My best friend is the great optimizer.

In magic the gathering I had dozens of decks trying different things. He had a single deck that he kept tweaking to within the millimetre of perfection.

In overwatch, I would play different characters to experience different parts of the game and try different strategies. He played single character for years, with 10 times the hours in that char than I had in all of them combined.

Heck even in real life, he was a Java developer for decades whereas I was a type of fleeting sysadmin specifically so I could play with different toys in the stack :).

Now, this is a bit side Venn diagram, he'd never be rude on an online game (he does have offline opinions on the meta :). But it let me understand people who have fun in a very different way than I do :). He doesn't see boredom in playing same way over and over (and over and over), I think he sees it as professional athlete being focused and honing their specific craft.

> That's beyond optimising the fun out of a game

I'd even dare to say it's beyond all reason.

Different people get different things out of video games (and everything, really). For some, the fun is learning, and the game stops being fun when you understand it (this is me). For others, the fun starts after they're learned, and starts being good at it, but still have competition with others. For yet others, mastering it and being the best is the fun.

All these groups of people sometimes play in the same lobbies, and what the players "gain" from the session can be very different depending on the person. There is no "right or wrong" way to play video games, or the right/wrong motivation for it, it's just different.

Imaginary superiority

Bullying is a way to have fun. Additionally, some people are desperate for approval, and will even chase being bullied as a way to get attention from others. It’s not exactly a mystery, it’s just sad.