I heard stories from a pinball league friend who also has played competitive console games that the players in those competitions are quick to accuse opponents of cheating rather than accept defeat/failure. He said that this is ridiculous because they’re all using the same software and identical hardware, unlike pinball where there is some randomness involved.
Myself, I’m much more comfortable in competitions where people assume a basic level of respect for their opponents. In rock climbing gyms, everyone works together to figure out how to accomplish a certain route, and even in competitions we would offer suggestions and tips, and cheer for each other when we succeed. Pinball seems a lot like that, especially among the A division players - they seem to think that they’re all playing against the machine, less so against each other. (Of course, I don’t compete at that level so it’s possible I’m missing things! But I’ve watched top 100 players openly discussing strategy and the feeds on the machine while in line to play a PAPA classics machine, and that’s more than I’d be willing to give away if you’re not my good friend!)
At my level, I’m not as generous with tips for pinball when I’m competing head to head. My skills aren’t that great compared to the rest of the field, so if I can get an advantage by learning more about the machine than you, I want that advantage! As others have said, I’ll outline the rules of the machine and what things do, knowing that that isn’t always helpful. After we’re done I’ll probably teach you more! I also don’t expect others to give up their beta when I’m trying to beat them, I ask afterward what they did, and then we can hang out and talk pinball and that’s fun. Win win!
So a competitive gamer, David Sirlin, wrote an ebook about playing competitive games. He has a whole section on Scrubs (those who say others are cheating). http://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win
I think it gives good insight into that sort of gaming culture. For whatever reason, competitive pinball doesn’t seem to have that. If you want to hit that center ramp 100 times in a row, go for it. (Though you do hear some people in threads talk about how people who trap up are boring, so maybe it’s just buried a little deeper?)
I really liked his book a lot, though much of it is specific to gaming there are a bunch of things that are universal in competition.
There actually ARE a great deal of things in most competitive video games that can be considered as cheating, most notably bugs and glitches. I know this same issue pops up in pinball as well, though it seems that game-breaking bugs and glitches in pinball get the machine removed from competitions, rather than in console and PC gaming where they prohibit players from using those things.
Furthermore, what is considered illegal in one competition might be legal in another. For instance, there is no real consensus as to how many times a player may grab a ledge in a Smash Bros. game before they are given a warning.
I was going to talk about David Sirlin in some detail, but I was beaten to that, so I’ll say this: Sirlin is a divisive figure among gamers, but it only means that his “Playing to Win” mindset was pretty impactful. You have a lot of these players who take his philosophy to its logical limit, Playing to Win and Nothing Else, and they will behave antisocially because, well, they’re antisocial people who don’t think that politeness helps them win.
But I would say the biggest thing is that console and PC gamers in competitions tend to be much younger than pinball players in competitions, and hence console and PC gamers, on average, are a less mature, more aggressive bunch. They grew up on a culture of toxic and sociopathic behavior quite similar to the schoolyard, more so in modern times because they grew up on the Internet, where GIFT is in full force.
It’s probably the psychological effect of direct vs indirect competition. Pinball is an indirect competition sport like a long jump or high jump, whereas a fighting game is a direct competition or conflict sport like boxing, where performing well means actually preventing your opponent from performing his action.
This is I think what induces the “angry” competitive factor. When I shoot the center ramp on Star Wars 100 times, it may be “cheap”, but my opponent just sees my score going up, not theirs going down, and my making of that ramp doesn’t stop them from making their Super Jackpot or whatever shot they want to shoot.
Whereas if I crouch in the corner and spam a sweep kick that prevents them from doing their Dragon Punch, that is more likely to induce the anger that accompanies frustration.
Please note this doesn’t make direct conflict sports and their culture “bad”, just different. Because under all the trash talk and posturing, is a bunch of people having fun, and “the bantz” is part of that fun.
Cheating is definitely possible in pinball. Things like holding balls in a shooter lane during mb or racking up jackpots while a ball is stuck are just a couple of the more common unacceptable “cheats” that can occur.
I was one of the officials at Pinburgh in 2014, and I was surprised of how much unethical stuff was going on. One example that comes to mind was when a player on Judge Dredd claimed that the game had auto plunged his ball and that the ball drained shortly thereafter, while the player allegedly was far from the game. With the information given at the time, the ruling was to give the player another ball.
Later, his opponents told me that the player in question was in fact by the machine whacking away at the flipper buttons (which launched his ball). Too bad they didn’t volunteer this information a little earlier. There could have been an intimidation factor at play here.
Someone should start a TD school. They could hire ************* to show every shenanigan a player could possibly try (including stealing show t-shirts). Much like software companies hiring hackers to bulletproof their system.
******* doesn’t cheat any more because we won’t let him. All the cheats listed above can be seen. Don’t let people cheat you. If it’s a noob, gently remind them what they should do (cradle up or knock ball loose/launch ball). If it’s a veteran, tell them to LAUNCH THE DAMB BALL OR I’LL CALL A TD OVER!!! No excuses. Let them know. If it’s after the fact, let a TD know discretely so they can keep an eye on the suspect.
For the record, I consider **** a friend. I wouldn’t trust him to hold a cradled ball for me, but he is my friend. There is no one else that I know of in competive pinball even remotely like *****. He is definitely the exception.
