A quick look at any kind of PvPish game (say, WoW) and you'll certainly find more than a fair share of people talk about how they own at this and that. If you assume own means 'win more than 50% of the time' and if your average message board is supposed (certainly something like the BNet board doesn't seem like a high standard to hold gamers to) to represent a cross section of the demographics, then that'd mean the behavior observed is reasonable to extrapolate to the whole. However, PvP is a zero sum game. If someone wins, someone else has to lose. If people on average wins more than 50%, then something is wrong here. Now I've come up with a few reasons for why this is observed:
People who lose probably don't talk about it as much as people who win
People who say they win are probably lying or at least having selective memory
But something still doesn't seem to quite add up. When I played Warcraft 3 it is rare to see anyone with a losing record. Now it's true people who lose a lot probably get a new account name and start over, but I don't think that can account for all the wins that appear to come out of thin air.
To remedy this problem, I think games should keep track of the bottom 10/100/1000 instead of the top. We all know if you reach the top you don't get any respect unless you're good enough to go to gaming tournaments and win money anyway. People just say you hack/have no life/whatever anyway. But what if you are the bottom #1 player? No one can accuse you of doing anything underhanded for achieving that! If people indeed do win more than 50% on average, then someone has to be losing a lot to keep everything balanced. These people are the true heroes!
People who lose probably don't talk about it as much as people who win
People who say they win are probably lying or at least having selective memory
But something still doesn't seem to quite add up. When I played Warcraft 3 it is rare to see anyone with a losing record. Now it's true people who lose a lot probably get a new account name and start over, but I don't think that can account for all the wins that appear to come out of thin air.
To remedy this problem, I think games should keep track of the bottom 10/100/1000 instead of the top. We all know if you reach the top you don't get any respect unless you're good enough to go to gaming tournaments and win money anyway. People just say you hack/have no life/whatever anyway. But what if you are the bottom #1 player? No one can accuse you of doing anything underhanded for achieving that! If people indeed do win more than 50% on average, then someone has to be losing a lot to keep everything balanced. These people are the true heroes!
