No matter if you enjoy playing the latest AAA title, casual life sims, or even a board game based on a top selling PC game, gaming brings people together. Whilst it’s a great way to wash away the stress of your day-to-day by escaping into a virtual world, gaming is not just about escapism. It builds the foundations to lifelong friendships and offers players a sense of community that they might lack elsewhere in the real-world.
In this article, we’re taking a closer look at how gaming forges lifelong friendships, covering the impact of multiplayer games, the sense of community, and how gaming has become a safe space for many players.
How Gaming Forges Friendships
Multiplayer Gaming
Originally a solitary activity, gaming is now widely seen as a form of socialisation, especially since the popularity boom of multiplayer games. There are now countless genres of video games built on the foundation of players heading online to work together as a team to defeat bosses or solve puzzles.
Embarking on these virtual adventures and creating in-game strategies help to build the foundations of a long-lasting friendship. This includes shared experiences, a sense of camaraderie, and teamwork. All of which are essential in relationships that stand the test of time (or you raging at your enemies).
What’s more, in the aftermath of the pandemic, multiplayer games became essential. Games became the new norm for communicating with friends or family whilst in isolation. This helped to create a further spike in the popularity of multiplayer games, such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
Released mere days before the official lockdown announcement, Animal Crossing became an easy way for friends to hold virtual birthday parties, online dates, and even weddings during the height of the pandemic. Serving as a great way to maintain vital relationships or even build new ones, with a whole community dedicated to helping others find items, island designs, DIY recipes, and even sharing fruit (if you know, you know).
Sense of Community
Online gaming gives players a vital sense of community. No matter if you love FPS games, RPGs, or cosy farming sims, there is a group of fellow gamers out there waiting for you.
Platforms such as Discord or Twitch have made accessing these communities even easier. You can hang out in the chats of streamers, converse with other viewers and build connections. Alternatively, most popular video games or even live streamers have their own dedicated Discord servers in which players can join and chat about virtually anything. From their favourite games, TV shows, and memes, to sharing photos of their precious pets. If there isn’t a community for your favourite game yet, these platforms make kickstarting one even easier to help you find your people.
Finding a place within these communities can help to combat feelings of loneliness and social isolation, issues that are extremely prevalent and damaging to your mental health. Gaming is a form of escapism which delivers a sense of accomplishment and virtual camaraderie. Plus, defeating that deadly boss in front of your teammates is truly the ultimate confidence boost.
What’s more, your gaming community can connect you with fellow players across the globe. It can link together players regardless of location, nationality, social status, and more, allowing you to build relationships with people you may have never met otherwise.
Lastly, this sense of community transcends the virtual space. Annual conventions, tournaments, and community meetups all give you the opportunity to meet your online friends in the real world and strengthen these relationships even further.
Safe Space
Gaming communities serve as a safe space for many players. Making friends and building connections via online gaming breaks down traditional social barriers seen in physical face-to-face conversations. For those with social anxiety or disabilities, gaming makes it more accessible to meet others, especially those who share similar interests.
The lack of traditional social barriers, feelings of pressure to conform, or awkwardness about discussing challenging topics all make our virtual friendships a safer place for us to be ourselves. As you escape into your favourite worlds to forget the negativity of the day, you can turn to your online buddies for advice, comfort, and a joke or two.
Not everyone in the gaming sphere is going to share your interests, values, or opinions. You may find those who aren’t all that friendly, making it even more important that these safe spaces and small communities exist.
More Than Virtual Relationships
Gaming isn’t just handy for making friends online. It can serve as a great way to maintain relationships with the ones you know in real life.
Your friends may live hours away or have busy schedules, meaning getting together online is easier for your catch ups. You can still enjoy chatting with your friends, sharing the latest memes, or your ‘’I can’t believe I did that’’ moments, all whilst engaging in a thrilling adventure, fast-paced battles, or relaxing farming fun.
Forge Everlasting Bonds
Regardless of your chosen game or community, there is no denying that gaming brings people together on a global scale. Gaming doesn’t have to be about who earns the highest score or the most achievements; it can simply be about building connections.
The rise in popularity of multiplayer games has transformed a once solitary activity to a fantastic way to make friends, socialise, and more importantly, escape. As you explore your favourite worlds as a way to get away from negativity, you can do this with a great group of gaming buddies right alongside you. Embarking on challenging quests together, building your next strategic move, or even planning where your next chicken coop will go in Stardew Valley, all help to forge those vital connections that will stand the test of time.
Social media and platforms such as Discord make finding your place within a gaming community even easier. Thanks to this, you can connect with thousands of fellow gamers across the globe, fostering close bonds, and a place to safely be yourself. Your online community and virtual best buds are your very own safe haven. Those late nights gaming and chatting over Discord deliver a sense of camaraderie, accomplishment, and unwavering support, which you might not receive elsewhere.
Ultimately, gaming isn’t all about the action. It’s about those who you share the virtual adventure and a lot of laughs with.
How Has Gaming Helped You Forge Friendships?
Has gaming helped you find your player two? Share with us in the comments below on how gaming has influenced your friendships.
- 6 min read
Ruth Rowley
Author
Ruth has been with Overclockers UK for over a year and has gone on to write about everything ranging from in-depth hardware guides to monthly game releases.
Outside of writing blog posts, she can be found wrapped in a blanket with her black cat, engrossed in a book or playing life-simulation games such as The Sims, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing.
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