A Wii console arrived in our apartment three days ago, and along with it, a game called "Super Smash Brother's Brawl." This amazing game features a collection of characters from a variety of video games. The game has good old Mario and Luigi, Link and Zelda from the Legend of Zelda series, and even some not-so-Nintendo characters like Sonic the hedgehog and Solid Snake.
This game is fun. I've spent hours and hours playing against my friends, and I find it to be extremely enjoyable. However, I've recently noticed something that slightly disturbs me, namely, the SSBB tournaments. The idea of competitive video gaming is not new to me, and probably not to many people, and I've never much considered it before. Why did I notice this time? I saw a YouTube video of two tournament "smash pros" battling with precision only afforded to those who've spent countless hours practicing. As I began to internalize what I saw, the word "gross" best described how I felt.
Two particular definitions of the word gross:
a) Offensive; disgusting
b) Unmitigated in any way; utter
Both apply in their separate ways. My roommate, who heard me use the word, suggested that the video had so far exceeded my threshold of tolerance for video game investment that it became disgusting (rather than merely meaningless.) I think so too. Video games are fun, but they are also not very productive. Many a comparison to sports has been made with the idea of justifying gaming, but an important difference: video game tournaments are too esoteric to bring in lots of viewers, which means they provide little benefit to society at large. Yeah, there are some people who survive off of tournament money, but I suspect that in general gaming costs more than it contributes.
Subjectively, I think the line should be drawn at solo practice. I admit to having practiced on my own several times. In retrospect, I think it strays from any useful form of playing video games into mastery of the irrelevant.
I guess I'll have to practice with Meta Knight when you don't know about it...
ReplyDeleteI never thought I'd backslide so quickly, but I guess solo practicing has some use if it's necessary to fit in with the other players. Still, I think the conclusion in the post is good as a rule of thumb.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The amount of time needed for me to "fit in with other players" far exceeds the benefits of actually fitting in.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't Smash lose it's "disgust" if it becomes your career? Your argument could start to apply to a wide variety of occupations the general public might describe as "useless." Bringing home the bacon seems to be all that matters, and with all that practice, maybe you just could do it. Have you ever considered making a living by tossing Smash characters aside with a powerful DK toss and yelling "Ho Ho Ho!" as you did so? Sounds like a dream come true to me...
ReplyDeleteIt's pretty gross, by my own standards, that I know this, but one of the top "pros" playing smash last year made 50,000 on tournaments. He gets to play smash and makes money but there are a two reasons I think it's still not worthwhile:
ReplyDelete1. He is one of the best, and he makes 50,000. So how much do the worst pros make? They are probably in debt because they spend a lot of time at practicing and going to tournaments, where they lose.
2. I think practicing smash takes the fun out of it. I realized this because I practiced a little bit, and the game stopped being fun and became serious.
As far as other careers to which my argument might apply, I think the most obvious would be sports. However, the fact that sports players make so much money is enough evidence for me that the public thinks sports are valuable.
Maybe one day I'll post about careers that fall into the category of "careers that I think should be less in demand than they are."