Sunday, January 12, 2014

why do players abandon games near the end?

davidly wrote in a comment to this blog,
"Not infrequently, a losing player will leave the game as late as during the last hand, the last trick of the last hand, or even before the screen registers their loss...
...this usually prompts a reaction in the chat regarding being a poor sport. But the registered opponents remain--I assume, so that they'll get the win. I have to wonder if they consider that waiting for the next player to happen along is just as unfair as the original player's having left the game in the first place: the remaining players are just as selfishly sticking the new person with an undeserved loss."
Interesting comment!

I don't understand people who leave a game when losing. Don't get me wrong; I don't like losing! But who wants to win all the time? What would be the challenge in that?

I'm a "completionist" - I want to see the game through to its completion. Maybe I'm a little OCD in this respect? I always figured that many others are the same way - the people sticking around at the end of a game just want to finish the darn game, no matter who wins or loses. It had not occurred to me that they are sticking around to score a win. But I'm not the only one waiting to accept my loss; I've noticed many others doing this. So I think there are a bunch of other completionists like me out there.

I'm surprised if it's true that people are willing to sit around waiting for some "sucker" to come in and finish the game, just so that they will get one more win added to their score. Maybe these are the same people who leave early when they are losing?

World of Card Games does not yet have rankings, so your win/loss ratio is something only you will know about yourself - and if you refuse to accept losses, then you must know that your win ratio is high exactly because of your poor sportsmanship in leaving a game early! I find it peculiar that anyone would gloat over a score earned in this manner.

Failing to accept a loss in a simple game of cards strikes me as extremely childish. But you will run into people like this when you play on the internet. I've played in-person games with full-grown adults who take losing very poorly as well, so it doesn't surprise me that people have even worse behavior online.

One of the main reasons I play is because I enjoy the combination of strategizing and socializing. Winning is fun, but I've enjoyed many games where I lose terribly. How about you?