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Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 26, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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How much are video games about social validation? My intuition is that no would play League of Legends or chess if you only played only against bots, even bots designed as a perfect challenge, and if there were no rankings. Do you think that’s the case?

I feel like the 'solo queue' experience in a 5v5 game is almost perfectly calibrated to give the right ratio of controlling your own destiny and being able to blame your teammates in order to be addictive. If it's 1v1 and you suck, you suck and you get handled and you likely drop the game (Common issue for fighting games). If it's large team v team, it's hard to really get attached to the win/loss element since you're likely not capable of doing enough to single-handedly swing things.