No Way to Win
Consider: two players compete in a high-stakes match for a coveted slot in a tournament championship round. Both players are nervous—they know their opponent is strong and will be difficult to defeat even under normal circumstances, let alone with the pressure and stress of tournament match. Neither can afford a loss. One player, cracking under the strain, makes a careless mistake and, before he can even think about it, corrects himself and changes his move. Changing a move is illegal, and the match would be forfeit if it was caught. The offending player is shocked and says nothing, unsure if his opponent is aware of the gaff. His opponent, likewise, is shocked: he believes he saw an illegal move, and if he calls it he will win be default. What should he do?
What is victory without struggle? What is triumph without the satisfaction of a worthy opponent overcome? I pose this situation as an investigation of the ethics of play, and the unwritten rules that guide and protect us in this type of competition. Many classic games—chess, shogi, go, poker, etc—have rich traditions of professional rankings and tournaments. The level of mastery necessary to compete even at the lowest levels of these circles is astounding, and the time and effort required to achieve that mastery is equally daunting. I can only imagine the stress and emotional trial a professional chess player endures during championship competition. Given this extraordinary set of circumstances, can a player be blamed if they make a careless mistake? Are they right to try to ignore it? Certainly not. That is unfair to their opponent, who by rights has the opportunity to declare a foul. But should that foul be declared?
The world of competitive play is ruthlessly unforgiving. Amorality is practically a virtue. If a player was so inattentive that they made a mistake, they deserve to suffer for it. What does their opponent owe them? Nothing. This is championship play, the level that separates the merely good from the true legends. Tiny margins of error are the razor edge they live on. An advantage could mean the difference between victory and defeat, and he who turns up his nose at one is only hurting himself. But the truth is, while the game may exist in an immutable, eternally static world of rules, the real human players are never so rigid.
A foul protects the fouled, but from opportunistic tricksters and cheaters. What good is a foul called on a player who obviously intended to play legitimately but simply slipped up due to distraction? Ask any great player of any great game how they define “being the best,” and they will nearly all tell you that being the best means playing the best and winning. No one holds esteem for the player who win by default; that player’s skill is unproven, likely suspect. Were they not strong enough to win on their own effort, and needed to resort to a chance technicality to bring down their opponent? The esteem of their peers is the benchmark by which all champions measure themselves. Winning by default is no way to win. The player should continue the game. If they cannot beat their opponent at his best, they do not deserve to win.
This question of player ethics is one that rarely emerges in video games, perhaps because their nature is less supportive of the possibility of illegal play. A player that finds an exploit or a loophole in the rules is often congratulated for their ingenuity rather than chastised. Even so, I think the tradition of ethics and “courteous play” lives more strongly in board and card games due to the mindset of their players. The highest levels of chess or go are viewed almost as an art form, akin to dance or martial arts. Players are called masters and they win international fame and status with their trophies — something video games have yet to reproduce, Korea notwithstanding. Because video games are more “common” and still universally held to be entertainment, amoral play isn’t frowned upon. The stakes aren’t so high that ethics can play a role. Or can they? I recall reading an article one by a player who frequented saber duel servers in Jedi Knight II. He described his experiences in this unique subculture, and how that unique multiplayer mode spawned this specialized player base with their own complex and chivalrous code duello. They raised the stakes, and introduced ethics to the game.
Someday, this level of sophistication may become the rule, not the exception. When that happens, ethics will force their way into the equation… and many painful lessons will be learned from the example set by the classic board game circuit.
I used to play in many chess tournaments when I was younger, but I never managed to win more than a couple matches.
“This question of player ethics is one that rarely emerges in video games, perhaps because their nature is less supportive of the possibility of illegal play. A player that finds an exploit or a loophole in the rules is often congratulated for their ingenuity rather than chastised.”
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. In online multiplayer games players who use exploits and glitches to their advantages are consistently reviled by fellow players. Xbox live even has a feedback system that affects a player’s reputation if he uses exploits excessively.
“Players are called masters and they win international fame and status with their trophies — something video games have yet to reproduce”
What about fata1ity? Anyone interested in the FPS tournament scene will undoubtedly know who he is, and I think you could say the same about Gary Kasporov and people who are interested in chess. It’s a shame they haven’t gained a sort of rock star status, especially when I hate pop music, but somehow know who the biggest stars are.
It’s true that video games have international tournaments and champions who become famous, but it’s a different category of celebrity. fatal1ty is only known to gamers and game developers, like us, who follow game-related events, but Kasparov is known to a much wider cross-section of the general population; his match with Deep Blue was international news for quite a while. The community of players and professional competition for classic games like chess and go are not only much older, they’re far more legitimate in the eyes of mainstream society. Tell someone you’re a world champion chess player and they’ll think “That guy must be a genius to be so good at chess.” Tell them you’re a world champion Starcraft player and they’ll think (assuming they even know what Starcraft is) “This guy is kind of pathetic to spend so much time playing a video game.” It’s a completely different realm of status.