Recently, I schlepped my Xbox 360 to an old friend of mine’s house. He and I used to play games like Golden Eye and Turok back in the day, so I thought he would enjoy playing some of the plethora of FPS games on the 360. We played the campaign mode for a while and had a good time, but the real eye opener came when I asked him if he was interested in playing online. He told me that he had never played a shooter online before! Ecstatic, I took us online and let him marvel at all of the game modes and super fast matchmaking. He had a blast! Not only that, but after only one match, he resolved to convince his wife to let him buy a 360!
But here’s the truly striking part; he was getting creamed the entire time! In most games, he would get blown to bits more often then not, but he still had loads of fun. This is something that is almost unheard of in the modern gaming community; especially when it comes to shooters. Most core gamers would get frustrated by all of those defeats and either quit or moan through the next set of matchmaking. But why? It’s only a game, after all. Why can’t we have the same since of wonder that my good friend has?
The reason that some people take games seriously and some don’t is because we all have different goals when we play games. If your goals include winning, it’s likely that losing will anger you, since one of your goals was not met. My friend, on the other hand, had no expectations going into his games, so when he lost, it didn’t keep him from achieving anything. His only goal was to have fun and that’s what he did.
So, maybe if we hardcore gamers reevaluated our goals a little, we might have more fun when we lose a match or two on Xbox Live or PSN.
