The gaming scene is pretty intense in China, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Ukraine, The US, Canada etc. The players are really talented and you can actually understand that apart from practice things like “game sense”, teamwork, efficiency really mattered in this type of team based games. Practice can surely make everyone better at everything, but innate skills matters a lot in gaming. You can have an unbound love for a game, practice a lot but still be okay at it. Whereas, some people don’t practice much but whatever games they come across, they perform flawlessly. This is a very fundamental yet undervalued skill in e-sports. Gamers who possess this skill can be groomed to play a number of games without putting much effort into it and still emerging with flying colours.

The excessive use of profanities for committing any mistake can be really harsh, unnerving and even depressing to any gamer’s mindset. A lot of people have termed the SEA (South East Asia) DOTA community as cancerous based on the comments passed during games. Rage quitting (quitting before the actual game ends due to frustration and anger) are pretty normal and common. A lot of new players have been accused rather strikingly and many leave before even playing for a week.

We need to stop this. Since its inception, gaming can be termed as a leisure activity (Not at all discounting the professional side of it). Due to the presence of its roots primarily in the virtual world, a lot of backlashing has been observed towards gaming in general. When this sort of disruptive and malignant force is already present, then why are we going out of our way to condemn the actions of the rookies/newbies?

I think it’s totally uncalled for. If these rookies are entirely set up against each other then there will be ZERO improvement. I personally think that to improve, competition with a better entity is always necessary. Two entities of the same caliber competing against each other won’t serve that purpose.

Anyway, I’m not here to preach anything, just that everyone should get a chance to enjoy the act equally. Be it a newbie or a professional.

Keeping this in mind, these days most games have a feature of reporting a player for any reason (ranging from incompetent play, throwing the game, excessive use of profanities or insults, any kind of toxic behavior) listed. Improper use of this feature could also be seen. But, the report feature really helps. The profile of those players getting excess reports will get banned. The virtual hours, items, and everything related to that profile would be lost. Since the threat of losing an entire online identity on which the gamer has put in so much time and effort could be lost, the cancerous and toxic behavior has gone down a bit if not significantly. But, there is always room for improvement.

There is also a feature called “Commend” feature. Players who have communicated nicely, played the game with a good spirit, showed signs of teamwork can be commended so that the community becomes aware of who are all actually trying to detox the community. They may not be rewarded exclusively but players with good commends are always respected and others want these players to be present in their either in a friendly or in a nemesis capacity.

I hope the gaming community stays united and makes a better place for everyone present so that the future gamers can feel at ease when they enter the world of gaming.

Over the years, I have learnt a lot from gaming.

· Skill development has happened significantly. It taught me more about the internals of a computer system, more about graphic cards and other computer peripherals and accessories.

· When I used to frequent gaming cafes, time and finance management on a very basic level was instilled in me in a primitive form. I had limited time to play and limited cash to spend. My parents’ dislike for gaming helped me scrutinize and manage everything more efficiently.

· Games like DOTA and CS actually taught me a lot about teamwork. Playing with 5 random players who can be from anywhere really poses a challenge. They would want to play the same role, nobody would want to support, and everyone had different tactics. Playing as a team was really important and challenging as well. If as a team we could perform well, we instinctively added each other to play the next match with the same team.

· Multilingual communication is very common.

E.g. A lot of the times it happened that I am matched up with 4 other players from any other country say Philippines. They never spoke a word of English except when they used to grunt a few English words to keep me in the loop. When they understood that I am in “sync” with them, conversations stopped entirely and only “pinging” helped win fights. Pinging — Refers to notifying on the mini map by pressing Ctrl or Alt with the left mouse button. We used to notify each other of an incoming attack, spotting an enemy, or even going to attack at a specific site. All through just clicking. I have developed a rather unique relationship with some of the other gamers. We hardly speak during those 45 -50 minutes. Even if we are separated geographically, we still tend to not speak and play the entire game by communicating by pinging. Such wonders of gaming make me feel quite euphoric about gaming itself.

· Leadership skills also improved. Murphy’s Law states that “Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.” This was a frequent issue. Errors, mistakes (both intentional and unintentional), average game/map sense of the entire team, player motivation, pessimism, overconfidence and player disconnects. So many factors had to be accounted for. If as a team we are already losing, then it is upon the team members themselves to keep everyone in the team motivated. Motivation plays a really key role in gaming.

· Improved hand-eye coordination and lateral thinking. Oh the lateral thinking! Gaming surely has polished the lateral thinking of most gamers over their “gaming lifetime”. This type of lateral thinking surely helps in other pragmatic aspects of our lives. I think whatever lateral thinking improvement happened for me it was through my entire gaming life till now. Each and every small thing adds quite a bit of perspective in life. Or so I would like to believe.

· Building relationships! I have quite a few friends whom I met online in these games. People with similar skill tend to be grouped together for a single match. Some bond, some quarrel and after like a week or so you see yourself playing with people who you met online just a few days back. I have a number of good gaming friends whom I met online. Some of them are from Cambodia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Dubai. It’s really awesome to meet such new people. You get to know about them, their culture and plus you get someone to talk to. Sometimes, the gaming group of mine reminds me of a group of gaming cognoscenti who can talk to each other the entire duration almost about anything and people nearby usually discount everything thinking all this as “gaming talk”. As if anybody really cares what the gaming folks blabber on about for the entire day.