Competitiveness and Meritocracy in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: An Ethnography of Gaming Practices in Santiago, Chile

This ethnographic study examines how meritocratic discourse shapes the everyday gaming practices of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate players in Santiago, Chile. Its central argument is that video games often embed a meritocratic ideology, the belief that outcomes reflect individual skill alone while ignoring chance and structural conditions, and that players in practice do not simply adopt this discourse but hybridize it with the social experience of gaming in Chile. The author positions this work as a response to prior research that analyzed game design and press discourse or interviewed players in Global North countries, aiming to shift attention toward how players actually play, in both public and private settings, within a Global South context.

The study is based on participant-observer ethnography and in-depth ethnographic interviews, including playable interviews conducted in urban Santiago between October 2022 and January 2023. The sample comprised 50 participants aged 18 to 35, of whom 43 were men and 7 were women, with skill levels ranging from beginners to professional players who had competed in international tournaments. The game was chosen for its popularity, multiplayer format, professional circuit, and mechanics that allow players to introduce elements of chance into matches.

The main finding is that participants continue to affirm meritocracy as a value, yet in practice it often serves other purposes. The author identifies four gaming modes: meritocratic competitiveness, focused purely on winning; social competitiveness, oriented toward enjoyment, bonding, and conversation; educational competitiveness, structured around teaching and skill transfer; and egalitarian competitiveness, in which players reshape game conditions creatively so that less skilled players have better chances of winning. The study concludes that these regional practices contribute new concepts and perspectives to game studies, which has historically centered on the United States and Europe.