By Zaid Aboobacker
KUWAIT: Despite the fact that the gaming community and industry have expanded in recent years, there has been a growing dissatisfaction and discontent towards video games, particularly online multiplayer games. Kuwait Times interviewed a range of players from casual to competitive, revealing diverse viewpoints. Gamers differ in opinion, some label gaming as "toxic”, while others describe it as a "waste of time”. Take Fahad for example, whose perspective shifted towards seeing gaming as a waste of time after he embraced self-improvement influenced by social media.
David, who recently quit gaming, said he cannot play games with his friends as they place in higher ranks and only play competitively, forgetting the purpose of gaming, which is to have fun. He also tells us about smurfing, where players from higher ranks create new accounts to play with lower ranked gamers so they have easier competition, which makes the games unfair and unfun for casual players. "Games like Valorant require effort and skill, such that you can’t play it as a pastime, because you have to put in hours to work on your tactics and improve your aim, but most players do not have time for this,” he said.
"The environment has become so toxic to the point where people can’t enjoy what they are playing. Everyone plays to win now and ends up cursing the opponent,” said Shaheer, who spoke about a case where a student in his school self harmed due to the extreme frustration he and his teammates experienced after not winning a match. Furthermore, he mentioned how getting blamed for losing a match can affect one’s mental health due to the fact that one’s own friends and teammates curse and blame them for losing.
A study by Unity surveying more than a thousand gamers shows more than 2 out of 3 multiplayer gamers have experienced toxic behavior while playing multiplayer video games, while 42 percent of multiplayer gamers reported experiencing harassment, which include intimidation, coercion or oppression of another player inside or outside the game. Some competitive players like 13-year-old Asindu have witnessed their enjoyment of games like Fortnite transforming into a pursuit of higher ranks.
But other players like Febin maintain that the game remains enjoyable, accompanied by teasing players when they are worse than him. Abdulwahab, who plays FIFA, described his experience as frustrating when his opponents play slowly and are worse than him, with unreasonable amount of insults hurled at him just for winning the game. "Most multiplayer games cater towards the e-sports community rather than casual players,” said 16-year-old Ryan, who has been an avid gamer since he was 4. Some players like Ryan switched to single player video games as an alternative to multiplayer games because of the issues he faced.
Hassan, who has been gaming for 9 years, said single player story games are more enjoyable and less stressful, as online gaming has become a test of skill, as gamers are constantly competing with each other with factors like a robust online connection and hardware budget playing a major role. He also said some story games teach him new life lessons, as the player is the one making all the choices in the game.
Ammar Soheil, who has been a casual gamer for the past 8 years, views single player games with storylines as pieces of art, pointing out multiplayer games with repetitive gameplay are fun to play but are nothing special. Different gamers view games differently — some view them as boring and repetitive, others consider them as fun, while a few try to find alternatives. However, there is still a popular view that gaming hasn’t been the same since the COVID pandemic ended.