Asklemmy

I mean it also depends on the gamemodes you play?

Kind of the reason I preferred playing Free for All over Team Deathmatch on Call of Duty, because if I lost, all I had to blame was myself and not the amoebas on my team giving the other team free points by only doing 360s off the crane for the whole game.

Also might be why I fell out of love with Battlefield after BF1, The game itself was great (wish I could still play it on Linux...) but you could tell there were a lot of new comers to the franchise who just ignored all the objective and teamplay aspects. I still find decent squad play on BF4 & 3 to this day.

Pragmatically, I am, not because I chose to play the game, but because I didn't play well enough to win.

With the benefit of perspective, no one's. There is no author. The game, the loss, all of it, and even the world it took place in are meaningless. It's all just part of the universe playing with itself.

my team, duh.. It's never my fault. Nope, never. Never once.

I have not been defeated, I have been assisted. I lose nothing and gain valuable experience. I grow and challenge my opponent again, helping them to grow as well.

Lag

Its an interesting question. It depends how proficient you are in a specific game. In the higher skills you generally will lose because of your own mistakes, so you've beat yourself essentially. In the lower skills its far more random. Maybe the manufacturer does have the biggest impact in those cases regardless of who wins or loses.

The controller of course

Me myself and I... Nah i'm kidding the other team was probably cheating /s

It's my teammates who don't know how to fucking play

(Fucking Pokemon Unite, I hate you so much)

You cannot change the game, you cannot change others. The only one you can change is yourself, and thus the only time blame can be profitable is when pointed inward. Just remember: sometimes the mistake is in playing the game at all.

Me. I suck at aiming.

Everyone else on my team but me

/woomi

Why do you have to reduce it to one? Isn't it simply all at the same time to varying degrees?

Did you have fun? Nobody lost.

Did you play Monopoly? Everybody lost.

Me for starting the game. Losing is a part of life. We gotta live before we die.

My parents, for bringing a loser into this world

If I am pubbing then teams are rando and often the mix of team players is more important than any one player’s individual skill.

You, for being such a whiny little bitch of a sore loser.

The person who authored the cheat(s) the other person is using. Because clearly, if I lost they must be cheating. /s

For many games, I'd argue that you are to blame for your loss. Assuming the game is based purely on skill, then your ability to execute said skills is the only factor which matters. Consider something like Chess, where the game is solved and one's ability to win is really down to your ability to memorize board positions and recognize the optimal move. If you lose, it's likely because you failed to pick the optimal path.

This is mitigated, to a greater or lesser extent in games where chance plays some role. It's entirely possible to chose an optimal path, but have RNGesus decide that you get to lose today. Some games provide some ability to manage the risks created by randomness, but you often have some reliance on "luck". Obviously, the more luck dependent a game is, the less control you have over winning/losing.

And then there is the issue of other players who can affect the outcome. If you play a game where there are more than two players, the other players may be able to change the course of the game enough that, no matter how well optimized your choices, you cannot win. This leads to the classic "kingmaker" problem in board games. It may be that someone who is themselves unable to win is in a position to directly effect the outcome of the game in such a way as to make another player win or lose. So, maybe you played a very good game, but the kingmaker decides that you lose.

Ultimately, the answer to the original question is, "it depends". And there are a lot of factors one must look at to come to an answer. And that answer is unlikely to be whole one thing or the other.

It's me because my reflexes are those of a sausage!

Is that important? Why?