In cases like this, some distance can help: giving each player the independent opportunity to discuss what they saw. But, a lot of times the situation seems cut-and-dry so a TD doesn’t seek a high level of detailed info. There are also probably some situations the TDs don’t even know about, where a player pushes an incorrect or advantageous ruling without getting a TD involved.
We tried to say that if people were unsure of anything, then calling for a TD is the right way to go. But it probably still happened. There’s not much that can be done except to give everyone clear information about the rules and rulings that will occur.
That’s a good point, and I should look into that more, if indirect games cause less tension and anger than direct games.
That being said, I think it’s worth mentioning that the people at the very top of every video game I’ve watched a competition for are a civil bunch. They know they’re the best, and that makes them at ease. The aggressive, angry, loud ones are the ones right below that, or even further. This is what I’ve noticed for Pokémon (the video games–the card game is totally different), for League of Legends, for Street Fighter IV, for Smash Bros., and anything else that can come to mind. They’re the ones who want to be a master but can’t seem to muster up the skill to defeat one. While no major competitions have taken place, I’m already seeing this strata emerge for Splatoon, which had just come out about three months ago. (Knowing this kind of abusive behavior can happen, Nintendo created that shooter without voice chat.)
They won’t necessarily want to teach a beginner new things though. But definitely stuff like smurfing is highly frowned upon in pretty much every case. (Smurfing refers to an experienced player deliberately looking for beginners to defeat.)
I should look into video games whose competition is indirect to see if there is greater peace among them. Stuff like most falling-blocks puzzle games, racing games (except kart racers), speedrun competitions (where players are asked to complete something in a single-player mode as quickly as possible), and rhythm games.
This is the most common form of cheating I’ve seen and it’s the hardest to combat. It can go something like this:
Game was moved a lot by the players on the previous game. Experienced cheater walks up as player one on the following game. Immediately makes a small move and the game tilts.
CHEATER: Game obviously malfunctioned. We need to restart the game
ROOKIE: Shouldn’t we get a TD over to look at it?
CHEATER: Nah, they’re all busy. I’ve played for years and know what the ruling will be
ROOKIE: Okay, I guess you’re right…
It’s very easy for a rookie to feel intimidated or make them feel like they are causing an unnecessary delay to the tournament. We try at all local tournaments to a) have many officials available (typically 3 for a 25 person tournament) and b) encourage everyone to call over a TD for any reason.
It’s very hard to convince rookies that it’s a good thing to call over a TD for a ruling and that they are not causing problems by doing so. If anyone has any tips for how to encourage rookies I’m all ears. I often only hear about problems after the tournament ends and everyone is sharing war stories (“I had the worst luck again X on game Y. We had to restart the game even though I was ahead and I lost the second game”).
Let’s just leave his name out of it. We can have a discussion about how to prevent cheating at tournaments without making it about any individual player.
Would you agree that he’s a huge exception Echa? Can you think of anyone even close to ‘him’? 7 million plus people, 600+ pins on location, tons of tournaments and only one ‘this guy’. Whatever he has going on, I’m pretty sure he was born with it and it’s not common at all. In pinball, or anywhere else.
He’s nothing if not quirky. The weird people in the hobby are the people I enjoy the most. This guy makes cheating fun. You normal people suck. d;^p
I think in every local pinball community, no matter how small or how high-profile, there can be people who make tournament life difficult. Echoing @echa (ha!) above, conversations on this board are most productive when they’re useful to a wide swath of players, so let’s keep this a discussion on how to deal with difficult competitors or tournament situations generally rather than calling out specific people.
I took the long way around, but my point was that this guy is about the worst possible kind of cheater you’re likely to ever see in competitive pinball, yet he’s still allowed to compete. Don’t let people cheat you. That’s my point.
We have a local guy who is thankfully not as active in tourneys and league as he used to be. He has a serious screw loose when it comes to whether or not a game is level. He always says it’s “leaning to the lower left”. We check the pins and find them to be level and no one else thinks there is a problem, but he will still insist the game is not level. It’s a public location and you can always tell when he’s been screwing with the games because they will lean to the right and you can see that the front legs and severely uneven. It never fails with this guy. Like I said, thankfully he’s not as active as he used to be.
If a player is known to be repeatedly cheating or threatening, it’s reasonable to exclude that player from events. Individual TDs should get to make those decisions, and I believe IFPA has backed these decisions when made.
Yep . . . ***** has definitely been an interesting case for us to deal with, because he’s now being banned from events based on reputation, rather than on his actual actions with that specific tournament director or event.
I’ve had plenty of discussions with ***** regarding the issue of events really being truly “open to all” if someone is being banned ‘in advance’ of an event for prior situations that may have nothing to do with the organizers of the upcoming event.
Ultimately unless we find something completely frivolous we back the TD’s that are putting in the time to run these events. We’re not here to judge some sort of Brady deflategate style ruling as to what constitutes a reasonable reason to ban a player. Certainly this case isn’t completely baseless.
We encourage those to put on their own events as a way to both earn WPPR points for SCS (which is a real issue for * who currently sits in [close to qualifying in his home state - mod edit], but is finding himself on the outside looking in for many events he’s not allowed to play in), but more importantly to give themselves a chance to interact with the player base and try to rebuild that reputation as a ‘good person’ for the hobby/sport.
