Should probably clear up some stuff here. I'm talking about how people judge you based on how good you are at the game. (Coughs in MKW community). As long as you're having fun, that's what games are about.

Progression is fun, without progression the game would feel boring. Which makes you have a drive to continue going and going to be number one. Which is perfectly fine, but when you're being constantly judged based on how you play the game, its off-putting.

Its the classic case of Casual vs Competitive. From my experience, when we played Smash at school if we had that one person who played Competitive in a casual setting, then the game would not be fun to play anymore.