Should Pro Gamers Avoid GTA IV?

Posted by: OpTiMuSNY

Unless you’ve been living under a rock or detained at Guantanamo Bay for the last several months, you probably know that Grand Theft Auto IV was recently released. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out the possibility that GTAIV will, in all likelihood, end up being the highest selling game this generation or perhaps even the highest selling game ever. Grand Theft Auto is one of the game industry’s biggest franchises both in terms of critical acclaim and sales figures. Whenever news starts circulating about something as monumental as the next Grand Theft Auto game or any of the other well known, industry juggernauts such as Metal Gear Solid, Halo or even Resident Evil, it compels gamers of all types to start paying attention and this heightened interest that surrounds a big release usually translates into incredible sales figures. We know that professional gamers are guaranteed to be among the millions of gamers who have already purchased a copy of Grand Theft Auto 4 and we know that they will be among those millions who have not, as of this moment, made a purchase, but plan to do so in the near future. I’m sure the same would hold true for pretty much any other big game release, but for a professional gamer who is expected to dedicate a large amount of their time to being as good as possible at one game in particular, one might start to wonder whether it’s a wise decision to invest time into these other games which are known to be highly addicting?


The way I see it is that, professional gamers, despite the fact that they are expected to maximize their abilities in one specific game, must play other games. Just as they need to play whatever game it is that they specialize in on a professional capacity, they need to also play something like Grand Theft Auto 4, or Metal Gear Solid 4. Not necessarily those 2 games in particular, but pretty much whatever else they enjoy playing that isn’t their professional game of choice, as a way of ensuring they don’t grow too tired of the game they play professionally. Sometimes it isn’t even as simple as a professional gamer is becoming tired of the game they play professionally, but there are just some days where things simply aren’t going the way you’d like to them to regardless of what you are trying to do or you find yourself feeling a lot more on edge while playing than you should be. In such situations, it is always good to take a load off with a different game every now and then because it’s a good way to relax for any gamer whether they play games as a hobby or they do so on a professional level. If anything, I’d say taking the time to play a different game is most effective because it allows the professional gamer to get away from their job, so to speak, without entirely abandoning what is clearly a preferred activity in gaming.


Also, I don’t know if I’m the only person to have experienced this, and I really doubt that I am, but does anyone else notice that they tend to be noticeably better at a specific game particularly after they’ve taken a small break playing something else? I’m not trying to say that the best kind of practice is no practice at all, because then I can only imagine all the trouble pro-gamers would end up landing themselves in were they to ever actually believe they could get away with such a thing. It definitely helps to take a break and play something else, but overdoing it to the point of completely ignoring the game you are required to play professionally would be counter-productive. I know it might not entirely make sense to some at first that the thought of a bit of time not practicing to get better at Game A, but opting to play Game B in its place can yield benefits to your performance in Game A, but even taking into consideration that the results might be different from person to person, there is definitely some truth to it.


To call on an example from my own gaming experiences, I actually found that when I was playing World of Warcraft it made me better at Counter-Strike and now that I’m pretty much playing GTA4 and pretty much everything else far more than I do Counter-Strike, I feel my play in Counter-Strike might the best it’s ever been. Sure there are things that I need get back use to after not playing for quite some time, but in general the skill is all there. Maybe now I might just be able to finally give Kyle a run for his money with the AWP. Okay… maybe I’m not quite there yet, but one of these days!


If you think about it, this is actually slightly touching on something else I mentioned previously about the importance of always remembering to have fun. Having the ability to take some time away from one game by playing something different is an essential aspect of helping to keep the fun in gaming. Then again, as it relates to Counter-Strike there are other things that help to keep it fun such as the strategy involved and the highly competitive nature of the game.


