Xbox Live -- The Darker Side.

While playing Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live I noticed a disturbing little trend. Players are given the options of rating the other player at the end of each match. Some of these players are abusing the system in that they're choosing to avoid players who beat them. That wouldn't be so bad if that was all there was to it. But how the current system is set up, being avoided causes your gamer Rep on Xbox Live to take a hit. Not only are you running away, but you're actively damaging the victor's Rep for nothing more than defeating you. To me this is the very picture of being a pussy. I could maybe understand if the matchmaking service for the game was entirely broken and top tier players were being matched up against people in their first game online. But that isn't so. The game's matchmaking seems to be better than most in pairing up opponents of similar levels. I'm sure for some of them, they feel that the players they're blocking are being cheesy. That is to say, they're doing something cheap or underhanded or undignified. Although that last one is rather a stretch given the nature of the average player. The concept of cheese as it is seen by the average player is very silly. Players can't figure out how to defeat a particular attack to the point where they label it as cheap or cheesy. Suddenly only bad players use the move. It's the very worst form of bullying peer pressure and remarkably it can grow and spread and take a foothold within the gaming community. The reality of the situation is that anything in the game that isn't accessed by cheating, or a glitch, or some other means outside of just normal play is perfectly acceptable. It's not the fault of the move, the programmer, the opponent, or your mother's dog that you can't figure out how to defeat said move. It's your fault and your fault alone. You're supposed to learn from your losses. This is how you're supposed to grow and better yourself. It's a sad statement about the current state of humanity when most gamers can't accept defeat and that furthermore it's anything but their own lack of the brains and skill needed to overcome whatever it may be. I didn't lose. You cheated! You were cheap! That was such a cheesy move! These people need to accept reality and more importantly grow up. In this case, it's not the system that's flawed, it's the user. The system is sound. It's just that a good portion of the users have no honor.  And thankfully, there is always the private match.