So I was recently playing Super Smash Brothers with my friend Jonathan and getting beaten as usual. You see, Jonathan is what I like to call a "that guy". You know, that one guy thats ridiculously better at a game than everyone else? The one guy that causes people to quit a tournament once they find out that "that guy" is going to be there? The guy that everyone loves to throw remarks such as "You have no life" at behind their backs? Well, Jonathan is a "that guy" at Smash Brothers.
Well anyway, he was beating me as usual and I was starting to get a bit annoyed by it. It wasn't necessarily me being beaten that was bothering me, but it was the manner of me being beaten. You see, Jonathan uses lots of little exploits in the game such as "wave dashing", "wave dancing", and my least favorite "wobbling", among others. Me being the honorable person that I am, forsake those exploits for a fighting style of pure skill based off of the games founding concepts and structure as was intended by the developers. Unfortunately for me, no matter how much skill I had it didn't make wobbling any less gay.
To understand how retarded wobbling really is, let me explain it to you. If you are Ice Climbers, there is a way to get your opponent trapped in between Popo and Nana, so that you can indefinitely "wobble" them between them with basic attacks. You can do this pretty much for as long as you like until they reach the desired level of damage and you could then proceed to tear them asunder, sending them to the darkest recesses of Mehrunes Dagons plane of Oblivion.
So, as I was being beaten by him and his exploits I turned to him and said "Don't you think it's a little unfair to use these exploits against an opponent who does not?". His reply is something that will probably be a fond memory forever burned into my mind for all eternity. "I play to win, and thats it". I took some time to reflect on his words and I have come up with a conclusion that I would like to share with all of you.
Does not playing to win, undermine the fundamental reasons by which we play video games in the first place? How can someone call themselves a gamer, if the sole purpose for doing so is to ruin the experience for someone else? The soul of gaming lies at the enjoyment of the experience, not the humiliation of others. To win is the objective yes, but isn't having fun the most important reason we play games? Playing to win means that your ruining somebody else's enjoyment of a game for your own self gratification. Is it not more satisfying to have won a battle fairly without the need of exploits unintended by the developers, or to have lost a battle honorably, knowing that you gave nothing less than your all? I would like to think so.
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