I'm sure this is an old topic—as old as the advent of widespread online multiplayer—but it's something that I've only had to come to terms with since I started playing online on my PS3 this past year. When I was growing up, I would play games with my friends at our houses. Since our only opponents were each other, whoever was the best among the group would consider themselves 'the best' at that particular game and enjoyed all of the associated bragging rights.

Not so anymore.

Now, with online multiplayer, one's pool of opponents has grown from one's close-by friends to all connected players over the world, and it's much harder now to think of oneself as 'the best' at any game. This can be brutally hard on the gaming ego. To be the best, you now have to focus a huge amount of time and effort on even a single game, let alone your entire gaming library. (And us married-with-kids-and-a-full-time-job types don't have that time or, by the end of a long day, the energy.)

However, the upside to this is, with more and harder competition more readily available than ever, we have the opportunity to become much better at the games we choose to play. But where does this leave most of us who were once used to the days of being 'the best at X'? (For me, in high school, it was Dr. Mario—until some girl in university trounced me mercilessly and repeatedly. I haven't been 'the best' at any game since.) Most of my friends don't even play games anymore, so, with the experience I've gained from online competition, I am far superior to any of them at, say, Street Fighter IV or WipEout HD or Critter Crunch, to the point that there is no point in even playing against them. However, I am nowhere near world-class at any of these games and don't have the time or motivation to become so. So, like many others whom I imagine to be in the same boat, I am left in this limbo of being 'okay' at a game, sometimes slightly above average, sometimes—probably most of the time—below average. But pretty much always in that middle realm of mediocrity. That's the consequence of moving from the small pond to the online ocean.

But I'm okay with that. I still have fun. These days, I just set my sights a little lower than 'the best at X'. How about you?