Whenever we’re in the midst of an engaging, thrilling gaming experience, unknown forces draw us to its speedy conclusion, though this essentially means spoiling our own fun. Every film watched draws us to consume another, ready to toss onto some unseen pile labelled ‘culture’. Heck, even the consumption of six Skittles in the morning means we strive for seven in the afternoon. Or perhaps we’re confusing ambition with hunger, after all, it happened to Pac-Man.

Regardless for us, the very fact that leaderboards exist covering an almost infinite number of fields, implies that we should top at least one of them. As we all know however, there’s always an automaton more methodical, a genius so supreme or occasionally a buffoon so fortunate to trump even the most concentrated effort. With this in mind, from whence does the motivation to compete still come? Indeed, is the motivation to compete still there? There was a time in which your reporter, full of the joys of virtual football, saw FIFA 10 not as a simple throwaway test of dexterity but a mark of competence second only to exam certificates. For this reason, every unfortunate deflection, every animation-breaking foul brought with it emotions best reserved for the death of a small family pet; perhaps a hamster or guinea pig. What’s more, upon abandoning his underpowered hometown side, it became apparent that all those hours have practice had resulted in highly specialised skills, relevant to that club alone. A more technical, athletic outfit proved about as alien as rugby to a once so certain mind. Who says time spend playing videogames is wasted, eh?

Does anyone still play videogames to end up top of a leaderboard? Even 1 vs 100 has had its difficulty tightened to deter the instant answer brigade, after all. Is all that dedication worth it when some American 13 year old questions your sexuality, because your GamerTag is now more famous than most others? Is this just the bitter, enraged diatribe of a frustrated gamer given the mouthpiece to vent such ills? Whatever the answer, we feel it’s an issue worth raising. After all, with the imminent arrival of titles such as Backbreaker into the sports arena, with its focus on randomising physical modelling of intelligent human forms, how long until sports titles focus more heavily on spectacle than how gamers might best be ranked? Only time will tell…
Dave Shaw