it's like you say: you fail numerous times and still you come back - because you have a strong desire to win in the end.

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competition brings out the best (and worst) in people. in video games, it makes you a better gamer; in real life, it makes you a better person. winning might not be everything, but if you never strive to be better than others, you'll never realize your full potential.

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your comparison is a bit unfair though, since that concerns somebody's livelyhood, and at that state it's no game anymore; i was more thinking about sports etc. when i said "in real life". i'm sorry about your colleague though, and i hope he'll get better soon.

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It seems to be fairly NEW gamers who are entirely driven by competition when they game, people who only came into things with Guitar Hero and Halo and achievements.

Some of us out there really just enjoy narrative, interesting gameplay, and exploring a robust world.

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I know you're not really being serious but I always like to at least learn something from discussing things. Rather than, let's say, winning an argument... =p

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Not saying that competition has not place in games or life, like some of the others seem to imply with their posts. Competition does have it's place, and if handled correctly, is a very healthy not to mention natural expression of the species. At the same time, direct competition never yielded results like the Great Pyramids or the Great Wall of China. Even the design stage of those accomplishments, was the result of many humans collaborating. Even the greater accomplishments like oral language, reading, writing, philosophy, mathematics, art, cultivation, engineering, civilization itself (all the things we take for granted far too easily in the modern age), are not possible to purely competitive species. I was reading a paper a few years back, where a group of anthropologist discovered evidence that the very evolution of homo-sapian-sapian, may not have occurred had our direct predecessors on the evolutionary scale, had not learned to stop competing all the time, and to cooperate on some rudimentary level.

Again, not saying there is no place for healthy expressions of competition for the species. However, to state, as you have, that competition brings out the best in our species, is like saying that competition brings out the best in lions or sharks, as the end results would be near identical. That is not political correctness, that's just looking at the last 3.2 million years of anthropological and scientific evidence, and stating the obvious. Competition while healthy, was ever going to take our species so far. To get anywhere beyond where the rest of the animal kingdom seems doomed to dwell, that took just enough competition to keep driving us forward, all the rest was cooperation. And at any point where the importance of competition overshadowed cooperation, we've only wound up destroying much of the forward progress that was made during the periods where we kept competition and cooperation in balance.

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As far as gaming is concerned I am extremely competitive in multiplayer games such as Halo. I like winning. I feel good about it, and I don't apologize it. However, I also love games like Rock Band, or co-op shooters. Working together with a team mate to gold star songs in Rock Band is just as fun to me as pulling off a nice headshot in Halo. I also enjoy purely single player experiences like Bioshock, competing against the computer using only my own wits.

I think there's a time and place for all types of gaming, and competition. It's important for kids to learn the value of constantly striving to do their best, while also realizing that winning is not everything, they won't always be the best and they shouldn't expect to be. You can learn important lessons from winning and realizing what made you the best in that situation, as well as losing, realizing your mistakes and trying harder next time.

Balance, balance, balance.

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Basically, both extremes are bad. I defiantly notice that kids below my graduating class are too sheltered and thus cannot take bad news or "loosing" well.

However, it was not until I was older and they taught kids that the experience is good by playing in competition that I got the "good game" scenario.

In the past, all they taught is "winning is everything". That led to over machoism and guess what? When you lost at tennis they would mob you, steal your shit and beat the shit out of you when you fought back by spitting soda on you. And when you tried to get justice, they said "well winning is everything."

No joke. "Winning is everything" and "wining is not everything" both breads assholes. The main problem is that people cannot be people and remain civilized. They always go between extreme thoughts. Nobody is political, they are either Liberal Democrats or Conservative Republicans. Nobody is spiritual, you are either a white trash racist Christian or a Anti-Semitic blow yourself up Muslim.

THAT is the problem. Nobody just...PLAYS anymore.

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