just don't like what a heavy indulgence in single player games do to people. The people who play way too much Final Fantasy and who aren’t exactly the most athletic people on the planet…hell, they aren’t even the least athletic person “I don’t have anything to prove. Which leaves me to believe that these people don't have a competitive bone in their body. That fact isn’t something that regularly bothers me because if competitive gaming isn't interesting to someone, then why should I fixate on it. I'm not gonna force them to like it but when they don’t care for games Street Fighter and Team Fortress 2 and they loudly project their dislike of the genre they were never really good at by trying their damndest to act all pretentious and sarcastic by trying to point out that fighting/shooting games "don’t have a right to exist" because “they don’t see the point in them” or calling foul whenever a character breaks the laws of physics. That doesn’t sit well with me because that to me comes off as them saying that “I’m playing video games the wrong way.”

It has been said that the people who are against multiplayer as a whole are just a bunch of snooty introverted pricks that don't enjoy gaming in the company of others. People who look down at you at "playing the same game over and over again" even though they are hypocrites because speaking from experience, those people I’ve dealt with are usually Nintendo fans as they line up to play the latest iteration of Mario or Pokémon that is more or less no different from the last iteration but they jeer at me for playing video games in a repetitive routine. The 16 year old Pokémon fans are much worse to deal with on this topic.

The reason I think a lot of people love playing video games competitively, is because they are really fun, really addictive in a good way and it makes me comeback for more even after games that I lose. The most gratifying moment of competitive play is when you play someone who is either on the same level or better than you and you have a very fierce heart-pounding match. Even if you lose/win the match the overwhelming euphoric feeling you got from the match is what makes competitive gaming one of the best experiences there is. I'm a big supporter E-sports and can do believe that one day paying upwards to $1000 for front seat to see someone play League of Legends will be as respected as paying the same amount to see someone play basketball. Not all aspects of competitive gaming are sunshine and roses for example...

Leaderboards. I hate leaderboards. I always grind my teeth and palm my face at the sheer stupidity of reviewers who always consider a lack of leaderboards a determent to a game. Somehow in this day and age not adding such a useless feature makes you officially worse than Hitler. All leaderboards do is turn competitive gaming into a drug/second job where the fun of the game deteriorates completely and it's replaced with resentment to said game because of an overwhelming need to outdo some kid in Japan who is better than you and 9 times outta 10 it always is some kid in Japan. And personally I feel gaming should do without them. Leaderboards are the archaic trope from video gaming in the days of the arcade in which its purpose was to invoke players to try to beat the score of the jackass on top with the name “ASS” Sadly at the time it was the highest our medium could reach so, cheap-ass difficulty along with leaderboards were the ploy of developers for kids to continuously shell out quarters or tokens depending on where you played. It may have been cool and practical in those days but it's completely useless now since you already paid the developers their money. So it's pointless….Also those things are rigged. I’m always hearing about how someone hacked their way to the top.

I may sound biased as all hell when I write this but when I think of games like Call of Duty, Battlefield basically the modern military shooter that is insanely popular for its multiplayer and nothing else are the ones that are doing it wrong. The major issue with the games I listed is that they usually go for nearly a hundred dollars for something that doesn't even come close to equal the amount of time spent to make said spending money. The reason why I say this is and the reason I greatly oppose them is because the FPS genre used to be a very fun engaging single player affair with games like Quake, Doom, but now the majority of games in the genre are trying to be like Goldeneye for the N64 in which I mean make the multiplayer the most polished part of the game as opposed to making the single player a masterpiece because the secondary mode was the only reason people bought that game. All while plopping a half-assed linear gaming sequence for every damn game: Game drops you where-ever, go to where the game says and shoot the brown people while packing two weapons slots, don’t forget to take cover so you can “realistically” recover over time. Rinse, repeat. I’m not an idiot, I know the single player fun First Person Shooters of old still exists today: Bioshock: Infinite, The Crysis series, Hawken, Resistance 3, Metro Last Light etc. While the fighting genre made no bones about its identity back in the day it was always meant to be a multiplayer fest to take on your friends and new rivals. So yeah...What's my point about this?....Actually, I don't know myself either. I don't really have a point but my article here isn't pointless. I like to think I want to give you something to think about.

