In Alfie Cohen's many books he disparages most forms of extrinsic motivation, chief among which lies competitive games. In his book 'No Contest: the case against competition' he cites numerous studies which show competition to be detrimental to the development of young children. He further goes on to talk about how despite the torrent of studies showing that children would much prefer to play cooperative games, hard headed sports coaches refuse to change their ways and continue to force kids to fight one another for superiority in any number of games and challenges.
While it may be true that some, or even most, find it discouraging to realize they will never be the best at a certain thing, what Cohen over looks is the inspiration that is passed between those at the top of the field. Cohen correctly keys into the negative feedback one gets from the frustration of realizing that one is not perfect, and the positive feedback that comes from successful socializing. Though unless a game is solvable, it is unlikely that players will aspire to mastering it if the only pay off they get is from their compatriots, as there are much easier ways to socialize than to jump through the hoops that any sort of game designs. So while competitivety might be bad for the players it is great for the game. Nothing motivates players quite like a the unforgivingly oppressive ladder of rankings that competitive games provide.
I have often felt that there is much to be said for perusing unobtainable goals. It is the perfect reversal of the demotivation of the 'grass is greener' paradox. If you believe that someone does something better than you, even if it is at a near impossible level of devotion, you can use that a marker of where to set the bar, and even when you fail at achieving it, it is quite possible that you are still shooting higher than most, and even possibly higher than the person who you are trying to emulate.*
While the emotional and social products of competition are negative, the production of high skill levels and ability is stunning. As people keep chasing after higher and higher standards we get mind blowingly high levels of play as a result. From Bobby Fischer's 'Game of the Century' to Steve Davis' Black Ball Final, the amount of focus and completeness of control is flooring. These testaments to perfect play are some of the most inspiring pictures of perfection out there, and I think purely beautiful. So while children on playgrounds around the world throw down balls, rackets, bats, and clubs in a mixture of disgust and frustration, I'll be sitting here with my eyes lit up with inspiration, hoping that one day I'll have a mind like a laser beam and complete level of control.
*This is a somewhat confusing concept that I don't feel like I am explaining well (in an abstract sense), so to illustrate it I will use an example. Presume you see someone you know keeping a diary, and because of this you decide that you would like to keep one as well. Every time you see them they are writing in it, so you (correctly) assume that they are writing in it every day, and as far as you can tell have been doing it and will be doing it forever. So you set that as your standard and try to write an entry every day as well. Every time you think to yourself "I don't have enough time to write an entry today" all you have to do is think about your friend, and realize that you have no excuse to lower your standards, because if they can write an entry every day (presumably) so can you. Now assume that you lose contact with this friend, but the vision of them writing daily entries persists. Even though you have no way of knowing whether or not they are still writing in their diary every day you can still use their (believed) actions as a motivational tool. From here one can easily imagine that were your role model to ever stop writing in their diary that you would actually be doing more than they are, even though you only see yourself as aspiring to their golden standard.
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