-zyn-

formerly known as

CugeHockk, HupiSenpai

"Looking at osu! as a specific example, I much prefer playing for oneself in single player than competing with others in the osu! world cup. I base this opinion on the values of not spending too much time comparing oneself to others, and judging skill level with an adequate sample size. Playing in single player allows players to select what kind of metric they would like to measure their progress by, and retry numerous times to get the scores they want, which I think is encouraging and allows for the game to be played at a healthy level.

In the osu! world cup, it's a lot easier for people to make comparisons, claim that some players are better than others, and not look at all the information as players are under differing circumstances all the time which may affect their performance. It can be fun to watch of course, and see how people do, but in the end I think it puts a lot of stress on the players both during the matches and facing feedback from spectators afterwards.

Maturity and Respect

I'll put a disclaimer here that I don't mean for this to sound too condescending, as this piece has taken a very formal tone so far. However, I do think that with competition in general, people do not show a healthy level of respect to each other. I believe the ideal competitive environment would take the focus away from winning and losing and instead use the nature of competition to inspire people to better themselves. Playing against others does have the benefit of helping some people perform at a higher level than expected.

My least favourite part of competition is the disrespect (jokingly or not) of anyone who is putting out their performance for the public to see. It takes a lot of bravery to do this, so saying negative things about these people is very discouraging and upsetting. I think it's important to recognise that everyone has feelings that matter, regardless of if you know the individual personally or if they are a stranger to you. Hopefully, a competitive atmosphere would be encouraging to others rather than degrading.

Conclusion

I believe that due to human nature, an ideal positive competitive environment is not likely to exist any time soon. However, any small steps people can make towards respecting people who are involved in competition helps, and is encouraging to see. My hope is that with the world as a whole, people can take more time to respect each other's feelings, as well as their own, and work to help people reach their individual goals and values."