Even though there are certain games people can always come back to that are able to provide years worth of value to a gamer, newer game releases are essential to keeping the fun in not just professional gaming, but gaming in general. What other reason is there to explain how gaming continues to grow at the pace that it is or why else do you think professional gaming and the awareness of professional gaming is growing larger as opposed to smaller? It’s the games. It has always been about the games. If the release of newer games were to suddenly stall, I believe that, overtime, the implications of such a thing would be that the interest in professional gaming and gaming itself would be greatly diminished. I can firmly say there is no other game that has given me more mileage than Counter-Strike has over these many years, but at the same time, I can also confidently say that had it also been the last videogame to ever release, there is a 95% chance that I wouldn’t be a gamer currently. Regardless of how much I loved the game or how much more I played it than anything else there is just too much comfort that comes from knowing that at any given moment something newer, something more exciting and, better yet, unexpected could come along. That’s a big part of the reason why I believe so many people continue to play games. Not entirely for the here and now in the world of videogames, but to an important degree it is also for the excitement surrounding the prospect of whatever that next big thing may be. We always know it's coming


If we look at what many game developers are doing today we’ll see that the inclusion of a serious multiplayer component is looking more and more like a growing trend that is only going to become even bigger with time. Competitive gaming, whether it’s just something you enjoy doing in your spare time or it’s something more serious on the level of what is common for a CGS competitor, we can see that it’s really coming to the forefront like it never has before in this latest console generation. Consoles with advanced networking capabilities like the Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 are becoming the norm and it’s only going to become more prevalent with the next generation of consoles. Games that previously never had a truly competitive component are now swiftly hopping onto the bandwagon, but it goes without saying that some are clearly doing it better than others. Then again, this is to be expected because the quality gap that exists between various developers will cause these things to continue happening. Rockstar, for example, took their chances with GTAIV’s multiplayer component and completely hit it out of the park and while I’m still not completely sold on how good Metal Gear Online will be, here’s hoping that I will be just as pleasantly surprised as I was with GTA IV’s multi-player component.


Game franchises like GTA and Metal Gear Solid adopting strong competitive components like what we are seeing now only serve as a testament to the growth of the competitive gaming community. It is a real sign that competitive play is being recognized to the point that even games such as these that just about everyone knows would be insanely successful regardless of whether or not they contained a serious competitive component, still saw their creators put in all the extra work to bring their creations into what is basically uncharted territory. All this extra work isn’t the kind of thing that either Kojima Productions or Rockstar North would’ve done if they didn’t truly feel that it was all worth the effort. Even if turns out that neither game should ever make its way into the professional gaming arena, they will still have served a very important purpose. Franchises like Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto are legends in our industry. These games just like all the other games serve a very just cause in bringing not only gaming, but professional gaming as well, further into the forefront. It isn’t even solely the games that contain a competitive component that accomplish this, but every single new game of interest that releases. From the heavily story driven Japanese RPG to numerous other games where a multiplayer component simply doesn’t seem to, at first glance, make much sense at all. They all play a very vital role. As addicting as some of these big games may be and as great a departure from whatever game a pro-gamer plays professionally they may represent, these are games that should be embraced by the entire gaming community.


It may sometimes appear all too easy for those who play games professionally to lose sight of the importance of these games. One may think that what it all boils down to is that the release of Grand Theft Auto IV has absolutely nothing to do with the game I play professionally and as such doesn’t affect me one way or the other. Well, what I believe is that the release has far more to do with the CGS and professional gaming as a whole than most will probably ever come to realize. I don’t believe the CGS exists solely because an organization decided to bet big on professional gaming and I don’t believe that professional gaming exists solely because a bunch of gamers decided to bet big on the possibility that they could one day make money doing it. In fact, I don’t think either bet, in isolation, are particularly safe bets to begin with. What everyone was really betting on was the incredible growth potential of the games industry. The more the videogame industry grows, the more possible the ultimate goal of the Championship Gaming Series and aspiring professional gamers will become. The release of Grand Theft Auto IV will send a shot of adrenaline into an already rapidly growing games industry that perhaps won’t be properly understood for some time to come, but we will begin to see the early results of this come the release of the April NPD data in the approaching days. So why exactly would pro-gamers wish to avoid something that will end up proving so beneficial in propping up the entire industry and along with it professional gaming as well? We should all be aware of the fact now that whatever is beneficial to the game industry is also just as beneficial to the world of professional gaming so don’t forget to do your part, but do try to control yourselves in the process. I know how addicting it can be from firsthand experience. What was my longest GTA IV gaming session? I won’t say, but I might possibly hold the world record as of this moment.