With all that we have been through in the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s safe to say that we will not come out of this event the same person. In particular, all the chaos and outrage that the virus rained down upon our society has prompted me and a lot of people to rethink the occasion that all of us human beings are predestined to experience: death. For the past year, I began to notice that so many close individuals around me have died, whether it’s my relatives, friends’ family, or people in my communities. Most of their deaths were not even caused by COVID but by the surmounting pressure and stress that this new era has inflicted on their lives. 

However, when all of this turmoil around the world was going down, a majority of us are fortunate enough to be able to cope through video games. Thus, it begs the question of whether there are any correlations between death and video games? If there are, what are the valuable lessons we can take from them?

I am sure that all of you gamers out there is not a stranger when it comes do dying, in-game of course. Anyone who has played games in their life will have experienced some form of death inside a game. Most of us likely interpret dying as a mere level restart or a sign or that we didn’t perform to our expectations. However, blind to our perception, death in-game might actually serve a deeper purpose or function that can even re-wire our brain processes. But before discussing what these purposes are, let’s take a look at the unique approaches to death in various popular games or gaming genres.

The Games

Different games utilize death mechanics to induce different experiences for the players. Some urge players to learn from their mistakes. While others induce extreme and often comical rage and frustration. Some games also use death to send a unique, thought-provoking message to their players.

Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and other similar dungeon crawling games are infamous for their annoying deaths. It is close to impossible to complete these games without dying to the point where death is literally part of the process itself. The game is essentially a vicious cycle of progress and death: you face a new challenge in the game, die, learn how to get past that part, and repeat. The game punishes and forces you to learn until you get it right. However, the most irritating part about dying in Dark Souls or Bloodborne is the “YOU DIED” message that pops out on your screen. Yes, we get it, we died, you really don’t have to add salt into our wounds.

A majority of competitive games like Dota 2, CS:GO, or VALORANT, are incredibly unique since they utilize the element of death in a sport-like environment. Obviously, you can’t (or are unlikely to) die when playing traditional sports like football, basketball, or even boxing. However, the competitive games I mentioned use death to remove the players out of the game momentarily, rendering them useless to contribute to the team. Unlike Dark Souls, death in this fashion also forces you to carefully consider the decisions and actions you make in-game because there are no restarts; all the mistakes you make will compound and determine the fate of your victory in the match. Furthermore, your deaths will also affect your teammates and their morale, since these are all team games after all. You might die so much to the point where you get called a feeder or get reported for griefing the match; that is something no one wants.

While these two genres utilize death to amplify or use it as a mechanic in the game, Spiritfarer brilliantly tackles the event of death and grief like no other has done before. Chances are you have probably never heard Spiritfarer, so let me briefly introduce you to this criminally underrated game. Spiritfarer is an indie sandbox or simulation game that’s all about helping the spirits of the deceased accomplish their unfinished business on earth. The game gives the players deep-seated messages and a thought-provoking perspective on the concept of death or the afterlife, which can be extensively relevant during these times. The music and visuals are also fantastic, aesthetic, and allows you to immerse into the world of the characters. You should definitely try out this game, especially if you are interested in the topic.

Death and Taxes is also another sim game that discusses death by allowing players to choose who lives and dies, essentially being a grim reaper of sorts. You’ll be given a brief description of each of the souls that you will be judging. Their final fate, which you will determine, will ultimately shape the reality of the world. Although the game’s objectives are rather simple, Death and Taxes opens up about death in a way that helps people deal with this delicate issue and reflecting on it from a new perspective.

To Learn

As seen from Dark Souls and Dota 2, death encourages players to learn from their mistakes and grow. The more you die, the more you will know yourself and the game. Death in this fashion actually draws parallels to our failures in real life, as both of them represent the results of our mistakes. Similarly, there are always two ways to look at our downfalls or death in-game: we can see it as an outcome of our incompetency, or we can see it as an opportunity to learn and come out as a better person. However, only people who are to thrive both in life or games are the ones who adopted the latter perspective.

As a result, gaming could be incredibly beneficial to learn core and important life values as well. By constantly being bombarded with death and losses, you’ll eventually be able to endure failures and know how to use them to your advantage. Soon enough, your disappointments will turn into an unstoppable drive to try again, and death will be a force that brings about success.

There is a saying that goes “Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” Although this might be referring to the afterlife, I think that gaming is perhaps a fitting embodiment of the quote. Through the deaths we experience in-game, we learn and progress in life. It teaches us invaluable lessons through mere projections of light in each pixel of your screen. More importantly, however, gaming shows that death or failure does not put a permanent roadblock in the journey of our lives but is a stepping stone to something much greater.

