In 2003, he published a study that showed a quarter of 11,000 players of the online role-playing game Everquest said their favourite part of the game was connecting with other players. Mark Griffiths is a professor at Nottingham Trent University who’s written about gaming friendships in the pandemic, and studied socialisation in video games for decades. Global revenue is expected to jump 20% this year to $175bn (£130bn).īut although the concept of socialisation in a game is new to many, video game enthusiasts have been using tech like this to build friendships online and stay connected for years. And at a time in which many industries are in dire straits, sales in gaming are booming. In the US alone, four out of five consumers in one survey played video games in the last six months, according to a new study by NPD, an American business-research firm. Gaming has skyrocketed during the pandemic, reaching people who’d play every now and then, or even those who had previously snubbed it entirely. Released in March, Nintendo’s record-breaking Switch game that tripled the company’s profits drops players in a tiny tropical town filled with talking anthropomorphic animal neighbours who help them redecorate their home, catch butterflies and grow fruit trees. Perhaps the most well known is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. There’s the outer-space saboteur mobile game Among Us ( which 100 million people have downloaded) and the Jackbox games that mix video chatting and elements of classics like Pictionary, and that have acted as stand-ins for in-person happy hours. When shelter-in-place orders came down, millions of people around the world turned to tech-fuelled diversions to stay in touch with family and friends, like Netflix Party film viewings, Zoom chats and video games. The explosive growth of gaming during the pandemic has shown that many have found a new outlet for much-needed connection in isolation. In this age of long-haul social distancing and mental-health strains, gamers have long had a tool that’s now bringing some relief to those who’ve never picked up a controller before.
![find people to play games with find people to play games with](https://the-en.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/find-people-to-play-with-on-xbox-live-2-768x432.jpg)
![find people to play games with find people to play games with](https://i1.wp.com/collegecandy.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/15E752CF-FC96-4317-8420-206C021DD256-scaled.jpeg)
Gamers don’t just compete with strangers on the internet, but forge genuine, enduring friendships. With the rise of social media, gamers – particularly in Gen Z – have perfected the art of building communities in and around video games. After all, gamers like me do already spend plenty of time in front of our screens all on our own.īut even sitting alone for hours, gamers aren’t necessarily isolated.
#Find people to play games with tv
But my friends reassured me that as lifelong video game enthusiasts, the prospect of sitting on a sofa in front of a TV for an interminable stretch would be a cakewalk.
![find people to play games with find people to play games with](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/BR9Ng3m5BvA/maxresdefault.jpg)
I was sitting in my tiny New York City apartment, panicky and coming to terms with the reality that I’d be trapped inside for weeks, potentially months. “Our entire lives have led up to this,” my friends joked with me in mid-March.