Do in game scores matter as much as the final result?

MSSA's BOO! Protea CounterStrike: GO Esports Team taking on the juggernaut that is Romania.

Many an esport athlete concentrates on the final in game score. For example, such esports athletes will console themselves with a 16 - 12 defeat (in the case of CounterStrike: GO). Such a defeat, many esports athletes will tell you, is proof of how close the game was, and that both teams had a chance of winning.

However, I am of the opinion, that such comfort is indeed very cold indeed as a loss is a loss.

To take comfort in the in game score presumes the following:

• That both teams played as well as they could have, and
• That the losing team is aware of the standard of the winning team, and
• That the losing team knows what the winning team was thinking.

It is generally thought to be true by most coaches, people perform best when the game is close. When the winning team realises that the team against which they are playing is weaker, such winning team often becomes lax and overconfident. 

When a team is losing, it’s easy for such a team to become discouraged and give up. In such a case it is easy for a team to consider its opponents to be “in a different league” altogether. When a team does this, a team performs with less intensity than it would if the team perceived the “game” to be more equally matched.

When esports athletes move away from viewing results based on the in-game score, the goals of the game will become clearer, and the athletes will be able to be more competitive. After all who remembers the in-game score, but what will be remembered is which team beat which.