My Story As A Recovered Alpha Gamer

No one likes alpha gamers. As a former alpha gamer myself, even I didn’t like alpha gaming. Eventually, I recovered and became a better gamer for it. This is my story as a recovered alpha gamer.

My story as a recovered alpha gamer mostly takes place in the realm of video games where I made other people miserable if I was going to lose. This also translated to board games a bit too, but eventually I’d been called out enough and had enough bad memories of alpha gaming that I was able to move past it and be better for it.

What Is An Alpha Gamer?

As always, I want to start any alpha gamer article with a clear definition of an alpha gamer. So, here’s what that is: an alpha gamer is someone who tries to dominate a game, whether that’s through telling others what to do, manipulating them, or other tactics. 

Feel free to use this definition or to use another one in its place. 

My Story As An Alpha Gamer With My Younger Brother

My story as an alpha gamer begins when I was a child, specifically when I started playing video games. It could have begun before that, but this is when I specifically remember exhibiting some alpha gamer tendencies. 

The most powerful (and painful) one that still sticks with me to this day is when I was playing NFL Gameday ‘99 with my younger brother. Funny story, we weren’t even a huge NFL family. We watched the Super Bowl, but that was it. However, my younger brother and I loved playing this game on the original PlayStation. 

But I was a huge sore loser back then, and that really came to light in this one particular game. That’s because my brother was returning a kickoff, and he was about to run from one end zone to the other, outmaneuvering my team and me. But as he was about 10 yards away from scoring the touchdown, I angrily reached over and pushed his joystick so his guy would run out of bounds.

He was immediately upset, complaining at me and crying. I started justifying what I was doing, shouting him down. 

We stopped playing, and both left upset. Only one of us had the right to be, though.

I’ve often looked back on this game and thought what a wonderful memory it could’ve been. In other universes, my younger brother scored that touchdown, and I was strong enough to let him, to congratulate him. After all, what’s wrong with being the second party to a great moment? Someone has to be there, so it might as well be you. 

My Story As An Alpha Gamer With My Best Friend

My stories with video games and alpha gaming unfortunately don’t end there, though. In fact, because of my alpha gaming tendencies, I almost lost my best friend. 

We often went to his house to play video games in his far too-cold and far too-dark basement, but I’d do that all over again if I could. There’s just something about heading to a friend’s house and hanging out in their grungy, poorly lit, and poorly conditioned basement that appeals to me. It’s part of why I love That ’70s Show so much. 

Anyway, we often played games such as Smash Bros Brawl because we both liked them, but there was unfortunately a decent chance I would get frustrated, complain, and be a sore loser. On that particular night, I’m not sure what happened to lead to all of that, but we started arguing, and we very nearly ended the friendship right there.

By the way, this was when we were in college. He apologized to me even though he didn’t have to, and my respond via message was, “Stuff happens.” I’ve thought about that a lot since then, wondering why I didn’t say more. I’ve also never taken for granted that he didn’t just decide to leave me behind as a friend right then and there.

My best friend is amazing, and I’m grateful to have him in my life. I’ve also apologized many times since that incident to the point that he told me to stop and to move on from the past. 

Like I said, he’s amazing.

My Story As An Alpha Gamer With A Fellow Competitor

Here’s another alpha gaming video game story! After graduating college, I went to an arcade that was about an hour away from me for a couple of years. There, I met a local fighting game group, and I quickly joined them.

It was a lot of fun, but my alpha gaming tendencies were still there, leading me to make some bad choices. The one that stands out the most was after losing to another player. We both stood up, as was common to do, and we both shook hands, as was also common to do. 

However, what wasn’t common to do, and what I shouldn’t have done, was shaking his hand so vigorously out of anger that his arm slammed against the top of a chair. He later got in my face about it, as he should have, and I waved him off like a jerk. Some part of me heard him, though, and I went and found him later and apologized, making no excuses for my actions.

He forgave me, but I was so upset that as I left, I started crying.

That was a turning point in my alpha gaming life. I’d almost hurt someone. Heck, maybe I did hurt them, and they never told me. Even if I didn’t, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that I almost did, and it never should’ve gotten to that point.

From that point on, I stopped.

My Story As An Alpha Gamer With Board Games

You may be wondering why I’m writing so much about video games. That’s because that’s where my alpha gaming reared its ugly head the most. However, it did show up in board games too. Sometimes I would take control of the decisions we made in cooperative games. Sometimes I would complain about losing or what other players were doing.

And sometimes I just made people miserable. This especially happened when we played Magic: The Gathering. I even lost a friend that way.

But thankfully, by the time I really got involved with board games, I had largely transformed my alpha gaming tendencies into better tendencies. And don’t get me wrong on this; I still lead in board games, and I still suggest what others should do, but I do it with a much higher level of awareness of what I’m doing and respect for their right to do what they want in a game.

In fact, I may still be an alpha gamer, but in the sense that I’m protecting the game experience from the past, ensuring everyone has a good time.

My Story As An Alpha Gamer With You

Perhaps this story is similar to your own. Perhaps you’ve never been an alpha gamer at all. Either way, I hope you can use my story in some way to help you through your own, whether that’s just being aware alpha gamers exist or being able to help someone who is. 

I’ve given tips in the past about how to deal with alpha gamers or how to stop being one, so I won’t go too in-depth on those here, but I do want to say a couple of things.

A Couple Of Thoughts

One of those things is that alpha gaming tendencies don’t really go away. This is similar to being tempted to buy things. You might get a better handle on it, but part of transforming the way you do things is recognizing what’s inside of you, accepting it, acknowledging it, but not fighting it or pretending it’s gone. 

The fact is that alpha gaming will always be a part of me. That’s part of what makes me who I am, but it doesn’t have to be at the forefront of who I am. I once read an analogy someone made about how they handled fear. They said it was like having a backseat driver. The backseat driver could say whatever they wanted, and the person would tell their fear that they heard them, but they were going to keep driving the way they wanted.

That’s what I do with my alpha gaming now. I stay aware of it, acknowledge it’s a part of me, but I’m the one driving.

Plus, I’ve had so much more fun with board games, video games, and life in general. When I opened myself to how many different ways there are to experience these things and enjoy them, I started to. And you can do the same thing.

Did You Know?

(Each time you refresh the page you will get a new “Did You Know” fact!)

Did you know Clue has been published in a lot of other countries? Because of this, there was a strong need to translate the game into other languages. For example, Cantonese, French, German, and Italian.

Pretty cool, huh? Clue is an interesting game because it sits between what we would call a language-dependent game and a language-independent game.

Not sure what I’m talking about? Take a look at this article about board games being published in other languages!

Conclusion: My Story As A Recovered Alpha Gamer

So, that’s my story as a recovered alpha gamer. I’m glad to be past that phase of my life, and I hope if you’re also an alpha gamer, you can join me in this next phase soon too. Thanks for reading!

On that note, what’s your story as an alpha gamer? Let me know in the comments below!

And, as always, keep on gaming, fellow board gamers.