As Gamers Age, The Appeal of Competition Drops The Most

I find as I've gotten older, my tolerance for bullshit has waned significantly. I simply have no patience for the scum of humanity that comprises a great majority of the competitive multiplayer scene. Consequently, I stick to single-player or co-op games. It doesn't help that developers (Blizzard and Bungie) shoe-horn in changes that affect my experience negatively because of some PvP mode I never touch.

I just want to play games with my friends now, not shoot random strangers in some competitive multiplayer.
 
I get lost a little bit in the definition of competitive so I looked it up on their site:
Competition: Gamers who score high on this component enjoy competing with other players, often in duels, matches, or team-vs-team scenarios. Competitive gameplay can be found in titles like Starcraft, League of Legends, or the PvP Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. But competition isn’t always overtly combative; competitive players may care about being acknowledged as the best healer in a guild, or having a high ranking/level on a Facebook farming game relative to their friends.
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I see many definitions pop-up here that separate player bases drastically. So when I read this it's important to note that their definition of 'competitive' appears to encompass a large majority of a player-base. If their definition of being 'competitive' can include trying to get the top score in a facebook farming game (subjectively not very challenging or relative to their friends) or be the "best healer" in an online mmo (subjective or relative to their guild) then this study is not that telling - at least not to what I wanted to learn. By my own definition, majority of people I know are not competitive gamers by any stretch of the imagination, in the sense that they literally don't care about competing. But they do like the social interaction, multiplayer community and "friendly competition" games aspect. But according to this study, the people I'd consider in this friendly group that 'occasionally like to dip in ranked match-making mode without any of the stress of actually competing' might be marked down as 'competitive'. Maybe this category could be split to "competitive (friendly)" and "competitive (serious/hardcore/ranked)".

I don't want to take away from the study as it looks like they've put together a great presented package here. It's just something to keep in mind that I think someone more intelligent than myself might be better able to convey.
 
At 38 I find most of my interest in multiplayer of any sort gone, mostly because of skills that deteriorate with age.
I still probably game with higher skill than the average but it takes me longer to pick up twitch mechanics, and I find myself in the same position as an aging baseball pitcher who is still good how they cover up and mask their declining physical skills with knowledge and experience.
 
Whenever I play video games it's always multiplayer.

I can't get into single player games anymore. I think my time as a QA tester 12 years ago killed my enthusiasm for it.

I think I'm an outlier.
 
31 here and competition is a large motivator for me. Neck and neck Mario Kart races where one incredible shot green shell will narrowly secure a victory is the best feeling ever. Still play Mario Kart races with friends because of this single reason. Same with Rocket League. The thing that keeps me playing is playing against good players that offer close games.

I enjoy single player games just as much but my interest in competition hasn't changed.
 
I hope he publishes a paper on it and doesn't just use it to sell to companies, because I've been teaching this to my students for some time now, but with so far nothing more than a hunch to go on. However, there are of course some pretty big confounds that the methodology could lead to, so I would be interested to read more on it. Just checked his citation count by the way, whoosh, I will never reach that.

Anecdotally, I have the same experience. Clocked some 1000+ hours into Unreal tournament back in the day. Past my thirties, I don't have any desire to derive status from games anymore. I tend towards easy games, and hardly play online. And even if I do, I much prefer unfair games for noobs with rubberbanding mechanisms. Just playing for fun, nothing else.

Fine Ham Abounds said:
Dat post 50 competitive spike
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TheSeks said:
Wasn't just me that noticed that, then. Menopause is a bitch?
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I reckon it's the kind of games they grew up with. 50+ people mostly just know and play card games, which are by definition competitive.
 
For me it's less about the drive to be competitive and more about not having the free time required to be adequate at doing so.

When I hit retirement watch out kids.
 
spekkeh said:
I reckon it's the kind of games they grew up with. 50+ people mostly just know and play card games, which are by definition competitive.
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Haha if by definition you can be considered a competitive gamer or someone that cares about 'competition' because you play card games with friends we def need to split these groups up. Otherwise on some level almost everyone is 'competitive' lol playing poker or cribbage with your mates is a little different than playing poker competitively.
 
