Why are the stereotypical "geek" gamers bad at games?

[Deleted]

Not at all.

How is LAN gaming not dead?

[Deleted]

How is LAN gaming not dead?

There's plenty of events for those interested - at least in Scandinavia.

[Tekkommo]

Yeah OP, you are totally correct.

http://www.fnatic.com/players/counte...al-off/flusha/

http://www.fnatic.com/players/counte...lobal-off/jw1/

[Deleted]

I only follow league professionally but out of all the professional league players I would say only one or two had decent social skills and they retired and one is an analyst/shoutcaster and the other is a coach which is probably more where they were suited to begin with. Professional league interviews can be the most awkward thing in the world to watch, they make me cringe all the time.

Of all the hundreds of pro league players I only know one with a professional sports background (was a pro junion footballer, injury caused him to quit), most of them are not physically fit - most aren't obese or massively unhealthy but ultimately they are people who are happy sitting at their desk practicing/playing 8-10 hours a day. People with an actual physical sports background generally aren't going to like that lifestyle... but certainly sportspeople and professional gamers should have some things in common, like their competitive nature, discipline and in team games - the ability to work as a team and listen to a coach/shotcaller.

[mehow2g]

Yeah OP, you are totally correct.

http://www.fnatic.com/players/counte...al-off/flusha/

http://www.fnatic.com/players/counte...lobal-off/jw1/

Last time I checked they play the game CoD Global Offensive, I mean CSGO.

http://s.sk-gaming.com/image/image/f...99dc820aex.jpg
http://old.5eplay.com/uploadfile/201...1034341793.jpg
http://s.sk-gaming.com/image/image/c...932e035f5x.jpg
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/5686.jpg

y u mad?

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I only follow league professionally but out of all the professional league players I would say only one or two had decent social skills and they retired and one is an analyst/shoutcaster and the other is a coach which is probably more where they were suited to begin with. Professional league interviews can be the most awkward thing in the world to watch, they make me cringe all the time.

Of all the hundreds of pro league players I only know one with a professional sports background (was a pro junion footballer, injury caused him to quit), most of them are not physically fit - most aren't obese or massively unhealthy but ultimately they are people who are happy sitting at their desk practicing/playing 8-10 hours a day. People with an actual physical sports background generally aren't going to like that lifestyle... but certainly sportspeople and professional gamers should have some things in common, like their competitive nature, discipline and in team games - the ability to work as a team and listen to a coach/shotcaller.

The new generation of competitive gaming for sure will be different since internet gaming is massive now how many players play LoL at any moment of time these days? like 8million?

I agree with sports people being more competitive and better understanding what team games require, my team-mate probably the best in our team was on his way to be come a professional bowler in cricket but games got in the way as they so often do.

[Tekkommo]

Last time I checked they play the game CoD Global Offensive, I mean CSGO.

http://s.sk-gaming.com/image/image/f...99dc820aex.jpg
http://old.5eplay.com/uploadfile/201...1034341793.jpg
http://s.sk-gaming.com/image/image/c...932e035f5x.jpg
http://fnatic.com/filestorage/imagedb/full/5686.jpg

y u mad?

Only the first one looks sporty, dem muscles The rest are kinda geeky.

My links were just to prove that the stereotypical geeky people can be very good players, 3 out of your 4 links, further proves this.

y u think i mad?

[twiddler]

I have found that the best players in eSports generally come from a sporting background good life and social skills.

I noticed something similar in finance whereas it was very common to see individuals with history in sports and the more sociable degrees. Of course, this changed drastically as I was acquainted into my position and met the "geeks" making algorithms with ROI's greater than the recession average of 2%. The former are amazing salesmen, the latter were better performers.

[mehow2g]

Only the first one looks sporty, dem muscles The rest are kinda geeky.

My links were just to prove that the stereotypical geeky people can be very good players.

y u think i mad?

I agree it's not so much about the looks of geeky it's more so the mindset, these day's kids are staying at home from birth playing games no doubt that will have affect on their appearance probably a lot of them don't even know they are good at sports.

Maybe I should post a pic of myself but it doesnt really matter does it.

Frag movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQVilPJOxWk

[Tekkommo]

I agree it's not so much about the looks of geeky it's more so the mindset, these day's kids are staying at home from birth playing games no doubt that will have affect on their appearance probably a lot of them don't even know they are good at sports.

Maybe I should post a pic of myself but it doesnt really matter does it.

Frag movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQVilPJOxWk

I do agree that if you stay fit and healthy, this improves your reflexes.

