Over the last several years, my interest in online PVP gaming has diminished.
As I’ve become vastly more interested in maintaining a gaming backlog full of evergreen games, I’ve developed personal issues with online multiplayer PVP games.
But it wasn’t always this way…
My History with Esports
It was in 2011 when I got into competitive gaming.
Major League Gaming hosted their Halo: Reach and Call of Duty: Black Ops competition.
It was a massive turning point in both Esports and Call of Duty history.
FeaR ASSASS1N 1v4 Clutch against OpTic at MLG Anaheim (youtube.com)
I believe I was in 8th grade at this time, and my friends and teachers were all excited for Call of Duty: Black Ops. It was so popular that everyone played it.
You can liken it to how Fortnite is today.
At that time, the only student in school who was interested in taking video games to a serious degree was me.
I wanted to be a professional gamer when I was young.
There were already pro gamers out there creating YouTube (2005) content before Twitch (2011) was founded, but nobody in my middle or high school ever dared to say they wanted video games to become their fulltime career.
In a way, I pioneered that idea in my area.
All of my friends who played FPS games knew I was going to become a pro, but I had hurdles to jump over and mountains to climb…
ALL of my friends were better than me at Call of Duty.
There I was — a 13 to 14-year-old boy with ambitions of becoming a professional player but lost to all of his casual friends who just wanted to play after class.
I remember my older cousin destroyed me in a 1v1 and then told me that beating me was as easy as a “hot knife cutting through butter”.
I remember being so infuriated by him and all of my friends.
How was I ever going to go pro if I lost to every friend and family member who turned on the game?
Growth of a Player
Over the course of a few years, I spent every waking hour after class taking Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops, and Modern Warfare 3 very seriously. They were pretty much all I played.
I avoided playing casual modes with friends such as the campaign, zombies, and knife-only (Michael Myers). I would shoot down casual clan invites, and opportunities to form bonds with my peers.
Instead, I would only play with other serious players who had the same goals I did. This caused a lot of stirs amongst me and my friends, but I knew I was better because of it.
Nowadays, I wish I had spent more time playing online with my friends in high school than I did scrimmaging against competitive sweats, and watching pros play on YouTube. I can no longer get these relationships back, nor the time.
However, by the time Black Ops 2 came out, I was better than every single person in my school. I had established myself in school as a CoD player, and everyone was shocked when I showed up to school when Black Ops 2 dropped (my mom made me go) (11/13/12).
Unfortunately, 1v1 wins hardly matter in Call of Duty, and another obstacle would eventually lead me to ditch the competitive Call of Duty scene for good.
Leaving the FPS scene
I used to play Call of Duty on a cheap, wireless internet connectivity that would lag me out of matches any time someone got on the computer in the other room.
I played on a basic Xbox 360 that would scratch the disc to an unplayable state any time my younger brother would move the console (my mom bought me three copies of Call of Duty: Black Ops 2).
I used a basic Xbox 360 controller and a Turtle Beach headset my dad bought me.
Finally, to make everything ten times worse, I got good at Call of Duty while playing on a CRT bubble screen TV.
I didn’t have a wired connection, an HD monitor, a $300 MLG headset, or a SCUF Gaming controller with the paddles on the back.
I didn’t even have money to travel.
Despite all of these major competitive disadvantages, the number one thing that led me to quit…
was other players.
Having to play with other people has always been my biggest setback.
I would team with other sweats using a Twitter account ran by professional gamer, Scump(‘s), father — former MLB player Shawn Abner.
His account was a fantastic tool necessary for finding other kids like me who wanted to get good, and it looks like he’s still helping players to this day!
The biggest issue was that, despite the hours of 8’s (4v4 scrimmages where team captains pick their roster and we fight with competitive rulesets) we all played, nobody was willing to stay as a team or build chemistry.
There was no room to be bad, you would get dropped immediately if you lost.
I must have been dropped from a million teams.
I am not friends with a single person from that time period of my life. I cannot remember a single gamertag or username from that era. There was no friendships or bonds or real teammates.
I would watch YouTube videos of pro players and listen to how they formed teams with their best buds, and even after suffering a hard loss with money on the line, they would continue to practice together and improve.
I was looking for people to form that level of trust with. You are going to lose no matter what, and a random team slapped together from a group of sweats off of social media wasn’t going to change that.
I knew this, and as my final year of high school rolled around, I was looking to hang up my controller.
I knew that if I wanted to be a pro gamer, I couldn’t rely on others who would disband a team after a single scrim.
Turning Point
It was 2014, I was seventeen years old, and that’s when things changed for me…
An old friend of mine from high school saw a post of mine complaining about an MLG Call of Duty event.
I don’t remember the context at all, but I remember my buddy commenting on my status,
“That’s not MLG”, he continued, “This is MLG”!
He posted a picture of a Nintendo GameCube controller.
We laughed it off, the idea of playing Super Smash Bros. professionally.
I even stated that it would be much better for me, as I wouldn’t have to rely on any teammates…
That’s when, later that same month…
I found The Super Smash Bros. Documentary on YouTube.
Smasher VS Smasher
This was mind-blowing; eye-opening, I thought.
This is what I dreamed of.
I was going to be a pro gamer after all…
Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube released on November 21, 2001.
I was 5 years old.
I can literally remember the day I played it on the Best Buy kiosk. I spent at least an hour playing as Link and switching between Melee and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker’s demo.
I can still hear my dad telling me he pre-ordered the GameCube while we were there.
I had already played Melee every single day after elementary and early middle school with my brothers and sister growing up.
I felt like it was actual destiny that the Melee community was revived through an online social media series.
I got to peer straight into the history of the competitive scene, and it felt more “together” than the FPS community. I remember immediately feeling like “these were my people”, and I belonged there.
