Games Are Best When Shared...Or Are They?
Social gaming used to mean piling onto the couch of whichever friend had the best system and/or selection of games. Now, all you have to do is join a Discord server with your friends. Social gaming saw a huge increase in the wake of the pandemic and while there are definitely a ton of pros, there are also some cons.
1. Lag
Lag is probably the biggest problem most people face when it comes to social gaming. Unfortunately, it's also the most common. Internet speed can be finicky, no matter how hard you try to get around it.
2. Microphone Issues
Like internet speed, microphone quality can wax and wane. This is especially prevalent with Discord, which sometimes will fail to pick up microphones or lose them in echoes. For fast-paced games that rely on communication, this can be a serious mood-killer.
3. Isolation
Remote hangouts and online friendships are just as great as IRL, but at the end of the day, you're sitting alone in your room, talking to yourself. When all your friends are just a few clicks away, it can lead to social isolation—and not the health-conscious kind.
4. Friends Can Frustrate Each Other
Even though strangers tend to be more hostile when they're behind a screen, friends can get on each others' nerves just as easily. Even the coziest of games can lead to boiling tempers, and friends know exactly how to hit you where it hurts.
5. Social Media Addiction
Like we said with an earlier point, when your friends are inside a screen, that screen can quickly become your entire life. No matter how much socialization and thrill you get out of gaming with friends, there's such thing as too much of a good thing. Devoting hours of your time to social gaming can lead to serious addiction.
6. Timezones
Timezones are the banes of every international friendship's existence. Depending on how big the time difference is, scheduling something as simple as an island hangout on Animal Crossing can be a pain. Chances are that one or both of you will end up wrecking your sleep schedule.
7. Privacy Breaches
Don't get us wrong, privacy breaches can happen on consoles as well, but they aren't as dangerous when they aren't tied to literally all your online data. Private servers are never as private as you want them to be, and data breaches can be detrimental.
8. Software Glitches
The bets thing about gaming on those janky old consoles with low-res graphics? Whenever they froze you could just give them a smack, and that would normally solve the problem. On your computer, glitches can come from anything and anywhere.
9. Eye Strain
Granted, you can strain your eyes from staring at any type of screen for too long, it's only that when gaming on a TV you normally have more distance between the two of you. Combine this with the fact that you probably have at least two monitors—one for the game and one for the server—and you're on the road to a headache.
10. Can Feel Cliquey
So, we've discussed playing games with your friends, but what about playing games with people who you want to befriend? Whether you're playing in a larger server or have newly been introduced into an existing friend group, the people who already know each other are likely to stick together. The result can be rather impenetrable to outsiders.
Now that we've discussed some of the downsides of gaming with online friends, let's look at some of the upsides!
1. Virtual Hangouts
Perhaps the greatest benefit of social gaming is the ability to hang out with people even when you're miles away. Whether you're out of town for a bit, or have known each other for years, but never met in person, social gaming lets you hang out together without leaving your house. This is also great for when you're feeling under the weather, but still want social interaction.
2. Can Connect People Far Away
Online friendships used to lead to lectures about internet predators, now they're more likely to lead to lasting friendships. Social gaming has the incredible ability to bring people together over shared passions. It's also a way to make the miles between friends disappear.
3. Can Test Friendships
Gaming with friends can be stressful, but it can also be a great test of how strong that friendship is? Does one person automatically take their place as leader? How well do you work under pressure? Strategy games are great for this.
4. Collaboration
In a similar vein to how a lot of companies use escape rooms as a team-building activity, social gaming can see friends working together towards a larger goal. Even something as seemingly simple as Minecraft allows friends to see just how well they work together.
5. Lessen Loneliness
The world is a big place, and we're pretty tiny in the grand scheme of things. Being able to reach out and spend an hour or two having fun with some trusted pals can make a huge difference for those struggling with their mental health.
6. Designed For Social Interaction
Some games are simply better when played together. Have you ever tried playing one-person Mario Kart? Just you against a whole squad of NPCs? We don't recommend it.
7. Nurture Social Skills
Studies show that while girls often favor face-to-face interactions through emotional intimacy, boys prefer "shoulder to shoulder" bonding to achieve shared goals. Of course, this isn't true for every friendship, and people of all genders love video games. However, parents of adolescent boys have specifically praised social gaming for helping their sons develop interpersonal skills.
8. Safety In Numbers
Even if you and a few friends are playing in a larger server, it never hurts to have someone in your corner. In the case that things do turn hostile, you have people to look out for you.
Caspar Camille Rubin on Unsplash
9. No Outside Flamers
One of the worst parts of playing with strangers is the risk of cyberbullying, flaming, and trolling. While these things certainly can happen within friend groups, they're much less likely to. Enjoying a game is so much easier when you don't have randos yelling slurs at you.
10. Goal Is To Have Fun
Even with the most high-stakes game where you're playing for the top spot on the leaderboard, at the end of the day, you're just playing with friends. You aren't playing to win or for bragging rights (though those don't hurt either), you're playing to have a good time with your pals.