You should watch the South Koreans who win SC tournaments, they have zero social skills

[mehow2g]

I do agree that if you stay fit and healthy, this improves your reflexes.

You should watch the South Koreans who win SC tournaments, they have zero social skills

Asians put a lot of time in games that's just how they are single players suit them I'm sure most of you have seen them in multiplayer games just soloing, in CS They pretty much have the best skill there was Chinese team called wNv that put in 12-16 hours a day 7 days a week where as Europeans generally play 3-5 times a week for 6 hours max and increase hours before a major competition. The Asians just could not work as a team like the Europeans.

Starcraft by no surprise they dominate.

[Pony Soldier]

Well it could just be because they're new to the type of game? Also the title is pretty misleading. It's implying that these "geek gamers" are bad at all games in general and not just your competitive multiplayer games. If you ask me those games are super boring to me so I never play them which would be why I would probably suck. Could be the same reason why these "geek gamers" are so bad at the game. Usually us "geek gamers" tend to play more story based games like RPGs and action/adventure games because they have a point to them, a story to follow, characters to care about and interact with. It's not just seeing who can get the most points so that they can trash talk to other people about how much they suck and how much an awesome person he/she is for getting the most points. No offense. So you could see why these "geek gamers" might suck at your Counter Strike type games just like how the competitive multiplayer people will suck miserably at RPGs. It's probably just because they don't usually play those games so naturally they are going to suck.

[Sorrior]

I agree with everything you said, I don't play dota seriously so I haven't really seen the pros nor do I follow them, since internet gaming is huge now then it was when I first started playing CS maybe the appearance of people has.changed where as back in 04 it was very black and white, look up the pro players back in 2001-2006 of CS and compare them to dota players of now I bet you'll see a difference if we are basing it off appearance.

I'm not basing this off appearance I'm talking about players who behave like geeks, like wishing star wars is real, role playing in games, the type of guys you'll see playing magic cards the guys who play games who believe they are inside the game...

I think that's the biggest difference they believe they are in some virtual reality while the great players just see the task at hand.

Again there is nothing wrong with geeks, it's just a topic I'd like to discuss.

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Lol... so disturbed.

To explain man to some of us the kill and winning thing doesn;t matter not in the PVP sense..I would rather have fun see a new world a wondeful story acquire more information then obsess over stuff..If i win and clear i win and clear as long as we had fun so what.

But don;t get me wrong i know my games my skills are high low to mid tier right now in say FFXIv i know this..Can i get better? You bet your ass..I just don;t work well with sa "videos" i have to freaking do the fight nd every time i get a bit better learn what i did wrong and correct it. I just am not as obsessed.

The thing is it is more the mentality of win/lose i think. The "calssic geeks" don;t really give a flying fuck often whether they win or lose..To us the fun is in the journey an in the world itself..We tend to use games as an escape from reality often not always maybe not even often but we do. And to me if i can see or learn more about alien worlds gather more data about politics in these worlds learn more about the denizens or creatures the societies..See amazing sights fight great monsters and all that..Then yeah i am having fun.

And if i want to feel like some kinda big strong tough guy/god i will play something like Bayonetta or DMC or watch an anime like Ichiban Uhsiro no damaou and so on..It's all about what we emphasize man.

Look up bartles gaming personality quiz it might help explain some stuff.

[Coldkil]

I just think that today, with the massive inflation gaming has had in the last decade or so, competitive gaming has much more space than gaming in general.

I mean, it seems to me that most of the games around are based on some sort of "unsaid" competition in form of multiplayer, ladders, speed runs, achievements and whatever sort of shenaningans so people can prove themselves better than others at everything.

And i'm all "f*** this s***" because i play games for the challenge they offer, relax and chilling out, not because i feel the need to wave around my virtual p**** and show everyone how big and shiny it is.

There are good players and there are bad players as there always have been; there were tournament in the past and people competing; but to be honest they represented the glorification of said game, may it be Quake or Starcraft and seeing pro players is really awesome.

What i simply refuse to understand is why every single game has a understructure where you need to do better or more things than others. I don't like competition and PvP in general, and maybe all my point is simply biased. Still, i remeber when playing games was about the challenge to finish it when now for the most part is proving to ourselves that we're better than others at something, like i need videogames to boost my self-confidence.

