Why are gamers so competitive these days..?

I mean, I grew up playing Quake and Unreal, so I know what competition can be like.. But honestly, why have gamers seemed to have adopted an "I'm better than you, and I can prove it.." attitude.. Even in games that don't really require them, like Minecraft for example. PvP is born from such an attitude, as well as any other "competition" that can be thought of in Minecraft which is supposed to an faux rpg setting in a sandbox environment. This attitude in pokemon is understandable.. But many competitive players there will go through any means to win. I have heard a shocking number that a sizeable percentage of competitive player use pokegen to "legit-hack" godly pokemon that are almost always able to fool judges.. ..I mean maybe I have been playing too many single-player or co-op games in my time to appreciate unhealthy competition..

What's wrong with being competitive? You wanna 1v1 me on Black Ops br0??? DO YA?

Gamers just get over competitive because they want to be the best and beat the rest.

Call of Duty has fallen in the toilet to me since it quit being a historical shooter game and now rivals Land Before Time with number of iterations..

I feel like this is me… I do this with sports and such as well. I guess my only reasoning to be a try hard is that I don't play to lose, I play to win. I'm not the type of person to go to lengths to prove I am better than everyone, but if I am in a game and people are talking about how good they are I'll definitely try to one up them

A personal ego. Its normal for humans to want to protect theirs, id type more but my hand is wrapped lol sorry.a

I actually suffer from this within Minecraft too. I want to build something that's going to please others, but I end up overdoing them because of egoism. I got to where I am as part of the EMC Build Team from other teams across YouTube. Yes, I have learned a lot in the art field, but I maybe I shouldn't be letting these people motivate me into pushing myself all the time when it comes to creating.


Most of the inspiring channels for me can be found in this thread:
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/building-guide-finally.37163/

Gaming is a second life to people, personality is carried on to this second world. Gaming is a thing that will probably never end, and when people start to realize that, they have a need to climb up the chain because they see a nerd better then them or something. Sorry if I don't make sense, I am really tired.

Because: The more competitive always wins.

Anything that is not competitive is crushed by something similar that is.
Competitive people are simply more motivated to achieve what they need to. At the expense of those who are not competitive. On any scale.

I personally prefer to be non-competitive, as I am Utilitarian by nature. But I also understand to enjoy a Utilitarian society, you must first out compete for dominance and independence.

Also.. people are competitive because they are taught to be (and maybe a little because it's human nature). Because they believe it leads to happiness. That happiness = being better than others, or having more, or being successful.

I agree with this, the historical side to Call of Duty was really fun, but after Modern Warfare 2, I kind of gave up on the game because it is all the same - it is too online based now, really competitive and I liked the co-operative side to it. They still feature it, sure, but that is not the aim of the game for most anymore

I still like to be co-operative though, of course most games have leader boards and a way to be higher than others now but I think having fun with another friend on a game is much better than trying to beat him down

EDIT: Though, if my friend wants to beat down some baddies then I am more than welcome to join him

Actually, competition is a good thing.

Competition is the motivation for innovation.

I am studying entrepreneurship, and I can tell that the world has become a lot more competitive these days.
You can see it in all kinds of businesses:
Technology (Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Google)
Consumption (Starbucks, MacDonalds, Subway)
Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc)

Those are only a few of the many businesses that try to innovate to stay competitive.
Again; we NEED competition for improvement.
So competition is not a bad thing at all, it's a necessary good.

"The haters are my motivators"

I don't think most of the companies you mentioned there are a good example for 'healthy competition'.
Most of those companies have chosen profit over people and they're only motivated by making as much profit as possible for their shareholders instead of actually trying to create the best product for people. If more profit can be generated by exploiting workers in low wage countries in hazardous conditions, by polluting the environment, by using unhealthy but cheap ingredients, by compromising users' privacy for revenue from ads, they'll do it to stay 'competitive' (Apple, McDonalds, Facebook, Google). I'm sure the other companies might have their issues too but I can't name those off the top of my head. None of those practices add to the functionality of product, but are destructive to society and the environment. Of course, they would like consumers to think they're innovative and have the best product for the consumer, but this is all done through deceptive marketing that conveniently leaves out the immoral production & working practices. We may need competition for innovation but not in the current way that rewards such low tactics of companies.

Let's be real. Call of Duty is a baby's first person shooter.
Also, we humans are competitive since the beginning of our species. Because, by being competitive, the best, and only the best will be the one that helps the species survive.
In this case we are just competitive because we want to be the best. Also because there are some people that think that games are the only thing in life.

Dito. wouldn't have said it better.

I'm pretty competitive, and I think the reason is that I don't have a lot of confidence IRL, nor am I good at a lot of things. But when I'm in Minecraft, I can be who I choose to be, do what I choose to do. I want to prove that I can be good at things.

The competition for market dominance is to get profit. No matter what they say, they're only in it for the money. You might start a business and say you started because it's fun, but really, you're just in it for the income. You need the money, because sadly, that's how the world works now.

In some industries, commercial aviation for example, profit does come from having the best product. If the manufactures can't save fuel, airlines won't buy. If the airlines don't fly to where passengers want to go, for cheap prices and with reasonable service (although this appears to be becoming less of a selling point), people won't book flights.

As others have said, healthy competition is good, because it will lead to better products in the end.

I've never really been fond of competitive games, and even when I did play them I never focused on the real "competitive" aspects, so to speak. But why people enjoy competitive games is due to our own instincts, as a whole we've always been a competitive species. While we don't need to compete for our survival anymore, these instincts have carried over in our behavior and thus we enjoy competitive video games.