Competitive online gaming is dying, and this is what's killing it.

"Those $%#@# tryhards! they suck the fun out of this game"!

We've all thought of those kind of words at some point in life. You come home from a long day at work or school, you feel tired or frustrated from the happenings of that day and you just can't wait to come home and relax with your favorite game, only to get crushed over and over again by a group known today as "sweaty tryhards" only to ruin your fun gaming session with your friends.

So what are those so called "sweats" and "tryhards"?

They are pretty much the overly competitive group in online games, the kind of person who always has to be at the top of their game, and where most of them can't have fun unless they are winning match after match. While we understand that online gaming brings competitiveness to the table, because let's be honest, we all love to win in the end, this type of gameplay does tend to ruin casual players experience to whom a fun session of goofing off and trying things means more to them than winning.

The influence of Esports.

As the rise of Esports happened over the years, the bar had been raised significantly in order of practice routines, tight schedules and dedication, the majority of pro players sticking to soley 1 game so they can dish out the best spots and tactics, and causing many of the gaming world wanting to be just like them. A lot of players because of this try to follow the same type of routine, in hopes of one day becoming a pro player themselves. Of course as aspiring as this may seem this sadly comes with the down side that many of them become so good that they pretty much stomp all over the casual player in any game mode who still wants to get better at the game at their own pace. Back in the day while you ran into a few of those immensely good players here and there, it made you feel a moment of amazement as to how good that person was at the game, picking up a trick here and there from spectating after being killed.

And then there was livestreaming.

Livestreaming has become a big factor in our lives, watching our favorite streamer play our favorite games learning about tricks, or even funny ideas we didn't know or never even thought about. It brings a different form of gaming entertainment when we feel like taking a night off and give our fingers some rest from playing games ourselves. However as the livestream scene grows and more and more platforms arise, a lot of streamers have developed the idea of "I need to be the best in order for people to want to watch me". So most streamers do all they can to "pubstomp" everyone and everything every single game, some even tend to go as far as to making smurf accounts to be a high ranked player decimating low ranked lobbies for the sake of showing how good they are, while keeping their high rank on their main account.

"Monkey see, Monkey do".

"Playing a smurf account, when I lose the stream ends" is one of the examples that is out there, a high ranked player making a smurf account who adapts his play style to those of the low ranks he plays against. While this may seem innocent for one person to do, others see that it's original and gets people to watch you, so they pick it up and try it out for themselves. But as the trend picks up the lower ranked players get more high ranked players against them this way and get annoyed that while they try to get better at the game, this pretty much prevents them to.

Deliberate bullying in games for the sake of content creation.

Content creation, it's something we can't look away from anymore. Youtube, Tik Tok, Rumble, ect. there are so many platforms out there to upload your best clips of your in game moments. While this is a great way to get your content and your name out there. This too sadly brings the down side of it as to where the creators have to stand out in the crowd by bringing content that turns heads. Said content of course sadly often does not come without a proper dose of in game bad manners, which in this day and age is referred to as "in game bullying".

Fortnite is one of the biggest bringers of this as its one of the biggest games in the industry thus far. Knocking a person only to be taunting and dancing around them, completely making fun of them with your teammates, it seems like it became a needed standard in the game in order to show you outplayed your opponent. Another example would be someone being knocked, and being killed by a reboot station. The squad then proceeded to build a shack high enough above it so the person reboots into it. You might think to yourself now: "That's not bad, that actually seems pretty funny"! However, as fun as it may have seemed at the beginning of the video I have seen said example happen, they then proceed to keeping the person built in with no way of escape whatsoever, and end up setting the shack on fire while taunting and tormenting their opponent. If this would have happened to a new player to the game, it could have been enough for them to just uninstall the game and never look at it again. So people basically don't realize they are hurting the game they claim to love so much this way.

The slow but sure death of online competitive gaming.

While to this day we plow through the tryhards, the smurfing life streamers, and the toxic players, more and more of the casual players are getting annoyed with this and eventually end up leaving the game for what it is. They go to find another game to enjoy, only to find game after game after game being infested with those kind of players. It even results to them watching less and less live streamers due to it, because they see they only stream for the sake of fame and cash grabbing, instead of for the love of just playing games and having fun. Which leads me to believing that the way we are headed right now, more and more people will result into leaving competitive multiplayer gaming for the singleplayer or pve experience again where they can just goof around with their friends peacefully without having to worry about people ruining their fun, because that's what those peoples vision of fun is.

As a fellow streamer and content creator, I did find myself getting sucked into that downward spiral as well, I was beginning to think that was what people really wanted to see, I was starting to feel that in order to get views, to get people to notice me, that I needed to bring my A-game, and have a sweat towel next to me for every match I play in any game I love. but I'm happy to say that I chose to step away from this, and am finding my way back into just having fun in games, and goof around with friends getting a win here and there, but not playing like someone has a gun to my head, ready to pull the trigger when I lose the match.

Your opinion matters.

While you guys read up on this article, I am curious about your opinions, do you feel like online competitive gaming will die out over time because of this? Let us know in the comments.