[Frozenbeef]

I tend to play lots of games rather than maximizing my skills on one game so i pretty much suck at them all :S

[Sorrior]

Well that's a quite specific "kind" of geek =P I find it quite logical that someone with those specific interests would be more interested in RPGs and Fantasy or Sci-Fi settings than shooters. With interest comes practice, and with practice comes skill.

Certain sports could lead to a more natural level of play in shooters in the case where hand-eye coordination and response-time is practiced, but not to that much of a relevant level. As far as social skills... you don't need many for most shooters, even when playing with a team.

I find it hard to believe that people you consider smart can only react to things happening immediately in the screen though, unless they were still new to the game/genre, in which case doesn't really matter what your background is, chances are you're going to be quite bad.

Mhmm pretty much this. I have an IRL buddy COMPLETE jock..no the term REALLY fits him...He plays Madden CoD and NHL mainly a few other games and played wow for a bit...He CANNOT find his way around a map to save his life(even IRL) his ability to operate an RPG menu screen or even follow a quest without a marker/tracking thing..No go..His abilities in the games he tends not to play nooot so much..He acts like i am some uber tier player when i am high low to mid high depending on the day and how i feel(oook the RARE times i go badass mode i am prooobably really high up but i rarely do that or feel the need to).

BUT i CANNOT play an FPS to save my life not really. I don;t enjoy the modern squad fps and by the time i checked them out that was all there was. I enjoy single player/pve more for one. He on the other hand LOVES the competition to smoke his enemies and plays FPS alot and would slaugher me at any games of his choice.

Again all about priotities and what you get the most enjoyment out of. Games to me ar an escape and way to understand the world at once. a source of philosophy at times as i see the narratives and i compare them to IRL affairs and more..I play to learn to acquire more knowledge and yes to feel powerful sometimes..And i do prefer sci fi and fantasy..Not everyone does that and not everyone relaxes the same way.

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Yet again, you don't understand what geek is. Starwars geek is a starwars geek, video game geek is a gamer, not all gamers are equally good at all video games that exist in the world, that's why i'm fairly sure that i (sitting in high plat in SC2 non Korean ladder) will beat majority pro FPS players, not because they are bad, but because they are inexperienced in this genre and most likely skills required to play FPS differs significantly from skills you need to play RTS.

And i hope that you get this time how much you are wrong, in your first sentence (bold) you mashed up four different types of geeks into one, it's basically like saying "oh, you know, these sports guys, they like kicking the big orange ball in big pool while jumping over fences"

LOL good point that too..I for one am getting kinda pissd for instance at how much the otaku is overlooked in american media and all we say are FPS ins ay general tv shows or similar things..We rarely see the RPG lover the anime nut or the MMO lover(as in the normal average MMO player)..It's funny a local guy was trying to pitch a show toa network up here that was about gamers in alaska..ALL is ay was FPS jokes references to star trek basically what HIS hobbies were.... Like i enjoy star trek and am a mild Trekkie(you say Pike i go captain LOL) i enjoy many sci fi series and fantasy books. And all that...

Yet my faction of geekdom is rarely shown in US media. These days we get the FPS jocks/nuts the trekkies the larpers soemtimes..But yeah geek culture is VERY nuanced and has alot of subgroups within itself. Often we fly multiple banners with one like a primary and several offshoots soemtimes overlapping soemtimes not.

For insatne i don;t really consider FPS gamers to be TRUE geeks..I consider them to be people who have adpted the name as it became cool..To me a geek is someone who would rather explore the world then frag a bunch of guys...Or would rather learn all he can about the world he is in.

TBH i guess i see alot of the PVP side of people or rather the say FPS scene as jocks who have found a way to play video games without handing in their jock card. Same for sports games...Irony of course is ALOT of say baseball players LOVE rpgs yet alot of the guys who play sports games mock RPG players..

So tehre is defintielya divide but as i see it why can;t we all just try to get along here?

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Nah not really LAN is dead so no experience and I don't take games that seriously anymore, I'm average at dota I'm great at settling up plays, abusing mechanics but I fall short because of lack of farm.

I tried out BF3 that was a funny experience not many had great aim so it was easy to get into amenities was surprised no one really abused mechanics, didn't continue to play because they release a new version every year which I think is bad for gaming and gamers.

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I'm also a fan of anime haha.

I envy you guys though I cannot sit through a single player game, I wish I could get into stories more but I can't do it.

See THAT is our difference i suggst you look into bartle again...And yeah the thing is i am just not good with competitive liek you cannot get into stories so easily i cannot do competitive as well. Like i can enjoy it as a distraction or sometimes..but it's just not my style.

