We held our
birthday barbeque party for SgDotNet last night without much fanfare other than the entire group incredibly voicing out a birthday song in public targetted at
no one. This has to be a first for me.
Anyway, in the course of cooking and eating and roaming round the circular pit, a bunch of us got into a conversation about Xbox gaming and Halo (2), a particular topic of significant interest for NetAssist's Net Assassins clan and Howard, our regional MVP Lead. Amidst all the talk about controller devices (I am a staunch keyboard/mouse gamer) and gaming experiences, the issue of updates to prevent cheating exploits came along. One particular technique that really caught me by my heels was the physical modification of the cable modem or network adapter to upset its data packet delivery to the game server.
Wow.
I dunno about you, but to put in
that amount of effort so that you can cheat and beat your opponents..... I feel that is incredibly sad. "They don't care; they wanna win; they feel good!", was a comment. Perhaps proof that self esteem (and self deception) knows no lower bounds.
Which actually reminds me of one of Jesus' teachings.
Matthew 6:1-2:Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
So When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.
In case you get confused, do not be misled by the citing of the passage; I know Jesus was directly addressing the issue of pride - seeking the praise of men. And we know cheaters don't have alot of audience in their living rooms to boast to anyway, unless cheered on by their parents (doubly sad if that's the true case). Well, 50 points for them attaining first place - I hope they spend it well.
What I want to highlight is the secondary message in Jesus' theme: what you identify and target as the
reward for your actions. By large, people (at least the mature ones) gather online and compete against one another for the communal experience - you're not playing alone. To have
fun with, not hate and curse, each other. Winning or losing, is really a secondary issue. But for those who have their eyes solely focused at winning, their vision tunneled into a fine stream of a laser that blinds them of all other experiences online gaming has to offer, their reward is of a different object altogether.
The moral? Different people see and chase different rewards in same situations. For many cases in life, that is perfectly alright for individuals to find their own sense of joy and delight. But
again in many cases (as with Jesus' references), people quite often choose the reward that is rather meaningless and worthless.