10 Video Game Mechanics That Make No Sense
3. Rubber-Banding
Rubber-banding is a technique used by game developers to ensure that you're never doing too well against the AI opponents. If you demonstrate you're really, really good at a game, the AI will react by suddenly playing insanely well.
It's most typically deployed in racing games - perhaps most famously Mario Kart - where no matter how skilled a human player might be and how much of a lead they should be able to create, the AI rivals will eventually drive supernaturally fast in order to close the gap.
In theory it's designed to maintain a tense experience for the player, rather than allowing them to tediously rinse the competition without even the vaguest fear of losing.
Conversely rubber-banding can also be used to extend a hand to a struggling player, by ensuring a winning AI opponent doesn't surge totally out of reach.
This of course betrays the real-life nature of competition and physics: reality doesn't have a rubber-band, and if you let them, people will leave you in the dust with reckless abandon.
It's more a trick on the developers' part to dupe players into having a more competitive, reactive experience, even if so many gamers are totally savvy to it these days and regularly call it out.