[Deleted]

The people you call geeks are more likely to go to lans, cause playing computer is a big part of their lives, someone that gets good at a competitive game, but have other things going on, will more likely go to lan events if they think they can win, and not just to hang out with other guys playing computer the whole weekend.
It would make sense that there are more "geeks", as you call them, that goes to lans, cause thats what they enjoy doing, and if 80% of the lan is "geeks", that will also be a big part of the ones doing badly at said lan, and i would guess those are also the ones that a more likely to stay around after getting smashed early in the event, cause they are enjoying the experience of the lan.

[Sorrior]

I noticed something similar in finance whereas it was very common to see individuals with history in sports and the more sociable degrees. Of course, this changed drastically as I was acquainted into my position and met the "geeks" making algorithms with ROI's greater than the recession average of 2%. The former are amazing salesmen, the latter were better performers.

LOL this too...Like i see how jocks are very good at TALKING and showinag very big game it;s part of their culture MANY can bacl stuff up..But bravado goes a VERY VERY long way in their subculture. Sooo they tend toboast speak big and more even if they don;t know shit..Or can be good very good or moderate but STILL think they are the top dog..Which often gets more attention and all of that..Whole thinga bout the loudest most vocal often getting things while queit guy may very well be in the shadows doing amazing work and be overlooked..Note this obviously varies but yeah..Speak loud be agressive assertive and all of that are definitely more jock traits then your average geeks traits.

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Well it could just be because they're new to the type of game? Also the title is pretty misleading. It's implying that these "geek gamers" are bad at all games in general and not just your competitive multiplayer games. If you ask me those games are super boring to me so I never play them which would be why I would probably suck. Could be the same reason why these "geek gamers" are so bad at the game. Usually us "geek gamers" tend to play more story based games like RPGs and action/adventure games because they have a point to them, a story to follow, characters to care about and interact with. It's not just seeing who can get the most points so that they can trash talk to other people about how much they suck and how much an awesome person he/she is for getting the most points. No offense. So you could see why these "geek gamers" might suck at your Counter Strike type games. It's probably just because they don't usually play those games so naturally they are going to suck.

LOL as usual someone says what i try to more succinctly and better and even beats me to it.

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I just think that today, with the massive inflation gaming has had in the last decade or so, competitive gaming has much more space than gaming in general.

I mean, it seems to me that most of the games around are based on some sort of "unsaid" competition in form of multiplayer, ladders, speed runs, achievements and whatever sort of shenaningans so people can prove themselves better than others at everything.

And i'm all "f*** this s***" because i play games for the challenge they offer, relax and chilling out, not because i feel the need to wave around my virtual p**** and show everyone how big and shiny it is.

There are good players and there are bad players as there always have been; there were tournament in the past and people competing; but to be honest they represented the glorification of said game, may it be Quake or Starcraft and seeing pro players is really awesome.

What i simply refuse to understand is why every single game has a understructure where you need to do better or more things than others. I don't like competition and PvP in general, and maybe all my point is simply biased. Still, i remeber when playing games was about the challenge to finish it when now for the most part is proving to ourselves that we're better than others at something, like i need videogames to boost my self-confidence.

I have noticed this as well man..Like i LOVE DA:I multiplayer because it is CO OP..And because we work together.It seems alot of players these days are more selfish or don;t understand that as much you know...Like "OH MUST WIN MUST BE THE BEST"..I don;t get that..I never have never will..I get hat FOR THEM it is fun..But what happened to playing a game seeinag world overcoming challenges and getting better for YOURSELF rather then for some kind of competition..Why does everything seem to devolve into that..Thank the gods for rpgs....

[dope_danny]

The recent 'lol im such a nerd i played tetris once XDDDDD" crowd havent been playing videogames for decades and as such arent as used to them. Simple. Just the usual hipsters being social butterflys.

[Sorrior]

The recent 'lol im such a nerd i played tetris once XDDDDD" crowd havent been playing videogames for decades and as such arent as used to them. Simple. Just the usual hipsters being social butterflys.

I tend to view some FPS guys in a similar light..Like ever notice how many sports games nuts and FPS players seem to be pretttty hardcore jocks outside of gaming?

[Dole4011]

I'd imagine it's because many lack aggression and competitiveness. They like the platform, but they're not cutthroat at all. While muscles aren't required for FPS's and the like, the same mindset that athletics require is.

And as so many PC posters pointed out to you, you are making some pretty broad statements. That said, I recognize some general truth to your observations.