Gaming nowadays is at an unprecedented level when it comes to its popularity, whether you want to play it on a console, smartphone, or laptop/desktop PC. But it’s not just the fun part that makes this domain so exciting. Gaming is more than just video games; it’s art, a depiction of reality, and even educational in many ways and situations. But perhaps the best aspect of it is that it is social.
That’s right: gaming nowadays is also a way to connect people. Online games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Fortnite, PUBG, World of Tanks, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and many others bring many people together. After they compete against one another in such games, they can exchange DMs and social media profiles. They will have the chance to meet in person if that’s what they want. Who knows, maybe you can even find a life partner in an online game!
There are hundreds of thousands of video games out there to choose from. It doesn’t matter anymore if you’re a teenager, a kindergartener, an adult, or in your 60s. Each and every person can find something interesting in video games nowadays, and certainly, any person can connect with someone else online through a video game. Let’s dive into detail a bit:
Online games bring together millions of people
As online games can bring together millions of people from around the globe, these digital creations foster a sense of community, competition, and collaboration. If you’re wondering what factors could contribute to the unifying power of online games, let’s check out a few of them:
- MMO (massively multiplayer online) games
- Global accessibility
- competitive esports
- Social interaction and communication
- Cross-platform gaming
- Shared in-game experiences
- Regular updates and events
- Alliances, clans, and guilds
- Streaming and community platforms
- A shared passion for gaming
Events, seasonal content, and challenges represent something usual in online games, and these encourage players to participate simultaneously. Such shared experiences will obviously create a sense of community as players collaborate to celebrate achievements, overcome obstacles, or simply enjoy new content together.
Competitive gaming has become a global phenomenon due to the rise of esports. Major tournaments and leagues attract millions of viewers and participants, which obviously creates a shared experience. Fans have the chance to root for their favorite teams of players in games like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, FIFA 23, Dragon Ball FighterZ, and many more.
Digital distribution platforms foster the connection between gamers
Digital distribution platforms such as Steam, Origin, Epic Games Store, GOG (Good Old Games), Battle.net, Microsoft Store, and more offer the benefit of fostering the connection between gamers even more. That’s because such platforms offer players a chance to create their own gaming profiles and directly communicate with others through a social environment. They can send friend requests, message others, invite them to battles in games, and so on.
Services such as Steam are capable of a multifaceted ecosystem that brings people together through powerful features. We can also mention the Game Library and Storefront, the Friends and Chat features, Steam Groups, Workshop and User-Generated Content, Events and Sales, and a lot more.
When it comes to how gaming can connect people, it doesn’t even matter too much what platform you use to run those virtual worlds. That’s because many of the modern online games offer cross-platform play, which means that you can play against a fellow who plays from a PlayStation 5 while you use a Windows PC to run the same game, for instance. The examples could continue forever, but you got the point: with cross-platform, people can play against one another regardless of what platforms they use to run a specific game.
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.