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Interesting that in video gaming, there's a derogatory term for people who eschew the "cheap" moves, whereas in tennis, the derogatory term ("pusher") refers to
by jgwil2 5y ago
Interesting that in video gaming, there's a derogatory term for people who eschew the "cheap" moves, whereas in tennis, the derogatory term ("pusher") refers to the players who embrace the "cheap" moves. Pushers are players who run down every ball and hit moonballs and lobs until their opponent gets frustrated and makes an error. There are two reasons, I think, that many tennis players look down on pushers: firstly, because they're no fun to play, and secondly, because they seem to value winning at any cost over refining mastery of the fundamentals. We (non-pushers) tend to think that we have a higher "ceiling" than pushers, even if they are beating us. So maybe it's just a culture difference between tennis players and video game players on what they choose to value. (Of course, there are plenty of tennis players who will acknowledge the tactical soundness and game smarts of pushers too).
- ravitation 5y agoI think Sirlin's definition of a "scrub" is interesting, and certainly useful (in that it describes a type of player that exists), but I wouldn't read too much culturally into that definition. It might have something resembling that meaning in the Street Fighter community (though, as far as I know, it's still way more general than described in this article), but, for video games in general, it is mostly used to mean "just a bad player."
- wing-_-nuts 5y agoI guess it could also refer to hanging out the passenger side of your best friends ride
- dsclough 5y agoThe “pusher” is reminiscent of hungrybox’s jigglypuff in the melee scene and the widespread distaste in the playstyle among other players
- bongcloud420 5y agoThere are a lot of gaming terms. I play a lot of fighting games like street fighter and I think the comparable term to "pusher" would be "masher", as in you're mashing the buttons. Typically used as an insult by someone that just lost to another player that didn't play the way "they should have played".
- nwatson 5y agoIt seems a "pusher" would only get so far with that approach, and their approach isn't compatible with getting to higher tiers of the game. The pusher uses a greedy algorithm to get to a local maximum.
- jgwil2 5y agoThat's true, that's why I say pushers have a lower ceiling. But it takes an awful lot of time, practice, skill and conditioning to get to higher tiers of the game, so even modestly skilled pushers can beat up on a lot of people.
- Jensson 5y agoCheesers are not looked on well in gaming either. Just doing cheap moves over and over will net you a few easy wins but quickly get you to a level where everyone knows how to counter cheese. Scrubs aren't people who don't do cheap moves, scrubs are those who refuse to learn how to beat cheap moves and try to get others to stop doing them. In fact scrubs often do cheap moves and will get angry at you if you perform the counter to his cheap move, calling your counter cheap and instead wanting you to fall for his cheap move. That isn't fun for anyone.
- jgwil2 5y agoSounds like cheeser is a pretty good equivalent to pusher, although it does actually take a pretty high skill level to beat a good pusher in tennis. In that sense they're a good test of your level. Sounds like scrubs are just complainers. A friend of mine who played soccer told me that the least fun teams to play against were those who would just immediately start complaining to the ref about everything.