I'm still interested in being competitive but the more I age, the less free time I have. And that means I have less time to get good at a game. Because I can't get good, I stick to casual gametypes and games. I've accepted that my semi-pro Halo rating will never come back.
 
Im 40 soon and my interest in competitive matches is lower than ever. I do try but always get owned by someoene half my age with twice the reaction speed. I prefer co op and SP gaming now.
 
I can totally see that. Many of my fondest gaming memories as a kid were playing Atari 2600 and Intellivision games on the couch, my friends and me playing against each other. And then when I was much older, it was Super Mario Kart and Bomberman on SNES. When Doom was the hot ticket the head of IT where I worked was obsessed with it and let us (practically made us) play on the LAN every night. Loads of fun, we played every major FPS that came down the pike in its wake, and some other games like Myth. I finally got my own computer at home around the time Quake 3 came out, and that was when I started playing on the web against anonymous opponents. I'm sure that was a big factor in why it suddenly didn't feel as fun. But I think another big one was that I hit 30 around that time.
 
I've always liked co-op more. I dabbled in competitive stuff for a few years at around college age, but I mostly don't give a fuck these days.

Most competitive scenes are super scummy anyway and I just don't feel like getting anywhere near that.
 
My rank IRL is all that matters to me at this point in life.

Multiple people rely on me to support them and I come through for them by paying for the mortgage on my house, the utility bills, etc. etc. month in and month out. As such my placement on a leaderboard in a video game is about as insignificant as it gets.

It is all about perspective.
 
its cuz they're all tired of losing

kappa.png
 
No matter what my mood, I can't seem to get away from Counter Strike.

The gameplay and camaraderie with friends is just too appealing, even when I don't wanna be competitive.
 
Im in my 30s and still love multiplayer over single player. I just find human interaction more compelling than bad ai and most videogames just dont have good stories worth my time. That said i live in a situation now where i have limited access to the internet and have been pretty much forced to just play single player. I really miss online gaming..
 
Its hard to get into a competitive multiplayer game when you get killed by kids who play the fuckin thing all day as soon as you log in. I love shooters and other multiplayer games, but not when Im getting owned on such a grand scale that it feels like I'm voluntarily spanking myself with a spiked club for fun
 
potatohead said:
I still play Dota but my motivation to play is so different now.

I don't really care about the winning competitiveness aspect, it's more about enjoying good tactics and good teamwork which is where the game really shines for me. Interestingly enough that style of playing also wins more games which is great.

Other than that don't really play competitive at all, I suck at FPS on any platform lmao. StarCraft II is great fun and so is SF but I'm horrible at both of those :)

Been almost exclusively RTS gaming in my history for "competitive" gaming.
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That is exactly how i feel. I play lol and street fighter, and more for the love of the game, not the wins.

I treat soccer and tennis (two sports i play) the same way. I just love the game and want to grow in it for myself. That's the fun of it all. The other person isn't there for me to win against, but to see how much I've learned and grown from past matches.

oh and i'm 35.
 
As a 37 year old gamer I could not agree more. I'm a bit of a hermit anyway and as I get older I just find myself playing single player or co-op games exclusively. Sometimes I'll play a competitive mobile game or something, but rarely on PC.
 
I only really play single player games more often because that's what most of my games are, I feel like I'm wasting time on Multiplayer games when I could be working through of more of my backlog of games I can actually finish, and I generally prefer to play with friends.

Recently, the only MP games I really liked have been TF2, Splatoon, Chivalry, Depth, and fighting games.
 
When you're older, you don't want to have to waste time getting good. See also: the wide appeal of open ended games where you can do whatever you want.
 
First, as gamers get older and have a broader range of responsibilities and pursuits, they are less likely to rate any particular gaming activity as “extremely important/enjoyable”. Thus, their overall gaming profiles might appear deflated, but the relative order of their motivations would still be revealing.

