It’s almost inverted. The expectation is often for gamers to be as exploitative as possible. There is a lot of hilarity to be had by all with a play that gets a win in ann unexpected way, and it has quite a culture around it. It can go too far to be sure, but in good measure it’s often what is best about multiplayer games.
In single-player games, given the opportunity, gamers will optimize for all kinds of cheese and hilarity never expected by the designers. Doubly so with the modern Internet, where sharing videos of your silly play confers social status in relevant on-line groups.
The transition from elementary school sports to middle school sports is pretty jarring. By the time you get to high school they've started weeding out anyone who enjoys the game versus dominating other people in preparation for college and the few who become pros.
Video games just make this obvious to kids who don't like sports.
The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them. This let's them pick the categories with environments that are most fun optimized which is where the hilarity comes.
> The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them.
Yes. That's the distinction that matters.
Certainly not true, it's a game design issue that comes up all the time. Even in the context of casual solo play, players will generally be driven by the very human instincts of risk aversion, resource accumulation, and seeking efficiency. It takes good design to make this behaviour be in line with having fun.
If anything, it's multiplayer environments that are easier to steer towards that, and also allow room for just horsing around.
Don't know about current state of WoW, but the other two games you mention, and games like Overwatch or even StarCraft 2, are hollowed out and devoid of substance, because the competitive multiplayer makes everyone focused on meta.
Live sports are with people and people don't like watching others be manipulated.
This is part of why the NASCAR move is so interesting. The driver himself notes that he was putting himself in real actual danger of crashing his car and possibly hurting himself, but he was willing to take that risk.
I would not be surprised to see this outlawed in the very near future before someone can cause a major crash trying it.
The problem is that these kinds of strategies are boring to watch, have little counter play, and only interesting the first time around — as soon as it enters the meta, it’s just boring. In this case it’d probably be fine, but if you spent two minutes doing it? It’d be awful.
Exactly the same as it goes in video games — it’s fun to see people exploiting elements the game, when it adds complexity to the match. When it reduces it, like an infinite combo, regardless of how mechanically complex or novel a puzzle solution it might be, it just detracts.
Good examples of this are bunny hopping and rollout doomfist.
I'm pretty sure I've seen lots of deceptive and misleading strategies and tactics in football and other sports, not to mention multiple forms of "faking." Also a core part of sports like football seems to be putting pressure on the person with the ball - up to and including physical tackling.
Clock/time management also seems to be a thing.