A feature on Social Benefits, The Big Picture & Gaming Elitism, by Richard "Dr. Gonzo" Lewis.

Editor's Note: The author of this column has been writing as a regular columnist on Cadred.org for just under a year, and was recently hired as the Content Manager over there. As a one-off feature here on Crossfire, he shares his views on social gaming with us.

"If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards... Checkmate."
– Captain Zap Brannigan


In any competitive gaming scene there are those small minority that are better than the rest. An elite clique of people that have mastered their game in ways other players haven’t and never will be able to, no matter how much they practice or bang their heads against the virtual arithmetic of the hows and whys. They arrive at the competitions remaining as cool and detached from the proceedings around them as they are when it comes to the game situation, and those of us that want to interact with or emulate them have to generally settle for something far more transitory. Standing behind them, scrutinising their hand movements and monitor as if that will somehow reveal the secret formula to success. Maybe you even get to play against them, finding no answers to the secrets of their expertise as they steamroller you out of the competition. Maybe even you get lucky and manage to get the better of them while they are off form or distracted. The moment doesn’t last and as quickly as they were there they have disappeared, leaving not even the trademark cloud of smoke you’d associate with the "ninja-vanish", having headed either to the winners’ podium or back to their hotel. After all, they were only there to win in the first place.

It might sound downbeat, the brutal reality of the gaming hierarchy brought home, when maybe most of us are just killing time and trying to get away from the concept of hierarchy altogether, like having to deal with that moron boss that we’re more qualified than, the "friend" that snatches every piece of ass you’ve ever looked at on the grounds it’s a "dog eat dog world", or the other half that keeps our balls in her purse most of the time… We just want to play, strike that balance between competing and having a laugh, and take that to its logical conclusion of getting to a few LANs a year for games, banter and beer.

Yet that attitude seems to be frowned upon. If you try explaining it to people outside the game they give you that look… The one that psychically implies there is something wrong with you deciding to spend your time in such a way. If you try and explain it to the people further up the food-chain in the game you play they give you some self-important nonsense about how you should be going there to win or not going at all. And if the people who have never attended a LAN in their lives get wind of it they will eagerly give their opinion about how gamers socialising with gamers is somehow abnormal, a collection of virgins destined to be sacrificed in the volcano of social awkwardness.

Forget all that gibberish… We’re in the majority, no matter what anyone says. The reality is that the people that throw in the sickies, or rather book holidays, to get down to these events for the social aspect are actually the people that keep the events alive in the first place. So while it is great to have players that are so adept at the game as to maybe elevate it from "competitive gaming" to "e-sports" in the eyes of the outsiders and the media, would there even be an event for them to compete at in the first place were it not for the hundreds of players that make up the numbers? Almost certainly not. It’s shouldn’t be a great shock to reveal this, but you have to wonder when some people involved in the various scenes seem to forget the fundamental truth that being at the top of any hierarchy is dependent on their being enough people below you in the first place. Pull out the foundations of any pyramid are you are left with little more than a pile of rubble.

It doesn’t matter what game you play this holds true and hopefully you will already understand the importance of the people that keep scenes going long beyond the money-men and walking wallets have left it behind. It’s no coincidence that the UK’s largest LANs have all been based around the large numbers of ordinary, casual players who see the events like a convention than a competition. Indeed across Europe I can’t think of many LAN events that pull in huge numbers solely on the basis of competition. The big ones are usually suffixed by the word "PARTY" much like the UK’s very own beloved i-series was before it started taking itself seriously. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what is likely to attract more people into any scene? The whole enjoyment angle… I’ve never been to a Crossfire event, but I know many people who have and those that have attended tell me about BBQs, mammoth drinking sessions, poker tournaments with some competitive tournaments thrown in along the way. Has the winning formula been found, tucked away like the fountain of youth, for only a few to come across?

You see, statistically people who game casually are in the vast majority. Those that move into competitive play are a tiny portion of it, and those that can actually master the game to the point where they can be considered the best are an even tinier amount. So where do people think the money is coming from and who should these events really be catering to? The tiny few that make the complaints and insist on an event meeting their rigorous specifications, when the fact is they don’t even pay to attend these events themselves anyway? Or, you know, the people that go, play a bit, drink a bit and will be guaranteed to be back there next time, maybe with more friends, regardless of things such as prize-funds, or the skill levels of others in attendance?

Now I am a competitive head and I’ve been trying to push e-sports into the mainstream for years, because I genuinely believe – even if it is a result of too many magic mushrooms at university – that when people play a game, and play it well, it can be as exciting as anything else out there… If Sumo, Chess, and Kabbadi have all been on television in my lifetime, why can’t computer games? So I’m not trying to be derogatory about that small handful of players that people like me make a living off writing about. But there does seem to be this elitism when it comes to the idea that the social aspect of LANs is actually important to the survival and progression of e-sports. I mean, it might sound regressive if you picture a bunch of gamers spending more time at the bar than they do at their PCs, but it is the festival culture – much like what has happened with modern music – that is going to keep the numbers high and the interest prominent.

Not everyone can be a winner… Fuck, some of us are born losers, but we can all take part and try and carve out some enjoyment for ourselves from any situation, and as long as you’re willing to pay for the privilege people will cater to it as long as it remains profitable. So the importance of the social aspect of LANs can’t be underestimated… Without it there wouldn’t be a platform to host the bigger events, nor would there be much of a future for this whole thing that we’re into. So you can feel comfortable, if you ever didn’t, next time you crash out in the group stages and promptly get smashed at the bar. You are as big a piece of the jigsaw as anyone else who might sneer at you and the truth of it all is you’re probably having a better time doing it.