Competetive Gaming Skills, Do you have them?

     I was doing my usual daily duties at work and I thought I should do a post about this. The idea that if you want to have fun and be a competitive gamer, do you have to be really good at gaming? My short answer would be no. My other answer would be maybe, and my final answer would be sometimes. Let me explain a bit what I mean. No because games are meant to be for fun and you shouldn't be stressing because you didn't make top 8 on the leader boards or something. Sometimes though you want to be great because that's just how you play games, you just have a competitive attitude and want to crush your competition. Sometimes when I play really well, it makes me feel great about my style and status as a player in whatever game I'm playing. This makes me want to keep playing in order to get better and better.
     I don't think you need to be a super skilled gamer in order to play competitive games and enjoy them. I know tons of people who are gamers and aren't the best players in the world (at their respective games) but they have a ton of fun playing games competitively with friends, and dare I say it, even in a tournament setting. I myself, am one of those people. I attend Smash 4 tournaments every week (have been for like 4 weeks now), and although I'm not a great player I'm having a blast playing and hanging out with all the new friends (Smashers) I've made. Its super fun. Also, I am getting way better at the game. At the same time there are some people who when they lose at games they don't have a good time and they get super salty. Salty is a term in the gaming community that basically means someone is butt hurt. Basically they're upset. I've had my moments of playing online games where when I'm losing I get a little salty and show it by expressing my feels in the in-game chat system. This only happens when I'm playing in team games mostly, but there are times when I lose in a 1v1 game that I get salty. All you can really do about it is to learn from your loss and do better next time.
     I consider myself a decent gamer overall. OK, at best. That might be selling myself short quite a bit. I'm actually super good at all the games I play. These include games like Heroes of the Storm, Smash 4, Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex-First Assault, and Project M. Basically I have some gaming skills for sure but I don't feel like I'm MLG (Major League Gaming) material or anything. I haven't done anything spectacular at a Smash tournament yet but I have high hopes for the future. I haven't beaten one single open world game on console or PC (currently working on a few titles in this genre; Fallout New Vegas, Skyrim, Bioshock) but I'm a multiplayer gaming fanatic. If the game has multiplayer I'll be playing it, learning it, and kicking ass at it. I'm pretty good at all the multiplayer games I play but that's only because I've put in a lot of time and effort into them. When I'm playing these online multiplayer games I get super competitive and always strive to do my best every time. The first step in order to 'git gud' at games is to put yourself in the zone. For me, this basically means to put everything else out of my mind and just focus on the game. If its a 1v1 game then you have to keep in mind that the other player is in the same position as you and you can always defeat them if you play your cards right. The hardest part of getting good at competitive gaming is when you're first starting and you're not sure if you're a good player. Just to get into the mood of playing a game that is just 1v1 an be intimidating at first. You just have to realize that its all just for fun in the long run and that it doesn't matter if you lose because you can learn from your losses.
      Sometimes people don't even want to put in the time and commitment to be good at competitive gaming so they don't even play those kinds of games. Keep in mind that when I say competitive gaming I meaning multiplayer games like mobas, shooters, fighting games, racing games, and puzzle games. My brother is a great gamer, probably the best gamer I've ever met. He can learn any game and do well at it given time. But he sticks only to single player games and doesn't ever play any multiplayer games. His main multiplayer game used to be World of Warcraft but even in that he stuck mostly to pve (player vs ai) and focused on running raids with his buddies. There are a lot of different kinds of gamers and some of them just aren't interested in the competitive side of gaming.
     For me, I've always been interested in competing in games. I have a dream one day of being some kind of pro gamer but I know that isn't going to happen because I don't focus on just one game enough to be super good at a single title. I prefer to play many different games rather than just focus on just one. I may change that attitude soon though because I want to become better at Smash 4 in particular, and I feel like I have to put more time into it to become great. I could see myself becoming good enough at Smash to place high at a tournament. I don't think being a pro gamer is viable at my age though (26) because that's not a real career in the long run. Something that I could do is writing for a gaming magazine, blog, or the esports community, or being a community manager or PR person in esports. I would be great at that sort of thing because I'm a big peoples person and people tend to gravitate towards me because of the way I am. I'm a very friendly, easy going, positive attitude type that makes a lot of friends very easily and stays friends with those people over the long term.
     To make a long story short, yes if you're a gaming whiz it will be fun and you will do really well. But, there might be a guy who's not even half as good as you are and he might be having more fun than you are because he's not taking it as seriously as you are. I've seen people at tournaments get super salty after losing, even getting to the point of yelling and walking right out. It's pretty funny but don't be those people. They give the gaming community a bad name, especially the guys talking shit on online games where there's a voice chat option. Sometimes just playing a game for fun is the best thing you can do. Honestly, I have to remember to keep that in mind and just remember its all just a game (you're only a pawn in the game). It's just entertainment to have fun. The competitive part is secondary. At the same time, I play to win.. I like to have my cake and it too.