To Cope

Processing loss and grief in these troubled times can be a challenge. Fortunately, gaming has provided us with an avenue and safe space to cope and endure death. We have seen death-oriented games like Spiritfarer tackle this issue and provide some possible interpretations about the afterlife, which can undoubtedly aid us in our griefing journey. For others who prefer to seek to disconnect from the death of their loved ones, games can also serve as a necessary escape for our minds.

Roy Sugarman – a psychologist and the cofounder of Transhuman – also mentioned video games can help us unload all the complex emotions in the stages of grief. “Games put you in a metaphoric world where you can express a range of stuff honestly, where you can express grief,” says Sugarman. “For people who are isolated, video games bring you to another world where you can be disinhibited and expressive.”

According to Sugarman, the anonymity that video games provide can help us express our emotions freely without any fear of judgment from the outside. As he put it, “You’re willing to show a lot more emotion to these metaphoric avatar-like creatures than you would face-to-face with some old guy with a beard.”

Furthermore, he thinks that the games have the capability to gather people in grief and bring about a much-needed sense of togetherness during their hard times. “There is a consistency of grief, distractibility, irritability, which is replaced by kind of an addictive contact with people,” Sugarman explains. “If you think about it in evolutionary terms, we all sacrifice a great deal for kinship or a sense of relatedness, and video games do all of this.”

We have seen this exact case last year when the gaming community lost one of the most beloved streamers on Twitch named Byron “Reckful” Bernstein. Thousands of players gathered in World of Warcraft for his funeral and memorial, showing to the world that video can be more than just a place to play. Of course, in-game funerals like these did not only happen on one occasion. Franchises like Final Fantasy and Animal crossing have also started to provide such services to be used by the player base.

Conclusion

From this article, I hope that you have obtained a much deeper understanding of the meaning of death in games and how it could evoke different responses in players. Similarly, we could utilize all the in-game experiences that we have accumulated and translate them into valuable real-life lessons. However, perhaps the most essential thing we can take from dying in games is the appreciation that we are still alive today, and we should make the most out of it.

Featured Image: Unsplash

One of the things that I used to love about gaming is its accessibility. You can play video games no matter who you are, tall or short, thin or fat, ugly or good-looking; video games are for everyone. Unfortunately, this notion is often misleadingly extended to the esports or the professional scene.

Many gamers, including myself, have always believed that, with enough practice, grinding, and grit, all of us have the potential to become a pro. This belief, whether it is true or not, is perfectly understandable due to gaming’s accessibility when compared to other sports. If you aren’t born tall, you will probably never be a professional basketball player. If you are naturally thin, the chances of you becoming a weightlifter is incredibly slim (pun intended). On the other hand, most of us are inclined to believe that pro gamers don’t have any of these genetic prerequisites that separate them from the normal population. However, what if I tell you that this notion is not true? What if I tell you that being a pro is in our genes?

In this article, we will be exploring the evidence that supports each side of the argument and investigating the genetic traits that make up an esports professional. We will also be taking into account the perspectives of pro players themselves. As a side note and a minor spoiler, there is currently not much scientific data or research about the correlation between genetics and gaming. So yes, some speculation might be needed, and a full-fledged answer to our question might not be feasible to produce. Nevertheless, let’s see if gamers are born or made.

What the Pros are saying

To answer our question about the correlation between genetics and gaming, why not ask the individuals who are already been there. Here is what current VALORANT pro, Steel, has to say about the topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkvD_NkUX-M

Although the video is over 5 years old and is from his CS:GO days, I think that Steel’s points still stand. He believes that gaming is in the genes. “Being good at CS is genetics,” Steel said. “Any player who can be pro today needs to be Global Elite (CS:GO’s highest rank) in one year after they pick up CS even if is their first FPS.” If you have 3000 hours on CS and never got Global, you will most likely never be a pro, according to Steel. Of course, his comment received both positive and negative responses. Fortnite pro, NRG Zayt, agrees with Steel, as seen from his tweet below.

Steel is right, gaming is all genetics.
Just stay in school if u dont have the genetics, simple as that
ggs only

— NRG Zayt (@zayt) August 4, 2019

Calc from BBG also seems to have the same opinion.

Gaming is genetics stop grinding to go pro, if you arent pro already there is a reason

— BBG Calc (@yungcalc) July 12, 2020

Many of the comments who challenged Steel’s perspective usually goes along with the belief that “you can do anything you set your mind to”. Indeed, this is what we are constantly thought in school by our teachers or parents. However, Steel argues that this idea is rather naive and is only suited for encouraging us to explore the different career options we might have in life. In reality, some people are innately better or worse at certain activities than others.

