If there’s one thing that game fans cannot tolerate it’s being fake about videogames. They’ll roll their eyes at the next celebrity trying to fake their credentials while promoting their appearance in a videogame, they’ll doubt any one claiming to have skill without having proven it online or on-stream and they most certainly will scrutinize your Elden Ring build.
Which is why there really is no reason to pretend to be good at videogames, because gamers will always find out.
Just this week, a certain wealthy person of fame had the ignominy of being revealed to be an utter gamer sham. After being unable to prove their accomplishments in Diablo IV were their own, and being unable to demonstrate they knew how to play their high level Path of Exile 2 character, they admitted that yes, they hire other people to level up their avatars.
It’s not necessary to say who this was, but it was genuinely weird to behold, because I and many others in my circles do not understand the point of pretending to be good at a videogame.
Like, there are many other things to lie and cheat and steal for, but videogames? Really? Trying to convince people you are good at something you’re not? Whether you’re paying other people max out your accounts for you and take your place at the mouse and keyboard, or you’re fibbing about your place on the global leaderboards, it’s all low key kind of pathetic.
Now, pretending to be good at a videogame shouldn’t be conflated with cheating at games. Cheating is a way to ‘win’ at videogames, but pretending is about convincing people you have. And you know what? I can understand cheating.
See, people cheat at games for different reasons. Some people want to have access to the power fantasy of being invulnerable and having every weapon in the game. Some people do it because they’re fed up and want to see a game’s ending without having to bash their head against a boss they’re not optimized for. Some people go so far as to endanger their account by cheating online to stomp on other players.
I don’t doubt people who say they’re big into videogames. Certainly, the world’s busiest celebrities probably don’t have the game time they wish they had. Timothee Chalamet can’t exactly mod Xbox controllers when he’s on a worldwide press tour to promote a movie, and Ice-T’s commitments to the 26th season of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit probably limit his time for Civilization 6.
But for certain well known billionaires, what’s the point? They have power at the companies they run, the ear of political figures, the ability to display offensive hand gestures on live television. I guess money can buy you a lot of things but it can’t buy you self-esteem. How else to explain the desire to be seen as the God Emperor of Vijamagames despite all of the above?
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with loving video games and being mediocre to terrible at them. Many successful gaming personalities on Twitch do not measure up to the biggest esports champions. That’s wild, because for decades being “good at videogames” was seen as the stuff of losers but now we are in an era where being good at games is consider by some a mark of intelligence and savvy.
So I guess maybe, somehow wealthy persons of fame want to convince us that their super awesome Path of Exile 2 character or World of Warcraft account is testament to their prodigious mental powers.
But the thing is the whole being a super genius equals elite gamer and vice versa thing is an utter fallacy. You can be a brilliant engineer and still can’t be trusted behind the wheel of car. You can be a talented athlete yet not know how to dance. I know people who can guide my entire squad through dungeons and ruins and yet take all the wrong directions that get us lost on a long drive.
So here’s my guess as to why someone wants to let everyone know they’re king shit at videogames. They want to let people know how much skill they have in acquiring power and in-game privileges without working for it, and they don’t understand what’s wrong with claiming to accomplish something they never did.
