...and why I want to win

I played a game in college called Warcraft 3. Produced by Blizzard, it came out before World of Warcraft did, and is a real time strategy game rather than a role playing game. The appeal of Warcraft 3 to me was not the mechanics of it, or the unit control, or even the strategy. The appeal was the online ladder system .

I was good at Warcraft 3 because the ladder was an immediate, objective metric of my worth in the game. When I won I felt elated and egotistical; when I lost I felt hurt and insulted. I studied the matched I played; I studied the matches other people played; I spent time in class and before bed imagining new strategies and tactics. As a result of three years of heavy playing, I eventually was ranked in the top 100 players in the Americas and qualified for the World Cyber Games regional tournament.

All of which now means precisely shit. The game is dying, I haven't played since 2005, and none of the accomplishments I spent so much time earning mean anything outside the scope of that specific video game.

So was that time wasted? Would I be a better person, however you wish to define that, if instead I had spent that time writing fiction and working towards my dream of being an author? I contest it wasn't, and I wouldn't be, because of the things that game taught me.
The foremost of which is that I like winning. I was never athletic and was a theatre kid in high school, so WC3 was my first taste at competition that I had a chance at winning. And I frickin love it. The competition itself is secondary, I want to win, and if I don't win, I want to get better so I can. A vice to some, and in some situations, knowing that I love to win makes it easy to motivate myself in areas that aren't video games.

I want to win at writing a book. Not writing a book means I lose, so I wrote a book.

I want to win at getting published. Not getting published means I lose, so I'm busting my ass to get published.

I want to win at being in shape. Being in bad shape means I lose, so I work out four days a week and eat right.

There's no room for idleness if you want to win. There's no room for not feeling like it, or rationalization; those are just excuses if you want to win. Don't want to write? Fine, all that means is you're losing. If that stings, do something about it so you can win. Some people give themselves pep talks, I call myself a loser.

Playing WC3 also taught me that not everyone wants to win. Some people just want to play. These people get more enjoyment out of the game and competition than they do out of the result. They play 'for fun,' without thinking of improvements or optimal strategies. As a result, they drift. Their innate talent takes them to a certain level, and there they stay, whether that's at level 5 or 10 or 20, they always play the hand they were dealt. Beyond video games, these are the people who are perfectly content to plug away at a decent job for however long they're needed, and have nice safe hobbies in their free time, whether that's watching TV or going for walks or reading. They're content with where they are, because they're just here to have fun. Alternatively, they may feel empty or directionless, and seek to find meaning outside of the game, through religion or family.

Other people wanted to win, but only if they were playing 'fair,' which is defined by some arbitrary set of rules that exists only in their own mind. I never cheated, meaning I never used a hack or otherwise modified the game in any way to give myself an advantage. But I played dirty, and that agitated people who thought a noble loss was better than a backstabbing win. These players wanted to improve, but only if they could stay within their mental construct of fairness. Beyond video games, these people want to be objectively successful, but they want to do it inside an existing framework. They want to be managers, executives, owners. If they hit a ceiling, they exhaust themselves pushing against it before complaining about how the system is unfair, never thinking to remove themselves from the system. They may be bitter and angry if they cannot succeed, but if they do, they feel morally justified and righteous, because they succeeded the 'right' way.

Me, though, I just want to win. I want use all the tactics, use all the strategies. If I'm good, it's because I want to be. If I fail, it's because I picked the wrong strategy and didn't pull it off properly. Try something different next time. I plan on winning this game, and I'm going to have a blast when I do.