Gaming

PVP vs. PVE. One of the great controversies in gaming right now, thanks to MMORPGs, but it's been there, on the fringes, ever since networkable gaming became something seriously possible a decade ago. Most 'real' gamers seem to lean towards PVP...but there's still a healthy support for PVE, as the popularity of such servers on WoW show. But I've been wondering about the type of person that picks one over the other.

Just a hunch, and I doubt that a statistically realistic survey would ever be made on the subject, but I'm thinking that ones real-life job or occupation has a real impact on it. My reasoning goes something like this: PVPers are likely to be found in jobs that have rather little personal interaction, or, if they do meet with people on a regular basis, it's in a non-competitive basis (they don't need to get ahead of anyone they actually meet with). IT types, for example. These people enjoy the competitive aspect of PVP because they don't have competition with people in real life. They tend to feel more secure in their jobs and positions. Their work may be perfectly intellectually stimulating and enjoyable...but there's that element of hostile personal interaction that's lacking. That's what PVP supplies.

People in more competitive or political jobs (like yours truly, for instance) likely tend towards PVE. This is probably both because of a surefiet of competition in their daily working lives, but also as a means of establishing 100% control over at least a small part of it. Certainly I have no problems admitting that's part of it. When I play a game these days, I don't necessarily WANT challange or competitive stimulation. What I want is either a creative urge (single-player Railroads, or SimCity, or something similar) or an affirming urge (stomping the everlasting shit out of AI). It's less about expanding skills than exercising existing ones in a safe and controlled environment.

Is this just a way to justify being an Internet wuss with a tiny e-peener? Yeah, pretty much. But at least I put some thought into it.

Giant Robots have MASSIVE e-peeners, made of Special Metal Z.