Playing for fun vs. Playing to win

While we usually have a little bit of each in us, I've noticed that there are really two types of gamers: those that play primarily just to have fun, and those who play more competitively to win.

This was really brought to the forefront when we started attending a board game event with many people we had not played with before.  While we appreciate trying to win, we are mostly in it for fun.  However, we played with some people that cared so much about winning games that they made game playing negative for us.  It was the little things, like not willing to count an extra point because someone felt that rule hadn't been adequately explained to them (mind you, this was at the end of the game and the person was already up about 40 points - counting that one point would not have made any difference).  It's people who use psychological mind tricks to try and get inside your head to affect your strategy - not so cool when I'm playing a game for the first time and still learning.  And it's people that go so far as to almost cheat, like when at the end of the game they find an extra card in the box that wasn't used and decide to add it back in, even though knowing how many cards are left affects the entire gameplay.

And to be completely honest, it's been these experiences that have made me less excited about writing this blog.  If the majority of game players are so crazy competitive, I know they'll scrutinize our reviews and probably won't agree with a lot of what we say because our focuses are different.

I still absolutely love playing board games.  I've just learned that it's better with certain types of people.  Please assure me that those of you who love to play for the fun of it are still out there!  And if you are, let's try to play together sometime :)