Top Six Traits of Successful Gamers

Many of us in this community have been playing Game of War for years. In that time we have complained and we have rage quit at times. However, we come back because ultimately we love the game and the people in the game. I was recently spending some time thinking about what really makes a person successful in the gaming community.

What kind of traits and personality factors do you see within that person. Also, what does success mean? When I was talking to my lovely editor about this article he pointed out that I would qualify as a successful gamer. However, is that just because I have a voice within the community and a few YouTube views? Is it because I’m a good player? Or is it something else?

What does it mean to be a Successful Gamer?

Before we can really talk about what makes a successful gamer we also must determine what it means to be one. In my book being a successful gamer does not mean that your name is at the top of the blog. Would we all love to see our name in highlights like Junsy, TJP, or other players? Of course, but I do not believe that is what makes you successful as a Gamer.

If we ask Google what the definition of successful is, this is what we get

suc·cess·ful

/səkˈsesfəl/

adjective

accomplishing an aim or purpose.
“a successful attack on the town”
having achieved popularity, profit, or distinction.

So there are two ways we can look at this:

You are a successful gamer when you achieve popularity, profit, or distinction
You are a successful gamer when you accomplish your aim or purpose (even if the aim is just to have some fun)

Ultimately when it comes to answering this question you have to define what success means to you. Success to me may look completely different than what success to you looks like. However, there are some traits we do see often in successful gamers. I hopped around a few communities of gamers who play various games and asked them what they thought made a successful gamer. I loved their answers and I want to share some of them with all of you today along with my own thoughts. So let’s dive in!

Top Six Traits of Successful Gamers

These traits are going to be a combination of thoughts pulled from other gamers and my own. In the end, though I would love to hear from you. Are there things I missed? What would you add to the list?

Trait Number Six: A Successful Gamer has a Competitive Spirit

We are gamers! We are going to be competitive! It is built into us, we want to succeed and we want to do well. A competitive Spirit is going to be essential to being successful. Whether we are competing with ourselves to just do better than the previous time or we are competing with our peers, a competitive spirit will continue driving us forward.

It is important to note that, not only do we need to have a competitive spirit we also need to be healthy about it. Pushing it too far can take something positive and make it bad very quickly.

Trait Number Five: A Successful Gamer Understands the Importance of Team

Often in games that require massive amounts of teamwork, you will see a key player brush off compliments and say that they could not have done it without their team. It is easy to get used to these statements and see them as false humility. However, a successful gamer understands just how true these statements are.

Without a team that you can communicate with, trust, and who are there to support you the whole landscape can change. From reinforcing to filling rallies to providing friendship a good team is key.

Trait Number Four: A Successful Gamer is Resilient

I am not going to lie there have been times where even I have wanted to rage quit. Fortunately, I have been lucky to be a part of some great teams and I have the ability to rage in someone’s Direct Message and calm down and they understand that that is what I am doing. Sometimes the rage is about the game and sometimes the rage is because I myself did something stupid and it is more inwardly directed.

One of the people I spoke to said this,

“Being okay with making a mistake but most importantly, learning from it. Digging in and finding out the why, and then, once learned, do the best possible job in not repeating it.”

What a successful gamer understands is that after they are done raging it is time to pull up their big kid panties and dig back in.

Trait Number Three: A Successful Gamer Digs into the hows and whys

An individual that truly wants to be successful within the game will also have a desire to understand how the game works and why it works that way. That means that whether you are doing the testing yourself or seeking guidance from other players you want to understand what stats work in various scenarios and why they work in that scenario.

A successful gamer will take a defeat and turn it into a lesson. They will read the report and because they understand how the game works they will understand why they lost. For example, I can look at any report and tell you what stat you need to add to fix your problem. I can also tell you the various places you can find that stat. I can do that because I have taken time to figure out how different components of the game interact with each other so I understand the hows and whys (most of the time, still trying to understand the math, but we all know I do not math well.) When asked what makes a successful gamer I was sure to ask that the answer not be deep pockets (yes, I know you all that well), I want to include another quote from one of the answers I loved.

“Paying attention to the “how’s” of the game so you can play it strategically. Deep pockets don’t make a successful gamer. If anything, deep pockets make some people less successful because they just buy whatever without paying attention to how to use what they just bought, and so basically it’s just a trophy sitting there idly.”

When it comes to the ability to dig into the whys and hows that in and of itself takes a different personality. A personality that my friend Rets described quite well so I am going to steal what she said and share it with all of you.

“In terms of personality for a successful gamer, I look at it very similarly to what I look for in a good employee– tenacity/dedication to finish the job, an initiative to dig and figure things out, and a respect for one’s own time and others’ time to be efficient and not wasteful.”

Trait Number Two: A Successful Gamer Avoids Toxicity

This one I contemplated leaving out. We all know gamers out there who would fall into the definition of toxic but could also be considered successful. However, being successful is not just about being well known. Success is in part defined by your relationships in my opinion and if those relationships are toxic then can they really be considered successful? Eventually, the toxicity always catches up to you so as a toxic player whatever short-term success you have will eventually fade away.

To be a successful gamer whose success remains you have to be more. Another quote for this one,

“You have to be patient (to some degree), open, friendly, and being ok with others being stronger and not stressing about getting hit. Most importantly is to always remember it is a game.”

Trait Number One: A Successful Player is willing to invest Time

When it came to answers to the question of, what it takes to be a successful gamer, the top answer I heard was time. We saw this answer weaved in throughout our other traits. All the traits we talked about today require time in some way.

Successful players are willing to invest time and effort into their accounts, their communities, and obtaining knowledge. No one opens the game on day one and automatically understands everything (if you do please come talk to me). Anyone who hits the top of the blogs spends time playing and investing in their team. You do not win Super Wonder by logging in for a few minutes. Even if you are an experienced gamer it takes time to get the lay of the land and time spent playing to truly be successful.

Being patient and investing time are key components of success. Often we expect success to be overnight but success is an investment.