Gaming: why winning isn't everything

Photo: moviepilot.com

Oli Kellett

I've mentioned before that I'm a pretty competitive guy. When I play games, I really enjoy winning, as I'm sure a lot of you do. As a kid, this made me an insufferable gaming companion because I loved winning and hated losing with equal passion ' either way, I would let you know. I once made my grandma forfeit a game of Monopoly just by being so obnoxious in the process of winning it.

I like to think that I've come a bit further in maturity since then. Lately, as much as it is unnatural to me, I've been working on being okay with losing. Now, I'm not here to argue that you shouldn't try to win or anything, everyone should give it their best shot to win whatever game they play. That's just part of the understanding of playing a competitive game, there are winners and losers, and it takes something away from the victors if the losers just don't try. It feels cheap.

That said, being okay with losing is an important part of playing games too. Sure, you can bemoan some crappy dice rolls or that card you drew that lost the match for you, but those are expected parts of playing a game. If you can't accept those, then you might be in the wrong business. There are times when, especially in a game like "Risk" with mountains of dice rolls, you are going to hit runs where it feels like the very universe is conspiring to make sure that you lose the game. The key is realizing that that's fine. Have fun with the experience, even if that experience is watching hundreds of your tiny plastic soldiers die in an attempt to secure Australia.

This past weekend, I played "Magic the Gathering" with a group of friends. We played the cube format, which involves all of the best and most powerful cards in the game. I'm decent enough at "Magic," but one of my group almost went pro, and the others are all quite good too. From the beginning, I recognized that I'm likely to lose. Once I recognized that, I made myself okay with it. I was still going to have fun, no matter what happened. As it turned out, I won my first two games and then lost everything from then on. I had a blast.

There is a special sweetness to victory, but losing can still be fun. I think we should all shoot for victory, but we should do so without forgetting the fun of the experience. After all, most games only have one winner, so odds are good that you'll lose most of the time. If losing can only ever make you miserable, then you are pretty much just going to be miserable all the time. What's the fun in that?