Especially now, I don’t really like multiplayer. My relationship with online games has always been:Join a game your friend is playing → Get the game that too Joining games my friends are playing → friends stop playing → now incredibly angry at strangers in line to compete solo, eventually going back to single-player RPGs. I have never met and made new friends through video games or the video game community, but oddly enough, I have made friends through video games. twitter everywhere.
But while I know some people make friends through the games they play and participate in online communities, real-world connections don’t bring them together in any other way. My brother got along so well with his Counter-Strike: Source clan mates that he drove out to meet them at Ruby Tuesday in rural Michigan in the ’10s. Friendship blossoms even on the battlefield!
Have you ever made friends through video games? Here are some of our responses and forums.
Tim Clark, Brand Director: absolutely. I’ve been playing Destiny 2 for about 6 years with an almost identical rotating cast. We don’t exchange pictures of our pets other than barbecue food, so we rarely see their faces, but we spend hundreds (thousands?) of hours together and complain about games. I’ve tried to keep my frustration down during the game. Day one raid, shooting shit about perks and new weapons, and lots of real world stuff too. Much has been said about the difficulty of making and maintaining friends as you get older, but for me, especially as someone who has moved state multiple times, I have a regular group of gaming buddies. The stability was a big blessing.
Molly Taylor, Feature Producer: I can’t count the number of friends I’ve made thanks to Final Fantasy 14. Even though I’ve moved away from MMOs to focus on other games and hobbies, they still hold a special place in my heart. . Not only was I lucky enough to join a nice guild, but I was able to make friends just by playing in the same place in Limsa Lominsa every day. When I contracted her Covid on New Year’s Eve 2021, my guildmate hung out with me, video chatted, drank alcohol, and chatted in-game while sharing his 2022 news on Discord. Celebrated the arrival of the new year. It is a memory that will never be forgotten.
I’m still in regular contact with a few members, even though we haven’t played together in months. Being able to keep that friendship away from the things that brought us closer is something I really appreciate, and I consider them all as friends as anyone else in my life. I’m here. I even bumped into one of Limsa’s friends in real life after a concert last year. Talk about a small world!
Joshua Wallens, News Writer: I literally grew up on top of a mountain, so when I was 13-15, meeting IRL friends was a bit of a challenge and I spent a lot of time fiddling with my family’s laptop. However, it fell far short of the task of rendering something as glorious as the graphics. This meant that the only thing you could actually play was his text-based MUD, Achaea, which is a mighty 256 KB/s (in fine weather). Over there. I made many friends and occasional enemies and spent many sleepless nights chatting with my American guildmates. They were all the kind of amiable weirdos who still chose to play MUD in 2006, the year of the Lord. I interacted with most but one, and the experience left its mark. My speeches are still sprinkled with Americanism picked up from my Achaean friends, all of which sound utterly ridiculous in my fat, upper-class British accent.
That said, I don’t play any MMOs right now. They all have graphics. gross.
Wes Fenron, Senior Editor: Over the years, I have made many friends online through games. Some were really fun and temporary relationships — shout out to GatoPescad0. GatoPescad0 met when a random Halo PC captured the flag server in 2004 or so, was added to Xbox Live, and reunited with each new Halo release for about two weeks until Halo 5. But I’ve also made lifelong friendships through gaming forums. As I write this, I’m actually spending the weekend with a friend I met in his 2005 Final Fantasy forums. We meet a few times a year, and we used to play Halo 3 in college. Meet people through video games: highly recommended!
It’s also a little disappointing to think that today’s social media platforms aren’t as effective at fostering this kind of friendship as gaming forums and early online voice chat programs were in the early 2000s. Part of it is just a change in society as a whole. Being online used to be an escape, but not anymore. When I was escaping, I tended to gravitate toward other people who felt out of place in their daily lives. . The concentrated scale and follower-following structure of social media is not well suited to fostering close friendships. That’s one of the reasons why I’m glad to see Twitter dead and people rethinking how social media in general works now. There’s no doubt there’s a better way…and maybe we already figured it out 20 years ago.
from our forum
Max stub stub: For a year before my first son was born, I was obsessed with gaming. I knew my free time would be limited soon, so I gave it my all. It started with PUBG and joined several Discord servers. They have grown into a community of people who talk and play games every day. We’ve even gifted each other games and helped out on other life projects (gofundme, etc.). Some of the group met in person, but I always stayed away. Because I knew it would all come to an end for me (and I don’t know if anyone could be Prince Holmes).
I tried to keep playing games online after my kids were born, but I mostly ignored the group because I couldn’t justify my real-life fatherly responsibilities and how I spent my time. Turned off notifications from discord, hidden in all communities, and that’s all she wrote.
Since then, several people have contacted me to see if I am still alive. I just told them life was crazy busy with kids…and that’s the truth. I play more single player games now. When you’re playing online, you don’t want people to see you play and expect you to participate in matches. I’m sure others have had the same experience.
DX Chase: I made friends, but nothing like true friendship. I used to play semi-pro on Ghost Recon and GR:Island Thunder with my HS buddies, but when those games died out, we started playing together.
I currently ‘run’ a clan in Destiny 2 with the majority of active players, but have never actually formed ‘friendships’ with any of them other than my wife and son (I’ve tried a few times There is!). even in the clan. A lot of my play is with them or solo except for the occasional call for help, but we’re not all friends.
Pifanjour: I haven’t made friends in video games, but I have made friends in online games. In a way, none of it lasted long after I stopped playing.
I played a West March-style D&D campaign for about two years before it slowly faded away as the main GM became less involved. I haven’t been in touch with the other players, but one of them sent me a happy birthday out of nowhere last week.
I also played Mafia for quite some time on a forum where I met my wife. Actually, I met some of the people I met when I traveled to America. I stopped playing when life got busy, but I was still on her Discord server with people I used to play with. But at some point I muted it and now I don’t check it at all.
Zed crumpets: We’ve been friends in games before and still chat occasionally on Steam. I stopped playing multiplayer games so that doesn’t happen anymore, but I don’t have friends who play games in real life, so I’m going to start playing multiplayer games when my son goes to college this fall. may start up.
Corif: Yes, it was on PlayStation.
I played Journey and made some, but I just couldn’t figure it out. Because the language choices were limited to noise in that game, everyone had to use the same “word”. So I made friends with Japanese people and a lot of other people in that game. His one feature of the game made it sad…you can never play with anyone on your friends list…so this is his one-off.
I made friends with people through gaming-related forums. I was in her PlayStation clan and still talk to one of him in that clan from time to time. It broke when the PS4 came out.
Main: Only indirectly. I only play single player games, or single player campaigns for some games that have multiple modes of play. Maybe it’s because I’m an older gamer (he’s 69 this April). There was no internet, no mobile phones, no PCs, no consoles, no games. Aside from board games, anything my imagination could create when I was in grade school and college. Some people, like “Skyrim Shirley”, have overcome that wall. That “barrier” is no excuse, but it definitely affects the types of games I play.
But I was a gamer, so I made friends, and that connected me. As an example, I have two friends who are over 20 years younger than me, both married (one of them has four children), but I’m just a single ” Old man. Still, we were all avid gamers of single-player games, especially RPGs, so we connected. Through that experience, we were able to form a bond that continues to this day, with frequent emails and the occasional lunch together. Those relationships extended to talking about and caring about real issues in our lives.
