Can we stop conceding with one move to go?

[Andrei3009]

Except I explained that it's the opposite, the more people care about games, the more they'll care about both winning and games being played properly, without conceding.

People who play competitively care about winning and how well they played. What difference does it make how the game ended if you can already determine the level of your game and get the best outcome?

They could easily still play in arena, they would just need to accept the rule that they can't concede, just like there are many other rules you have to accept when you sign up to play a game competitively.

Maybe we live in very different worlds, because most of the competitive people I know have the same opinion as me. And even if it turns out that I have a very narrow sample and there are a minority of such people, we cannot deny that there are quite a lot of them. If this is the case, then should we deprive them of a comfortable place to play when other people have their own?

There may be some people who are competitive and are okay with conceding, but that doesn't give them the right to decide the outcome of games.

Also, giving up does not change the result of the game, it just achieves it in another way, in 99% of cases, players give up when the game is already lost. What's the point of giving up when there are reasonable chances (each player determines these chances for himself, but they are quite small) for at least draw? Defeat is the worst result for a competitive player, except maybe for a poorly played game.

[Andrei3009]

Except I explained that it's the opposite, the more people care about games, the more they'll care about both winning and games being played properly, without conceding.

I'll add something else about your wording: caring about game and playing competitively are completely unrelatable things. A person who loves games doesn't have to want to win in it, he just likes the process. Conversely, a competitive person may not get pleasure from the gameplay itself, but mostly from winning

[tbhp]

You really seem to be on a crusade against conceding, but i still don't get it why ? Seems nearly a religious fanaticism. What gives YOU the right to decide what should be done or not ?

That's what I don't get. People like me are on a "crusade", whereas on the other side people like you don't seem to care as much about it, and wouldn't lose much if the conceding feature didn't exist. So why fight so much about it? Why not recognize that it's not as important for you and just let people like me have what they want?

Before claiming for hard measures i think everybody should calm down and lay some numbers on the table : How often does this happen to you (in proportion of all your games) and why did your gaming partner concede ?

Fortunately, it's never happened to me in games that mattered. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't discuss measures. I mean, just because people haven't done something bad yet doesn't mean there shouldn't be a rule that specifies against it. Besides, it may have happened to other people.

Some obscure reasoning about the "beauty of a completed game" ??? Same with "properly played games" ? Sorry, i don't understand this.

If it's obscure to you, I wonder why you are even playing games. That's like a movie fan telling me "I don't care if the ending is missing from the movies I watch". Don't you see how that doesn't seem to make sense?

[tbhp]

Except I explained that it's the opposite, the more people care about games, the more they'll care about both winning and games being played properly, without conceding.

I'll add something else about your wording: caring about game and playing competitively are completely unrelatable things. A person who loves games doesn't have to want to win in it, he just likes the process. Conversely, a competitive person may not get pleasure from the gameplay itself, but mostly from winning

Then why did they pick this game to be competitive at? I agree that the two things are distinct, but they tend to be related in that the people who are the most competitive at a game, usually are also the ones who care the most about said game and the culture around it.

[FrankJones]

Just speaking generally to the forum, how many games of the 1400+ here on BGA allow conceding in a 3+ player game? My understanding is close to zero, and only in games that explicitly have a game rule/mechanic in place to handle situations in which a player drops out early.

Additionally, my understanding (as someone who knows some low-level coding) is that individual game developers cannot choose to display stats from neutralized games, and that the BGA framework itself is not set up for this.

[FrankJones]

When a protracted debate ensues, it's a bit off for one side to say the other side is "on a crusade". People on both sides of this issue care about about the matter to post 22+ pages.

If one side is saying essentially, "This seems like a crusade of religious proportions to you, but I don't really care", then why argue for 20+ pages, and why the stubbornness to just finish a game in progress?

[tbhp]

People who play competitively care about winning and how well they played. What difference does it make how the game ended if you can already determine the level of your game and get the best outcome?

Because as has already been explained, it's not just about the fact of winning. It's about the context, the storytelling and the aesthetics in which it all went down. A win can become anticlimactic and leave a sour taste if it's obtained in poor conditions, and it can be grandiose when those conditions are optimal or close to it.

If this is the case, then should we deprive them of a comfortable place to play when other people have their own?

How does not being able to concede make the place not comfortable? If it's turn based, it changes nothing about the experience. If it's real time, at worst it means you'll have to wait a few minutes in games you definitely lost. If you are competitive at a game, that shouldn't be a very common occurrence.

Defeat is the worst result for a competitive player, except maybe for a poorly played game.

This is a bit outside of the scope of the discussion, but this is not even necessarily true. For example, the world cup final between France and Argentina was such a legendary game of football that it can be considered that France gained something of great value by being an actor of it, even though they lost. Defeats can be magnificent too, and they have a tragedy aspect to them that isn't there with a victory.

I once lost a tournament final on this site that I now look at with the same reverence, if not more, than my tournament wins, because the conditions in which it happened make it arguably the greatest game I have ever played on this site.

[FrankJones]

Someone mentioned the fact that the home team does not bat in the bottom of the 9th when ahead.

I'm not sure how fitting that analogy is. I understand why that's the rule - and it is an actual rule, which is different than conceding before a game rule has declared the game over - but it does mean the home fans miss an opportunity to see some of their favorite players have a plate appearance.

A better analogy would be, the score is 9-0 in the top of the 9th and the losing team says, "Well, why should we finish this game when we could already be preparing to get on the plane to our next game?" This is not allowed.

And yes, NFL teams usually take a knee. But they still run the play. I've seen games in which the players left the field thinking the game was over and had to be called back to the field to actually run that last kneeldown because there was not yet 0:00 on the clock.

In basketball, the ball still has to be inbounded, and 24-second violations are still called, until the clock reaches 0:00.

[Trailblazer23]

I have been on this site for a couple of years, mostly Space Base. This week is the first time I've had opponents concede, and so much so that I came to the forum to post, only to find it is an ongoing discussion. 2 seconds before I click my final, winning purchase, the game is magically over because someone quit... agreed to lose. I get 1 star, as though they timed out after their first move. Repeat, I get 1 star in my rank after all that effort. And their consequence is 0 stars. Not even negative. The little things add up - game freezing, conceding, the guy in 1st place that plays like a bot, players telling others to hurry up when their time is still ticking, having to reload and the game replaying - and then timing out, and the nasty attitudes on Catan. The behavior here is such a downer. Y'all it's a board game. Can we just play like we r family?

[Emerson_Matt]

... Can we just play like we r family?

I'm not sure getting ruder and more cut-throat is the way to go.