Originally Posted by
Shamanic
The (18 month old) article makes a ridiculous amount of assumptions and stereotypes out of 4 little words. Towards the end, when it deviates into a complete rant, he starts saying " “I play for fun” ultimately implies that being good at a video game is a bad thing." No, it doesn't. You are taking words and putting your own meaning onto them, probably garnered from your own frustrating and unfortunate circumstances with trolls and idiots who have ruined your competitive play. They suck, I feel sorry for you, I've had them myself. People can use those 4 words in a derogatory fashion and to imply that, but it doesn't have to. Don't tell me what I mean if I say I play for fun. I'm not saying you don't play for fun just because I'm saying I do! You can't apply the assumptions in this article to the words themselves, apply them to people and situations.
I play league of legends. I occasionally play ranked matches - to get better and improve, and I play a lot of normal matches. In normal matches, I like to win, I try to win, yes. I also like to have fun, above all else and sometimes that involves not winning. Sometimes (okay, a lot of the times) I simply get outplayed, out picked, countered or trolled and as it's a completely meaningless normal match - I don't feel the need to start raging and crying about it. Sometimes I play with a group of friends and we try new, crazy things - and sometimes, they do not work, but hell, it was fun giving it a go. People take these normal, casual matches a little too seriously sometimes and I have actually uttered the words "Hey, this is just for fun", when people start raging and getting super serious - in an unranked match where your score is absolutely meaningless. It doesn't mean I have any disrespect for competitive play or the people who are playing to vastly improve...
Anyway, it was a super long rant that's really only applicable to a small amount of games and a small amount of people that made a lot of assumptions and stereotypes. I don't think anyone should go into competitive play and belittle those who are having fun whilst seriously trying to win and improve. I also don't think anyone should start a 5000 word rant about how some people have fun by playing casually.