alt Hacker News> The problem with player hosted servers is that it was very hard to get a fair and balanced competitive match
Playing against overwhelming odds has its own kind of charm. I once spend days just sabotaging the top players on some gun game servers, only wining myself once or twice. Games against friends with various fun handicaps and flat out abuse of any knowledge you could gain from playing against the same people repeatedly - what good is a hidding spot when everyone knows you will be there 50% of the time.
"Fair and balanced" games against completely random people are just missing something for me.
This is something matchmaking games totally miss which keeps them from being truly competitive in the way sports or old games were: a competitive community. You need other players with known identities to compare yourself against on a consistent basis.
Of course, classic competitive institutions had problems as well (“he’s very competitive” is not necessarily a nice description of a person!), but they seemed more enjoyable that this matchmaking stuff.