Truly, the documentary opened my eyes to a scene I didn’t even know was there. Even when I was playing Call of Duty, I never knew people played one of my favorite games of all time in tournaments.
This was something I knew I wanted to pursue… and I did… for 6 years…
A Brief History
I want to keep the Smash section short. I’ll admit, there’s tons of history here that I’m a bit embarrassed to go over.
6 years of my life went to playing Smash. I played it after graduation, through college, and into COVID.
There were MANY life-changing moments during my time with Smash, and most of my experiences weren’t too great.
Taking Melee way too seriously led to me getting openly mocked by other members of my local community, many of whom are currently banned.
It also led to me failing college, losing friendships, and seeking medical help for my mental health. I stayed in therapy until I felt I was comfortable leaving.
One day, when I’m ready to, I’ll write blogs about my 6 years in Smash. There’s lots of interesting tales to tell, and not all of them are bad.
COVID-19, believe it or not, helped me quit the game and move on.
In 2020, I started playing offline, singleplayer games — mainly JRPG.
I became active on Twitter, met new online friends, and began writing about my experiences and interests with my backlog.
In several ways, having a backlog of games to focus on became my therapy.
When COVID-19 stopped in-person tournaments for a while, it became the scapegoat I needed to find a better purpose for myself.
I am able to play Smash again now, 4 years after COVID-19 hit us, but it’s still a very, very SLOW process.
I actually just returned to tournaments this year, to help my brother get into the scene, but he’s since decided to move on to other things.
I can’t blame him. Without his presence, I haven’t felt the need to compete in a few weeks.
I currently don’t know when I’ll compete again, as my motivation has taken a significant dive.
My PVP Dilemma
It’s time for me to be honest with my friends and with myself…
I am a casual gamer.
I have a history of struggling with PVP games.
If I have to fight another player, I end up taking the game so seriously that it consumes me.
It becomes the only thing I think about, talk about, and do.
I wish I could play PVP games casually, but I can’t.
In the back of my mind, there’s always a nagging desire to be the best and win.
This causes me to obsess over studying, practicing, and playing — none of which I am able to do consistently.
This is majorly due to time constraints.
Even as I type this blog, I am sacrificing an evening that I could’ve given to my wife, or time I could’ve spent playing a game on my backlog or working towards my goal of catching up to One Piece.
No matter what I choose to do after work, I am sacrificing something else.
This notion of unwillingness to sacrifice other aspects of my life to compete has led to a plethora of reasons why I don’t wish to play PVP games again.
Having to sacrifice my time and feeling like I constantly have to play, has led me down some dark paths in my life.
It almost led to my demise.
When I take PVP games seriously, they’re all I consume, and in return they consume my life.
I get super into them until I get so burned out and depressed. I don’t enjoy being consumed by it, always feeling like I have to play every day or else I’ll never win.
I often ask myself, “what’s the point”?
There’s always a pressure to get better so I can win. It takes practice to win.
It takes hours of dedication, discipline, and studying to become better than others. If I don’t put the necessary time into learning and improving at a PVP game, then I know for a fact I’ll lose; and if I’m playing with friends, I’ll just hold them back or let them down.
It’s very difficult for me to get invested into a game like Fortnite, because even if I’m just playing the casual Zero Build mode, I still want to look up guides and tips to improve — especially if it will help my friends Hero and Nerd House get a Victory Royale.
This constant need to consume content in order to improve my skill level leads me to immediate burnout.
I feel like I don’t understand how to be a casual gamer with PVP games.
I ask myself,
Do I accept that I will hold back my friends?
Do I accept that my PC framerate is too low, so I’ll get clapped by a 200fps sweat with a keyboard and mouse?
Do I just play to lose, and accept losing as the outcome for every game?
Is there even a point in playing a PVP game with friends if you know you’re not going to win?
Is there a point in playing if you’re not trying to improve or learn?
How do I accept playing on PlayStation 5, with a controller, at 60fps, because my keyboard and mouse isn’t working on my console, and my PC specs aren’t good enough?
How do I accept I’ll never be a top player in Smash because I can’t dedicate the time and sacrifice necessary to be good?
How do I just play PVP games without having to worry about all of this stuff?
I would like to be able to show up to tournaments and just play any character I want because it’s fun to share a passion for my favorite platform fighter with others, and I would like to be able to hop into a Zero Build trios match with my friends online — with a controller — on console, because it’s just quick and easy fun with the boys for an hour.
I’d love to play Street Fighter 6 and TEKKEN 8 simply because they’re fun, and not have to worry about using a fight-stick, the best characters in the game, or what my online rank is.
I don’t want to constantly have to think about being a pro gamer, or using the best settings, or the best loadout/characters, or what I’m doing wrong when I lose, or if my connection is stable enough.
I don’t want every evening to go to practicing and improving, and every weekend go to playing for hours on end like it’s my job.
I don’t want to be a professional gamer.
In conclusion, I hope this blog was able to give people some insight into my history with PVP games. I know my tweet earlier was a little vague, and I didn’t have much time at all to explain myself.
As it stands, I’m currently trying to learn how I can spend an evening with the boys, dropping in hot and looting up without having to worry if I’m going to immediately get clapped by a sweaty 14-year-old with the same ambitions I had when I was younger.
And I’m hoping I can show up to a local Smash tournament and feel welcomed without feeling consumed or attached to the game.
I want to continue being a casual gamer. I want to be able to put down, or pause, a game when I need to.
I want to continue gaming as a busy, responsible adult, without it affecting every other aspect of my life.
I want to learn how to use games like Fortnite to unwind with friends at the end of the day. If we place #69th, all it ends up as is a sex joke — and none of us are worried about not getting a win.
I want to be passionate, happy, and have the willpower to keep winning…
