Massively Overthinking: Are ya winning, son?

Let’s talk about winning.

MMORPGs are not supposed to be about having won. There’s no way to finish an MMORPG that never ends. You can’t really beat the game. It just keeps going. You can’t really win.

But you can still be winning. In English, there’s nuance to that participle. It implies ongoing successes, maybe even a lead in a perceived competition that hasn’t ended yet. It’s even become slang for specific (sometimes sarcastic) success.

For this week’s Massively Overthinking, we’re going to talk about winning in MMORPGs – not having won but winning. What constitutes “winning” in MMORPGs? What about for you personally? Does your own standard for “winning” match the standard for “winning” common in MMOs – or do you just not care? Are ya winning, son?

Ben Griggs (@braxwolf): There’s a years-long running joke within EVE Online that when someone has quit the game, they’ve “won EVE.” Maybe there’s a little truth behind that jest. While I prefer the answer that winning is having fun, perhaps the ’80s classic film War Games had it right all along. Maybe the only winning move is not to play!

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna.bsky.social, blog): Growing up in MMORPGs has absolutely changed my feeling on winning, although it’s been more like coming full circle than moving in a straight line. I started out in MMOs doing whatever felt fun but then shifted to letting guilds and game design push me around in pursuit of “winning.” In the last decade, I’ve shifted back from external motivation (“must be seen to be winning,” etc.) to internal motivation (“don’t care if I’m losing; if it’s not fun, I’m not doing it”) when it comes to what I do and care about in MMORPGs.

So now, winning for me is usually about having the character I want to have, who looks the way I want her to look, has gear I personally like, lives in a house I love, makes enough in-game that I can buy stuff without much stress, and has a fighting/crafting/whatever gameloop that entertains my brain, whatever it is. It usually takes me several MMOs to achieve that, but that’s fine. Really, “winning” is when a game experience is so compelling to me that I’m sitting here thinking about it while working all day. That’s what I’m hunting for. The over-designed extrinsic goals just don’t do it for me now. Somebody else’s definition of video game achievement just doesn’t have weight in my self-concept anymore.

Carlo Lacsina (@UltraMudkipEX, YouTube, Twitch): Only 72 people have beaten Black Desert Online. Source: Some guy in the chat at 2 a.m. No, really. There was a discussion about the highest-level gear that can be reached; the idea is that the game has been colloquially “beaten” when all your slots have fully upgraded items. Since it’s so difficult to get there right now, only a few people have “beaten” BDO by that definition. These days, the highest-level gear is so difficult to successfully enhance that only about 72 or so people have even gotten a chance to get the highest level.

Interestingly enough, when I was younger, my dad didn’t allow me to play MMOs. He didn’t like how these games never ended. There’s wisdom in that.

Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): I always feel like “winning” communally means that you’re at the tippy-top end of gear or progression or what have you. Or perhaps it’s being the biggest crafter or industrialist if your game is full of econ PvP. But personally I consider mastering a class or completing some long tail goals the win condition.

Now often those goals do align with being at the end of whatever progression treadmill is currently in-game, but the sense of mastery – over a class or a mechanic or a type of content – is the real finish line for me. Being so familiar with a class that I don’t need to stare at cooldown timers, knowing how to best pilot an internet spaceship, or making it past mile markers en route to a larger end goal are all wins.

Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): I started writing a full answer to this and then realized that it’s a full column’s worth of answer, but Bree told me that if I didn’t write a few sentences she’d throw me in the Eel Tank again, so here’s a short version: The real issue here is that the concept is confusing the concept of “winning” with the concept of “being done,” two things that we know do not have total overlap. It is absolutely to win an MMORPG, it is possible for several people to win the same MMORPG, and if you no longer believe that you can win at your MMORPG, you are probably going to stop playing. It’s just that winning is largely self-defined, regardless of the nature of the game itself, and the means by which you accomplish that is fluid.

Sam Kash (@[email protected]): Winning is fairly nebulous for MMOs. That’s why I lean towards PvP even in my MMOs. I need to know that I’m winning. Go into a fight and win. Or lose. But usually winning. If I’m not winning, then I’m not going to play very much. I’m not a very good loser.

I do really like a good story mode too, and in that case winning is going to just be beating all the quests. Once the story has been completed, then I won and the game is over.

Tyler Edwards (blog): Winning an MMO is when you’re having fun. Simple as that.

As for me personally, I think I feel most like I’m “winning” I’ve got my characters built in a way that feels good. They’ve got a cool outfit that fits their backstory, and a fun build that fits their character concept. They don’t need to have a high item level or anything; they just need to feel like a good expression of the character concept I had in mind for them.

Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!