On the other side of the coin, ShahZaM, IGL of Sentinel’s VALORANT roster and winner of VCT 2021: Stage 2 Masters in Reykjavík, had an opposing opinion in this matter. ShahZaM said that he and most of his pro teammates actually believed that being a pro is a learned skill. “Everyone of us in the CS:GO pro teams said it is not genetics, while everyone that worked in the (esports) industry said it’s genetics,” ShahZaM mentioned in one of his stream clips.

He argues that nobody is predisposed to being good at certain activities, contrary to what Steel mentioned. Instead, ShahZ believes that some people simply learn certain things faster, which is what most people refer to as talent or genetics. A player can be a pro in 2 years while others might take 4 or more years, but there is no gap in skill ceiling or skill level that is purely determined by genetics.

But what about reaction time? Well, ShahZaM thinks that the reaction time argument is overrated. “The spread in reaction time is never significant enough to make a change in the game,” he said. “I promise you.” In contrast, game sense or practicing to become aware and anticipate specific situations is far more impactful in affecting the speed at which we react. Of course, all of these are trained and not predetermined by talent.

Furthermore, ShahZaM also emphasized the importance of being critical to improve our gameplay. Some players may have 10 000 hours of experience in a game and never reach pro-level just because they never play to improve. If we can’t be productive of the time we put into games and mindlessly play for fun, then we will hardly ever get better. Unfortunately, a lot of gamers fall into this traphole and consequently blame their genes for not being to carry them to the pro scene.

Reaction time

Powerlifters or boxers need big muscles. Sprinters like Usain Bolt have fast-twitch muscle fibers. Basketball players are somewhat generally tall and above 6 ft. But what do gamers need? Intelligence, motor skills, quick decision-making, hand-eye coordination, and reaction time (in particular) are some of the traits that will affect your in-game skill.

To test out your reaction time, you can visit humanbenchmark.com. On the website, you can also see the statistics of reaction times from all the data that the site has collected. The average or median reaction time, according to humanbenchmark.com, is around 273ms. We can presume that professional FPS players are more likely to have reaction times of 200ms. The basic logic behind the assumption adds up: if you have a slow reaction time, you will simply never be able to out aim a pro in CS or VALORANT, and they will always have a slight edge.

Indeed, there is some evidence that shows that you can improve reaction time by constantly practicing. Many different factors, such as sleep quality, also affect reaction time. But practicing can only go so far.

For instance, age is highly correlated to reaction time, which is why most FPS players are incredibly young. Most old players simply retire because the young guys out-aim them significantly. Sure, there are some outliers like the boomer himself, Hiko, from the 100 Thieves VALORANT roster. But you get the point. Note that all these old pros have the all mechanical and knowledge prowess of the game and used to have fast reaction times in their primes. However, just because their reaction time is getting slightly worse, their careers soon fall out. What about normal people like us? Well if you are currently having 290ms reaction time, you will most likely never be a pro FPS player. You can train every day to get 250ms, but you’ll probably lose out on time at this point.

However, the argument of reaction time is often flawed as it we cannot measure how impactful the 50ms difference of reaction time plays out in a game. As we have previously seen, ShahZaM thinks that reaction time rarely makes a difference. But again, it is not easy to quantify, prove, or disprove all of these hypotheses.

Pro Siblings

A prevalent argument to “prove” the effects of genetics in gaming is the prevalence of professional player siblings in esports. Indeed, there is a fair share of pro siblings that may be can attune to the fact some families simply have innate gaming genes. In DotA 2, we have SumaiL and YawaR. In CS:GO, we have Freakazoid and Cooper. We also got ScreaM and Nivera, who recently reunited in Team Liquid’s VALORANT roster. These are just some famous examples of siblings who were able to thrive in the esports scene. In truth, however, the list is incredibly long. Therefore, there must be some genetics that runs in the bloodline of these pros that causes their whole family to be good at gaming.

Does Practice make Perfect?

Obviously, when we constantly train, we will eventually get better. Some may even argue that we can practice up to the point where we exceed or be up to par with talented individuals. However, this is not always the case. As Steel previously puts it: skill = practice + talent. Yes, you can practice for 10 hours a day, but talented players can perhaps have the same or better results with 2 hours. If you force the same talented individual to practice 10 hours a day, they will undoubtedly surpass the normal person.

But again, this means that there is still some hope for untalented individuals to shine or perhaps go pro. However, they need to carefully select their games and suspend the mindset that “you can be anything” or “hardwork beats talent” mentality. If you aren’t good at something, realize it sooner and find another game that might be more suited for you.

