The Need for Competition

When looking back at the games we've played this week and considering other multiplayer experiences I've had, there seems to be one common thread: competition. On the surface, this seems to make sense, since many multiplayer games obviously pit players against each other. For example, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe has two modes, racing and battling, both of which are competitive. What I noticed about this competition is that it mainly existed between the players, rather than the NPCs. We would call out when we passed each other, and try to reclaim our spot with a level of concentration and effort that we didn't have when NPCs passed us. Another example of player-centric competition comes from two of my friends playing Mario Kart as kids. One was in first and had a big lead, and the other knew that she wasn't going to get first. Rather than try to get the best place she could, however, she waited at the finish line and ran into the other so she didn't get first. While this is an extreme example, it shows that people often care more about how the other people are doing in a competition than any computer players. What really intrigues me about this observation is that Mario Kart doesn't change it's ranking system based on whether you beat humans or CPUs. Each place gets the same number of points whether they beat all humans, all computers, or any combination, so the game doesn't influence the players to care more about how the other humans are doing. The priority of beating other people is one that originates from the player, not the game.

I also observed this during Stardew Valley. On the second day, I tended to the crops and began clearing the farm, as I typically do on the first few days of the game. The other players, who I believe were all new to the game, didn't follow suit. They all left to get the fishing rod from Willy, and began trying to catch the biggest fish possible. When asked why they all went to fish, they said that they enjoyed the challenge of it, since fishing is one of the more difficult tasks in Stardew Valley. This is another example of players trying to win a competition against other players, but this instance differs from Mario Kart because this game was not designed with competition in mind. The players took one of the most challenging aspects of an otherwise relaxed, slow-paced game, and created a competition amongst themselves. When playing a new game, one of the first things they did was to create a competition amongst themselves, even though the game is cooperative in nature.

These examples make me wonder how naturally competition comes to people. Does everyone feel at least some drive to compete, as these experiences seem to suggest, or do only certain people crave competition, and these were just a small sample of experiences? I also question what role competition has in multiplayer games. If the goal of a multiplayer game is to bring people together, these games certainly succeeded. We had a fun time playing Mario Kart, despite focusing on defeating each other, and made loose plans to play other games together. The players who competed in Stardew Valley also seemed to enjoy themselves and the game, even though their experience differed from the "intended" experience. So, if friendly competition can make connections between people, what are the breaking points? When does competition drive people apart rather than bring them together, and is it a game's "fault" if it's the medium for harmful competition?