@cmuser1: I think you really need some kind of thesis statement right up front to let me know what kind of argument you're trying to make, because this feels pretty disjointed. It might work as a blog post (or perhaps better as a series of smaller blog posts), but as an article I'm not sure what you're trying to put forward.

This is super disjointed and reads like an aimless rant. Especially the second and third paragraphs. I don't think this is salvageable, to be honest. Do what Rorie said: Start with a thesis, a point you want to make, and go from there. Go on Youtube and watch how guys like Jonathan Blow, Chris Hecker and Errant Signal talk about games. Also, if this was supposed to be a speech, it was written way too specifically. If you're doing some kind of presentation, it's best not to write down every single word you want to say. Rather know what you want to say and write down key lines or parts, whatever works for you.

Coming from an academic standpoint, I would cut down on the usage of informal words or phrases like insanely, damnedest (which you misspelled), rigged, gonna or any sort of swear word. I understand that this is something that is less formal and not being submitted to an academic journal but you can still be "fun and engaging" without bringing down your vocabulary.

Also, from an anthropological perspective, I disagree that with your statement that "heavy indulgence in single player games" (which is kinda a weird phrase, I suggest changing it) has a universal effect on people. It is much more likely that non-competitive people play single player games because those cater more to their likes and dislikes rather than a person's likes and dislikes are changed because of their fixation on one type of video game. I know you are only trying to target those who advocate against the existence of multiplayer games, but comes off as if you are making a universal truth. Which is something that might turn some of your audience off your article. In the end, it just sounds like you are making a lot of universal judgments for a population you probably haven't sufficiently sampled. In other words, it sounds like you are lumping together the people who dislike competitive video games in a similar way to how you claim they lump all competitive games into the same, 'boring' pile. In other other words, you are using their medicine (which you prescribed them) against them (which kinda makes your argument a little weaker).

Lastly, I suggest varying your sentence length. While you do use some short sentences, I think on a whole that your article has some sentences that are way too long. For example, the second to last sentence in your second paragraph is way too long. I suggest trying to break it up or getting rid of the redundant information.

I think I see what you are trying to get at with the article but it needs a thick coat of polish (as drafts normally do) before I would suggest putting it out there.

FYI im introverted and I love fighting games ... introverted is not a pejorative word and you using it llike this is an insult. Not all people in the world likes to be sorrounded by people and take a lot of effort to be at parties etc. You should remake that sentence without using intoverted and the like and yeah this is just an internet rant than an article.

It has been said that the people who are against multiplayer as a whole are just a bunch of snooty introverted pricks that don't enjoy gaming in the company of others.

Don't do that. Cite a source, name names, but don't blame some amorphous being.

I know the single player fun First Person Shooters of old still exists today: Bioshock: Infinite, The Crysis series, Hawken, Resistance 3,Metro Last Light etc.

Multiplayer games, even online ones, are older than you're giving credit for. Trust me, people were playing Doom via their modems in the early 90s.

So yeah...What's my point about this?....Actually, I don't know myself either. I don't really have a point but my article here isn't pointless.

What?

Also, getting people on here to proof read your work on your first post is pretty weak.

Aside from not having a coherent structure, throughout this article you are a picking fight and calling names to any group who doesn't believe multiplayer games are fun. There is an interesting thought to be explored here. Why is it that you are so defensive about this love of multiplayer gaming of yours? Why are you inclined to attack others for it?

Make the first paragraph you picking a fight with every group within gaming community that doesn't share your enthusiasm for games, without cursing at them, and then end the first paragraph by being introspective and raising the question of why am "I" so defensive about this hobby of mine. That is your thesis statement right there. Over the next several paragraphs you can then explore your defensiveness and expand it to defensiveness that is expressed by any minority group within the gaming community.