Play to win or play for fun is a false dichotomy. Winning is fun. Everyone wants to win. More specifically everyone likes good competition. So it comes as a surprise to me that you’re not supposed to announce your desire to win. If you do that everyone will team up against you. Why are we like this? Is it perceived arrogance on the part of the competitive player or something else?

@dusnm The difference is in the priorities. Do you plan on increasing/keeping your competetive rank while investing time and focus on training and optimal execution? Or do you want to just fool around, experiment and have fun along the way? Generally winning-only focused players kinda ruin the fun for those playing casually with demands and the other way around with what would seem an incompetence.

@albi I'm a competitive player, always have been, ever since I first played Monopoly as a kid. I find the act of winning with an optimal strategy really fun and exciting. Moreover I find defeating strong opponents more fun than beating a first-timer, so if it's a game I care about I'll invest time into teaching my friends my optimal strategy so that we can somewhat level the playing field. Simply put, I love competition and don't try to hide it.

@albi Now, there have been times where I've butted heads with people over trying to change the rules of games to make them "more fun", while all that does is throwing them off-balance and unnecessarily prolongs the play time. Monopoly is a prime example of this. Nobody seems to know the actual rules. 😂

@dusnm and there are people who just like to play the game and enjoy the company, no matter the outcome 🙂 like going outside but not anywhere specific or playing music without recording

@mobiuscog I'm mostly talking about board and card games here, I forgot to mention that. They're kind of designed to be competitive. It's possible to be good at them, to formulate a strategy, to constantly improve your score, but some people think this detracts from the "fun". But, fun is subjective. I find it very fun to win and to get better and I don't hide it. For some reason, the moment your desire to win becomes known, the others will team up, hellbent to make you lose. 😅