Second, lower scores on these motivations aren’t necessarily “less” of a motivation. For example, low Excitement implies a specific kind of gameplay, and calm/stress-free gameplay is no less valid than fast/stressful gameplay. The same is true for preference for solo play (as opposed to highly social play). The appeal of solo play isn’t any “less” of a gaming motivation than social play.
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I definitely see this happening already. When they mention competition I just don't get it. I don't care about the long haul. A multiplayer match on a weekday night is fine. I see in games like Street Fighter V and even Tekken 7 that I can just get on and hopefully get a match. It's not going to be lobbies with friends unless I'm incredibly lucky and get a group together who plays on weekends or something. Otherwise I'll be completely random because I get on after I work.

I still play what I can. I finished the majority of games I buy and some I'm just not too compelled to finish. I plan to finish Dark Souls 3 and Uncharted 4... the list can continue and continue.

I work with guys who don't understand why those videos of Battlefield 4 players making kills from jumping out of jets. They don't get why people spend that many hours, but they also love video games. They're really into gaming. It just doesn't interest us when we talk about professional gaming at all.

We don't want to wait to see if we can beat another person. I look at the teams for major league gaming and they're all young. They are all doing their own thing while I'm at work. I get off work and I don't necessarily want to compete. I want to sink my teeth into a game without having to use the gamer lingo.

It is what it is. What sucks is that one year we're all going all out for a hot new release and now it's sorta under the radar. Whoever plays whatever they play is it.

We all might show up and play a game around the time another OT comes up, but chances are it might be a hit or miss till then. I played a good 10 hours of Halo 5 multiplayer, but I think that might be it. I'll probably pick up the next CoD and finish that, but as far as BO3 is concerned it's not installed anymore and neither is Advanced Warfare.

Now before someone tries to call me out for being off topic. I enjoy games now more than ever. I own more games I'm proud of owning, but I do see it sorta declining now that I'm 30. It's sad. I don't see too many people having the same opinion as me, but I do work with some cool people who do. The thing is, they are different from my tastes.

They don't sink their teeth into a huge game unless they're incredibly excited about it. They enjoy multiplayer, but not the kind you'd find all over the internet. It's very much different. I still have games preordered like I have for the last 20+ years, but that's just me. I get to them when I will get to them. I see the point in taking the time off for a game because I work Mon to Fri.

I just don't see too many people around me agreeing with me to be honest. I don't want to bring up a tournament or something. It's just a casual conversation about a popular game or something that's coming out. I don't care to compete or look up articles unless of course it really peaks my interest. It feels like that younger gamer pro is the main target.

All you see are kids who were probably in elementary school when Zelda: OOT came out getting all the free swag, free PC gear, and they're trying to become an icon. I kinda throw my own shame at that because it doesn't interest me at all.

Edit: I don't think it's declining as far as my enjoyment. I'm just so picky about what I want. It's hard sometimes finding the right news to go to because a lot of it seems like its some else's job and I feel really left out.
 
It makes sense that strategy is the most stable with age. After all, it's the only aspect of gaming you'll keep improving on as you get older generally. Reflexes and other such things will only go downhill after your early 20s, but strategy usually depends more on experience
 
nkz said:
Haha if by definition you can be considered a competitive gamer or someone that cares about 'competition' because you play card games with friends we def need to split these groups up. Otherwise on some level almost everyone is 'competitive' lol playing poker or cribbage with your mates is a little different than playing poker competitively.
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They're looking at average player motivations. Competitive means you have a drive and derive pleasure to be better than someone else, or at least seek this out in games. This intrinsic player motivation is what they're trying to model.

Professional competition is not really a factor in these models. First because they probably don't constitute a large enough cohort to meaningfully test, secondly the more institutionalized it gets, the stronger it becomes an extrinsic instead of an intrinsic motivation. Maybe some top StarCraft players don't even like StarCraft that much, but they just go where the prize money is.
 
The older I get the less interested I get in non-competitive gaming. I like working towards a longer goal and getting better at something. These days, almost all of my gaming is Quake Live, fighting games or online go (the board game, not Counter-Strike).
 
