Mortal Kombat

[Vampyr]

Originally Posted by Typhoid

I would call that poor sportsmanship.
Growing up playing sports, lesson 1 was always "Whatever you do, have fun." Maybe my mindset with video games is mainly to have fun over winning because of that, I don't know. I can still really enjoy a game (especially a fighter) if I have lost a good fight. I just play games to play games, have a good experience, etc.

I'm not saying that losing ruins the experience for me - I'm saying I would rather win than lose. "Whatever you do, have fun" is a great mantra, and for me having fun means trying my best to win at whatever I'm doing. It's not poor sportsmanship unless you act like a jerk after winning or losing. Being a competitor doesn't mean you're a jerk. I still share any knowledge or advice I have with other players and try to help them become better, or I ask questions if it's a game I'm a noob at.

Even playing games casually with friends I'm like this, and I hope that they will be too. Making up fake rules like "that move is cheap, don't use it", or "that character is cheap, don't pick him" just serve to degrade the game for everyone since it prevents people from learning how to deal with those scenarios.

I've been playing some competitive Magic the Gathering lately, and one thing you see some experienced people do is let rules slide with newer players, like not pointing out triggers or other things they have to do that might cause them to lose. That's just setting that person up to be a worse Magic player further down the line, which I'm sure they don't want to be.

Of course there's a nice way and a not nice way to tell people these things, and that determines if you're a bad sportsman or not.