I can't continue to individually argue about the PC vs. iDevice issue because I feel like my points will go majorly overlooked and ignored, however I will leave you guys with one more long and exhausting post on the subject.
iDevice users who pin the PC platform as your excuse to losing to certain sparrers:
I encourage you to read Playing to Win.
I've played several online games competitively and love referring people to this book and the articles on it. Let me just quote a few passages here that directly apply to some things I've read in this thread.
In reference to claiming that using a PC is cheap or unfair:
The scrub has lost the game even before it starts. He's lost the game before he's chosen his character. He's lost the game even before the decision of which game is to be played has been made. His problem? He does not play to win.
The scrub would take great issue with this statement for he usually believes that he is playing to win, but he is bound up by an intricate construct of fictitious rules that prevent him from ever truly competing. These made-up rules vary from game to game, of course, but their character remains constant. In Street Fighter, for example, the scrub labels a wide variety of tactics and situations "cheap." So-called "cheapness" is truly the mantra of the scrub.
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In reference to claiming that the PC is better but (for some reason) not using it:
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A common call of the scrub is to cry that the kind of play in which ones tries to win at all costs is "boring" or "not fun." Let's consider two groups of players: a group of good players and a group of scrubs. The scrubs will play "for fun" and not explore the extremities of the game. They won't find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns. As they play the game more, they'll be forced to find counters to those tactics.
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In reference to the higher-skilled sparring community overcoming these gripes:
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Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the "cheap stuff" and abused it. They know how to stop the cheap stuff. They know how to stop the other guy from stopping it so they can keep doing it. And as is quite common in competitive games, many new tactics will later be discovered that make the original cheap tactic look wholesome and fair.
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When you want to play any game at the highest level (and yes, I know that almost sounds satirical when talking about little ol' Graal), you find a way to win that is within the bounds of what is allowed on the game. When you tell me that I am not as skilled as you
after I beat you by using one of the elements of the game, you are making it painfully clear that:
- You are a scrub
- You do not play to win
- You are ashamed to admit that you were defeated
With that being said, I hope that every PC player who is harassed for choosing to play on their preferred platform is strong-minded enough to never let the scrub get to you. The only way that they can prove that they are more skilled than you is if they beat you.
And I'm done for tonight.