Beer-Pong Is Boring: An Analysis of "Sports"

A couple days ago I had the pleasure opportunity to observe a South Quad "Beer Pong Tournament" for a couple hours. Naturally I'd seen the game being played a couple times, and also participated myself once in an energy-soda pong game, but I have spent very little time around the game compared to a lot of my contemporaries (I think). Thus the tournament, in which a number of my friends and acquaintances were competing, proved to probably be the most exposure I've had to the sport.

I watched a number of games before eventually leaving. The reason, as evidenced by the post title, was boredom. It was a fundamentally boring game to watch. However,  I began to wonder why exactly I thought this was the case, and began to think of it in terms of other "games" and "sports" I've both played and watched.

The conclusion I've come to from my own self-analysis is that the "game" of beer pong is missing a fundamental element, which I will term for ease of use here "defense." Obviously the game has a skill component comparable to basketball or some similar hand-sport: how often can you get the balls into the cups, especially as the number of targets diminishes. However, when you're not shooting, what are you doing....?

Nothing. That's what.

Most other games have some way to keep you busy when you're not being the active player, the offense, or whatever. In many sports it's literally trying to halt your opponent, steal the ball, block the shot, whatever. In strategy games, this can entail making moves or performing actions that aren't to your benefit, but to prevent something good happening for your opponent. For instance, SC2 you can  micro against an attack, build structures intelligent to hinder attacks, etc. In chess, you must make moves while anticipating what your opponent might do. Even in action games, it's not purely about reflex or mechanical skill: often your approach, the way you position yourself while you shoot, how you choose targets, etc. all have a defensive component (Gears with the cover mechanic being an excellent example).

The point is, most games do not have a period where one side is always not doing anything, simple by the precedent of not having anything to do. As far as I can tell there's not much to do in beer pong while you're not up other than to try and catch the balls when they miss. I feel like this means the game as a spectator sport leaves much to be desired.

The key point I realized is that you don't even need an opposing team to play against to play the sport. You could literally set some kind of arbitrary cap; say, you only have 15 shots to represent a good opposing team, and you'd have the same kind of game. You wouldn't lose anything, you wouldn't gain anything. The two teams might as well not be playing each other to some degree.

This differentiates itself from, say, a game like Battleship. Similarly in this situation there is no analog for "defense," since you are powerless while the game is going on. Battleship, however, is not a game you could play with an opponent; it's still a game of tactics and/or strategy in that sense.

Beer pong is like playing competitive solitaire: sure, you could do it, and there's probably some amount of skill involved, but watching any game where you're essentially playing against yourself is ultimately pretty boring.

Anyway, that's a pretty long, analytical dissertation on a pretty stupid subject that doesn't deserve it, but I'd rather write this than an essay :-D

-HTMC