The potential consequences of being good or bad at video games

At the beginning of this year, I decided to go to a video game tournament. It was called APEX 2015, and was considered to be one of the largest Super Smash Brothers tournament series of all time. It was in Secaucus, so very close to Hoboken, making it hard to justify not going. Well, the price tag made it hard to actually justify going, and things were further complicated when the venue was switched to Somerset as the original was deemed unusable mid-tournament. I decided that I was committed at that point, and went through a ridiculous series of public transportation adventures to get there and back. In the end, I dropped more than $150 on just this one thing. I figured that I was paying for the experience of being there more than the actual competitive gaming I might be doing.

That aspect, however, did not end well for me. I registered for two games, and was eliminated from one fairly quickly. The second wasn't going to occur until the next morning, and I had already spent too much to make showing up then worth it. I didn't perform nearly well enough to end up on a live stream. In the end, you'd never have a clue that I was actually at the venue until I dug up my part of the tournament bracket to show the matches I was in.

I took a break from tournaments until towards the end of September. There was a Smash Brothers local in the city, and I decided to check it out. I did so 3 times, and they really ended up being experiences that I'd rather forget. I definitely felt pressure being put on my wallet, being nowhere near good enough to land in the prize money part of these tournaments. When the person signing me up misheard my name and wrote down the wrong one despite my appearance at prior events, I decided to call it quits. I was basically a ghost that made weekly donations (of money and victories) to the venue, and after so many of these donations I disappeared. I get the feeling that nobody there remembered me.

The reverse of this began when Rivals of Aether, a Smash inspired game that almost looks too old-school for its own good, appeared on early access. I found this game to be more comfortable than the actual Smash series, Coming back to the present, I've actually taken first at some online tournaments for this game (and them being free to enter helped as well). If I were to disappear from this scene, people would actually notice. It's interesting to show up in the live streams of people and have them recognize you, or to have a stream of your own that can draw a significant number of viewers. Suddenly, I feel like a core community figure. Being good at the game seems like taking a shortcut towards being recognized, while the struggle of being a donation ghost will still continue for those that are not. Looking at things from the other side, I don't think there's a solution, and am currently not sure if it's even a problem. Individuals not at the top of the ladder can still make it big in their community by helping out in other ways (like hosting their own tournaments), which is a different kind of work. That's taking the long way around, and I think the shortcut is still more satisfying.