Originally Posted by Hitzel

Competitive (the way I used it) is a relative term, because everything has some competitive aspect to it.

My personal definition of a competitive game is one where I can play to win and have fun. The MLG community's definition (who I wrote this for originally) is one that has a high skill cap, learning curve, depth, and activity.

Halo 3 is not a competitive game. I say this with extreme confidence. There are too many factors in it that promote randomness, lack of difficulty, stalling, lack of options, forced outcomes, etc to be skillful. It's on the circuit right now because of that last bullet - activity. And it's at an extreme.

Generally, every game has a learning curve. Once you've passed this curve, the game's competitiveness becomes clear. The game can range from shallow to deep, and that has an overwhelming effect on the metagame. Halo 3's design to appeal to the casual gamer as opposed to the serious one pushes it far into the shallow end.

As for progression, that's my whole point. The majority isn't going to buy a game that doesn't progress in graphics and gimmicks, unless it's a game that they don't expect and demand to progress in graphics and gimmicks. My point is that an Arcade game is the only kind of game right now that can easily be competitive and mainstream at the same time by default.