Social

When's the last time you made a friend over an online game?

For me, it was 2018ish, playing a game of Squad with a group of friends I met on Halo 2 back in 2006. We were crawling on the ground slowly concrete walls, because an enemy APC was furiously hunting us down. This 10+ minute cat and mouse chase was looking to be concluded when suddenly, a friend tank arrived and saved our collective asses.

There was now ample time to sit in silence while we captured the point nearby, striking up… conversation with the tank. We were on the 2nd floor of a building when a friend of mine shot at the friendly tank.

Its barrel quickly turned to face us.

"What are you doing?" said a female voice.

"We're just testing the armor," my friend said.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Those were the sounds of the tank firing at the ceiling above us. We all dropped to the floor instantly.

"THE GUN WORKS TOO!" she replied.

All of us had a big laugh, and that memory stands out, because I'm still playing games with everybody from it, including the person in that tank.

But that memory in part stands out… because that was the first time in quite a while I made friends via a game. I've made several new friends since starting Youtube, through Twitter, Discord, and various creator circles, but through a game… that hasn't happened since then, and back in the day, it used to happen quite often.

I'm not someone who looks upon the past with rose tinted glasses. I'm not a very social person at the best of times, so engaging in conversation with a 14 year old redneck who's just learned the n-word doesn't interest me much, but there's lots of good memories I do have over voice and text chat in video-games that can't really be replicated these days with more and more games removing the social features they created to build their platforms.

Some might say that it's because things like Discord has changed the very nature of how we communicate online, and sure, that's a major aspect of it. In 2002, you were paying money up-front and every month to talk to people over video games, now you get it for free and can isolate yourself with only the people you care about with no assholes interrupting.

But… Halo Infinite doesn't even give you the option of talking to the enemy team. Forza doesn't even give the option of proper communication at all.

In-fact, games like Forza (for as much as I may love them) have turned pre-made text-chat prompts into unlockables… which may be one of the most insultingly stupid things I've seen in a game. Imagine OG Xbox Live advertising those to customers, they would've been ridiculed, and yet, it's the direction most online games have gone in.

Remove the social features, and replace them with different methods of engagement… usually with a monetized slant.

You see, back then, games hadn't figured out how to nickel and dime you in-game (beyond World of Warcraft), so the way companies like Microsoft sought to expand their playerbase were to innovate in social features. Encourage voice-chat, clans, messages; everything to facilitate interactions that would keep you playing games over their service.

Now, with the advent of micro transactions, subscriptions, or ceaseless grinding, those social features aren't what's used to sell the game anymore… even though there is a market for it.

I know the Discord server's gonna roast me for uttering its name, but objectively, one of the games that demonstrated the power of social gaming more than anything else in the last few years was Among Us.

The game just wouldn’t be possible with Microsoft's current approach to online gaming, as interacting with other players, friends or strangers, is at the very heart for why it hooked so many people, and why so many viewers of content creators wanted to see people they know play it and stream it.

That variable of other people is what defines the game.

Is it toxic as shit?

Sure.

But that's actually another point I want to make…

Never take a game publishers word on toxicity. They don't give a fuck. Microsoft removes interactions with enemy players in the same game where they're charging 10$ for the color blue? Give me a break. This has never been about toxicity. It's about profit. That companies mention toxicity after they've found other means to hook players besides social features, is not a coincidence.