On the other side of the coin, there is also the assumption that everyone has the same skill ceiling. Therefore, given enough time, you can be a pro. At some point in a pro player’s career, they will reach their peak (also referred to as skill ceiling) and not be able to improve anymore. Some players reach their skill ceiling in 2 years, while it may 5 years for others due to the difference in natural talent. As a result, the 3 years headstart would not really matter in the end since both individuals end up being a pro.

The other skills required to be pro

It’s safe to say that going pro is not all about being cracked or mastering the game mechanics. If you can’t work with other people, you will never make it to pro play. Comms and teamwork can be more beneficial skills to have at the pro level than you might think. Sure, you need the master the fundamental mechanics, but fostering your team is also equally important. After all, most esports out there are team-based games. Most orgs will pick up team players than cocky individuals. These communication skills might be somewhat genetic since they are tied to our personalities, but they can still be trained or learned regardless.

Accessibility and Early Exposure to Gaming

It goes without saying that a majority of the pros out there were able to reach their peak because they start playing at an early age. If you have ever watched an interview that asks pros how they get started with gaming, most of them have the same cliche answer: parents have a computer lying around in the house and maybe have an older sibling that introduces them to games. Simply put, being able to learn the basic mechanics and the grand logic behind all games from a very young age will, without a doubt, help you mold into a skilled gamer in the future.

We can prove this point by observing the unfortunate lack of PC-esports pros in the SEA region. If you didn’t know, most of the countries in SEA are not classified as first-world and a majority of the children do not have access to PCs. Instead of conveniently playing games in their homes, they have to scramble their way to the nearest internet cafe and use their lunch money to play games. Even so, they only have access to mediocre quality PCs, keyboards, and mouse. Don’t even get me started with the internet stability that Pinoys refer to as peso net or cheap internet. And no, I am not making this up because I experience all of this first-hand.

To recap, most SEA players need to run to an internet cafe to play and have underperforming PCs, setups, and internet. With all of this information, do you really think that there is any viable competitive opportunity to arise in local communities? Do you think that young talents in this environment can be nurtured to be the best in the world? Maybe, but it is highly unlikely. Therefore, having easy or constant access to gaming at a very young age is key to planting the seeds of greatness as an esports pro and is outside of what we define as being part of genetics.

Environment and Culture

Tying closely to the previous point, the environment in which are brought up can also affect the development of our gaming mindset (not necessarily skill). Take the example of the pro siblings. We previously discounted our reason for the prevalence of pro siblings in esports as genetics. However, it could also be argued that having brothers or sisters who love playing games can form a competitive environment that fosters the growth of skill. If your siblings continuously trash you at CS, you’ll probably start to watch tips and tricks on YouTube and train your aim in the hopes of getting revenge. This back-and-forth sibling rivalry is perhaps what causes players like SumaiL and YawaR to be an expert in their craft instead of merely concluding that Dota 2 runs in their family’s genes.

Culture also plays a part in affecting our environment and growth as a gamer. Each major culture in the world has its own unique view when it comes to gaming and esports. Most European parents might have less of a problem when their child says that they will play games for a living. In contrast, children discussing their dream of becoming an esports professional might not have the same amount of luck when confronting the stricter perspective of Asian parents and culture. And no, I am not being stereotypical. Take a look at the different approaches Denmark takes towards gaming in contrast to China. While Denmark is constructing esports schools to cultivate their young potential talents, China is limiting children under 18 to play only three hours a week.

I, myself, have experienced a fair share of conventional Asian views towards gaming. I was constantly told that gaming is bad for the brain, that it is addicting, has no future, and whatnot. As a result, I never strive to seek a career as a pro player and became an esports writer. Close enough, I guess.

Conclusion

So, is it genetics? Well, for now, no one couldn’t say for sure. There are several pieces of evidence and aspects in our genes that may play a part in our gaming skills. After all, each of us is born unique, making it very likely that some of us are just inherently better at gaming. Faster reaction time, hand-eye coordination, and decision-making are all key genetically ingrained skills to have as a pro.

However, it is not easy to determine the genetics will make a difference when competing at the highest level. Are milliseconds of faster reaction time going to be the game-changer in a match? Furthermore, many other elements affect our journey and outcome as a player, such as our environment, accessibility to gaming hardware, and mindset. Even if we are born with all the traits of being a skilled gamer, we will never be a pro if we are not brought up to be a pro.

Until there is a scientific breakthrough in this matter, whether or not you think that some people are built differently for gaming is up to you to decide. I personally think that genetics will always play some part in everything we do in life. However, it is always in our power to cultivate, train, and use our talents for the better.

Featured Image: Freepik