There are a lot of very competitive gamers out there and while I am not in that category anymore, there was a time when I would become extremely upset if I didn't win or if it seemed like my opponent was "cheesing" the system. There were certain games that had features in them that were kind of seen a bugs or flaws that once exploited would give one player a huge or unfair advantage such as Double Dribble's 3-pointer from the corner that would go in every time. I'm not talking about these sorts of things though, I'm just talking about regular games that turned into actual conflicts, some of which became physical due to how competitive me and my friends were.
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The first game I remember this happening with was Nintendo's Pro Wrestling. It was one of the first wrestling games ever made for home consoles and while some of the characters did have some resemblance to actual real-life wrestlers, they didn't have the licensing rights to use the likeness of real superstars so the characters were all just made up.
The game was very simple but I had lightning quick reflexes from ages of practice playing this game. One of my childhood friends would frequently come over and play when I was around 8 years old or so. At this point in our lives this guy was substantially larger and stronger than I was and I was much better at the game than he was. I NEVER took it easy on him in the game and would actually prolong the matches to make them extra-embarrassing for him. Although his eventual reaction was relatively tame he did at one point throw his controller and then put me into a "backbreaker" move that I had performed on his character in the game about 20 times at that point.
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It didn't feel very nice, my mother was not pleased, and he was not allowed to come over to visit for quite some time after that incident. I guess I should have just let him get a few moves in on me in the game and let him win every now and then :)
Many years later I would have 2 college roommates who were all fans of gaming to a certain degree. Our games of choice was some NCAA football game and an NHL game on the Playstation. These games look corny as hell by today's standards but in the mid 90's these graphics were amazingly lifelike and like nothing the world had ever seen before.
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If there's one thing that i recall about my days of playing video game football it is that you really like to be on offense, but being on defense kind of sucks. Sure there was some strategy there but seeing as how we weren't actual football wizards and none of us actually played the sport, we were kind of guessing about what plays would work against others. While we were fans of the sport, we were not experts by any means.
That is until one of my roommates figured out a little cheat that would enrage me one day.
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There is a particular trick play in the sport called and onside kick or a "squib kick" that is performed during a kickoff where the defense, instead of kicking it all the way down the field will attempt to kick it just a little bit and then recover the ball themselves. This play has a very low chance of success in real life but due to a "feature" in the particular version of the game that we were playing you had about 50% chance of success in recovering the ball.
After my roommate had performed this for the 3rd time in a row successfully I had had enough and again, a controller was thrown and I threw a bowl of potato chips at him as well. He laughed it off and I was definitely in the wrong with my over-reaction but I was not going to play anymore. Keep in mind that I was near 20 years old at this point and I was ready to physically hurt him over a video game.
There were other times during NHL that light punches to the shoulder of your opponent would gradually get harder and harder until it was evident that things were going to get ugly if we didn't stop playing. Thankfully, we were good enough friends that none of these things resulted in actual injury or a falling out as far as our friendship was concerned.
I think I am scarred by these incidents a bit today and this is why I do not play any online competitive games with strangers. I have seen the videos of people completely losing their shit over something like Fortnight or COD and I have no intention of introducing that level of stress into my life... especially if if it going to come at the hands of a trash-talking kid 1/3 my age.
These days I mostly play casual 1-player games on my own.
Did you ever have any fights with friends over a video game? It seems so silly thinking back on it now but when we do speak to one another we are always able to look back on those days and laugh at how silly we were.