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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

It depends on the age. My children have done some soccer at 4-5, and at that age, yeah it's just a fancy way of running around.

But as the kids get older, if winning and losing isn't on the table at all... what's the point? Why can't we use our hands? It's not like it affects the nonexistant outcome. Why are we chasing the balls instead of just running around on the playground? It's not like it affects the nonexistant out come. Why are we... non-existant outcome... etc. The whole activity has no foundation whatsoever if there's no victory state, and kids do eventually notice.

Yeah, some people get way too excited about it. This is not the dominant problem that I see; I see more people entirely destroying all reason to play the game at all by trying to remove the pain of loss, at the cost of the thrill of victory, any reason to work on improving oneself, and any reason to even be playing at all.

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I'd rather play a good game and lose, than play a lopsided game and win.

I even remember once in my 20s in a local basketball league, we only had four players show up one night, including one fat guy who didn't run and couldn't shoot. We defeated our opponents who had a full bench and a couple of subs, who on a normal night were only slightly below our team's ability at normal strength. Rather than feeling elated that we defeated a full team when we were almost at half-strength, we felt bad for our fellow team, that they had such a bad night that they were defeated in such a way.

Winning is fun and a rush, absolutely, but I've had plenty of boring wins and plenty of awesome losses - there's more interest in a good challenge than a win, per se. If you distill the success of the game (in a local league, at least), just down to win/loss, you're doing it wrong, IMO.

What do you think of Hackeysack? It seems to have all of the characteristics of the "no point anymore without a winner" but people still don't use their hands, they still socialize and have fun and have a (reasonable) thrill of doing well and the pain of messing up.

I think that it doesn't have nationwide programs for every grade, with local tournaments running up to international tournaments, taught in school, and such a large part of our culture that we all know what a "soccer mom" is even as soccer still hasn't really taken over as our dominant national sport.

Not everything has to be competitive. I mean, duh, right? But taking an activity that was designed to be competitive and then trying to strip out the competitive part isn't a good idea. Far better to start over again and design something not competitive from the get-go.

I've only played Hackeysack a few times, but it seems like 'losing' was equated to 'messing up' and 'winning' was equated to 'not messing up'. The victory conditions are different, and you and your team are playing against yourselves, but the concept of victory is still there.

What do you think of Hackeysack? It seems to have all of the characteristics of the "no point anymore without a winner"

Looking clumsy or looking skillful is a consequence in and of itself.

> It seems to have all of the characteristics of the "no point anymore without a winner"

It's like you have never even played California Games.

Why is your kid playing a sport? To have fun. What's more fun, winning or losing? Winning. That's all there is to it.

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