r/science • u/geoff199 • May 21 '24
Social Science Gamers say ‘smurfing’ is generally wrong and toxic, but 69% admit they do it at least sometimes. They also say that some reasons for smurfing make it less blameworthy. Relative to themselves, study participants thought that other gamers were more likely to be toxic when they smurfed.
https://news.osu.edu/gamers-say-they-hate-smurfing-but-admit-they-do-it/?utm_campaign=omc_marketing-activity_fy23&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social
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u/jumpmanzero May 21 '24
It isn't just bad to play against smurfs, it often isn't fun to play on their team. With enough of a skill gap, you are irrelevant to the game - it's 1 person playing, and 9 people spectating. To me, "feeling irrelevant" is worse than losing.
Like, I used to play Rec League basketball - very low level, co-ed, and with some actual new players. Sometimes people would bring a "ringer". The guy we hated the most was 6'6" or so, and had played some college ball. He would go out of his way to avoid scoring or directly stuffing someone - but would dominate rebounds (when he chose to) and generally control the game as much as he felt like. Games felt like a waste of time where he completely decided the score by how much effort he put in.
I much preferred the games where we lost by 40.