I'm in my early 20's and I've always been good at competitive games but never really enjoyed or pursued them. I enjoy my time with co-op games much more than anything else. I can only see myself playing less and less competitive games so I definitely contribute.
 
Yep, makes sense. When I play games these days, I'm far more interested in collaborative and cooperative gameplay.

Used to be huge into FPS deathmatch and fighting games.
 
This should come as no surprise. Competition tends to stem from insecurity, which tends to stem from immaturity. The older you get, the more secure in yourself you become and the less you need to prove yourself to others.

That said, competitiveness never fully goes away. As animals we're conditioned to promote ourselves over others, and we all love the glory of being a winner.
 
RPGamer92 said:
Makes sense. People with jobs probably don't have the time to "get gud".
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It's not so much that. It's when you realize that "getting gud" nets you jack all that kinda kills it.

Especially if you're into something like a fighting game where the payouts and consistency tends to be nulled by travel expenses. The time and money you put in is usually not made back by your efforts. (That can be defrayed if you happen to live in Cali or on the East coast since you're fairly close to majors and don't have to fly, but not all areas in the US have similar levels of access to that kinda thing.)

That's cool when you're 17 and have tons of free time and no debt etc. When you have other obligations it becomes increasingly difficult to justify the time and money put in relative to say, paying off your credit card, your car, your student loans etc.

The only way that'd be sustainable is if you managed to be da bes. That takes focus and drive that looking at it, really isn't worth it oddswise.
 
Neff said:
This should come as no surprise. Competition tends to stem from insecurity, which tends to stem from immaturity. The older you get, the more secure in yourself you become and the less you need to prove yourself to others.

That said, competitiveness never fully goes away. As animals we're conditioned to promote ourselves over others, and we all love the glory of being a winner.
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This is a really narrow, pop psychology way of looking at competition.
 
This is true for me too, at 36 the only time I do anything competitive is local games of Pro Evo with friends or family. Sometime we play Rocket League but Pro Evo is pretty much it.

I played the UC4 beta a few times, but quickly realised that maybe competitive online gaming is not something 36 year old me can have the time for. My gaming time is already limited so I will spend that time playing through a story campaign and move onto the next game.

My eldest son is 14 and he is really into competitive gaming.
 
The problem is with online socialization, not online competition. I did not grow up that way.
No motive to improve just so you can raise your stats and win/loss ratio.
 
Sounds right, my younger years I was competitive as hell, breaking games left and right.

Now I can't be bothered. I just want to have fun.
 
Fugu said:
This is a really narrow, pop psychology way of looking at competition.
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Not really. Competition is fine and healthy, but anyone with a brain knows it comes from an ancient, primitive and selfish place. The advent of civilisation has simply enabled us to appreciate and celebrate it with camaraderie.
 
Neff said:
Not really. Competition is fine and healthy, but anyone with a brain knows it comes from an ancient, primitive and selfish place. The advent of civilisation has simply enabled us to appreciate and celebrate it with camaraderie.
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Anyone with a brain? Is there a study to substantiate these bold claims?
 
I love that this graph implies the existence of ultra-competitive grannies. And, from seeing my Mum play, I don't disagree!
 
I've found that competition still appeals to me but only for the games I grew playing. i just don't have the time to learn something completely new anymore.
 
Definitely agree - in my late teens I was all about laddering, pvp and leaderboards. I still enjoy multiplayer games, but don't really care much about competition and would rather play casually with friends.
 
I think it's because they have nothing less to prove or something along those lines and just want to have fun. They see the "big picture".

I think hand to eye motor functions retain longer in age than much, much more physically demanding sporting activities. So I don't buy the "getting slower at 38" thing, if they do I don't think it will be much.

Broritos said:
its cuz they're all tired of losing

kappa.png
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I loled at this more than I should have.
 
I find myself moving away from MP games and going to SP games. I still like to have one MP game to shoot the shit with my old college roommates, but that's about it.

Still love RPG and RTS games, though.
 
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