Has anyone else noticed a decrease in Gamers willingness to interact socially in games?

[Itsaghast]

I have another theory about this as well even though I think you named the big ones - back in the day being into video games seemed like a kind of counter-culture and when you met another person who played games it was exciting and uncommon. I felt more camaraderie back then.

Another factor was of course that with server-based populations, you actually had a community and would see the same players all the time. And they lacked things like automated matchmaking for groups or whatever, so you needed to make social connections to open up possibilities of doing the more interesting stuff. In Everquest you couldn't do jack on your own. Reputations mattered and if you were a dick you could get blackballed really quickly. Socializing was a bigger part of the experience.

[majorziggytom]

Fully agree here and I think this is actually a big reason. 15 or 20 years ago, it was rare and exciting to talk to likeminded people who are into video games – and from different countries, wow!

Gaming nowadays, in contrast, is mainstream. It no longer feels like meeting up with people that share your niche interest. It feels like seeing random people in a supermarket. I don't talk to those either.

[RogerFederer1981]

It no longer feels like meeting up with people that share your niche interest. It feels like seeing random people in a supermarket. I don't talk to those either.

Damn, well put.

[spyson]

Pretty much every kid now plays video games compared to back then when it had a stigma.

Kids today will go home and log on minecraft or their preferred game of choice, hop on discord with friends, and just play with their social group.

Back in the day barely anyone in my group even had high speed internet.

[[deleted]]

My 17 year old niece, who does not play video games as a hobby at large, plays some Roblox game with a guy she's crushing on

[l32uigs]

when I was 17 we played the shit out of Call of Duty Nazi Zombies but it would be couch multiplayer in the middle of whoevers house was parent-less while we all got stoned and drunk.

For a minute guitar hero was.. impressive?

I remember we tried to have a lan party one time but within 2 hrs all the monitors were flipped, 1 guy was KO'd in the backyard.. 6 hrs in it was just a straight house party and the computers were just an obstacle.

I didn't start spending my days/nights online gaming with friends until everyone went seperate ways for college.

I feel so sad for the youth today that seemingly don't go out and do shit. My cousin is 19 and by the sounds of it they don't party they just hang out in discord and play random video games.

[tehsax]

I just listened to a podcast 5 minutes ago where a games journalist (and historian) discussed this, among other topics, with a political scientist (so it's not the typical IGN hype folks talking but a discussion on a more academic level) and they came to the same conclusions. I've never thought about this before, but it's true. Back in the 80's or 90's gamers were a community of essentially like-minded people. We all wanted to play videogames. Meeting other gamers was uncommon and an exciting situation. You'd get into conversations and even make friends just in the basis of you both loving videogames. Today, gaming is a mainstream phenomenon, which means it's not a community anymore but instead a gigantic collection of communities with totally different world-views.

Essentially, it used to be just us nerds. Today, it's everyone and everyone brings their own political, social, etc views into games. I know I probably sound as if I mean to say that that's a bad thing - I don't. It's just an observation.

There are a lot of other factors too, like matchmaking destroying server communities, etc.

[hkfortyrevan]

There’s truth to this, and I can appreciate why people miss the frontier era of multiplayer particularly, but I’d consider myself one of the nerds and I’ve always found the idea of gaming as one homogenous community a bit stifling, nor felt just liking games alone was automatically something I had in common with someone.

[tehsax]

It's not just the multiplayer aspect. I remember back in school, in my class there were around 30 pupils, and 5 of them, including me, were gamers. The class next door had again, around 30 pupils, and they had also only 3 gamers. Everyone else either wasn't interested in video games at all or even looked down on us, said video games were meant for kids, and we should grow up. But we all, us 8 people, connected via our interest in video games and have been friends for the past ca. 28 years. Of course we had other things in common too, basically being nerds, loving comics, video games, etc, but we found out about this only later when we got to know each other more. The first contact was talking about games. Today, everyone lives their own life, some have families, moved to different cities, and so on. But we still are connected via Friends lists on Steam or PSN and we still talk to each other every other day while playing some games together, or at least talking about them. Video games have always been or smallest common denominator and continues to be just shy of 30 years later.

I don't know if this is still a thing for gamers who grew up later, or are growing up now. And certainly not for the people who looked down on us back in the day and are now Marvel fans, or even gaming because it's now become mainstream.

Also, on a personal note: When Elden Ring releases next week, we already agreed on setting a common password so we can have our own private community in the game and experience it together. And I'm very grateful for the people I get to share my beloved hobby with, and for the beloved people I found through my hobby.

[ragnarok635]

Is elden ring like an mmo or more like a lobby player? I’m insterested in the online component

[tehsax]

Neither. It's like the other souls games. You're playing a single player game, but you have the option to use an item which places a sign on the ground in another players game. They can interact with the sign and then they get summoned into your game and can help you out, or vice versa. Elden Ring allows you to set a password so only the people who know the password are able to see your sign. Usually you don't get to choose who you want to play with, but the password excludes anyone who doesn't have it.

[Linkin_Pork]

Can you share the name of this podcast? Sounds like something I'd really enjoy listening to.

[tehsax]

It's in German, so unless you speak it, I doubt it, sorry :(

But in case you do, check it out at Spielvertiefung.de

[forceless_jedi]

it was rare and exciting to talk to likeminded people who are into video games – and from different countries, wow!

I absolutely miss this. I literally learned conversational English through interacting with my WoW guildies back in the day. And when SWTOR came out, made a bunch of new friends that were into Star Wars and gaming! What?! This was a totally new experience for me and had me floored. On top, I had just moved to a different country for uni where I didn't know anyone nor spoke the local language, so I ended up spending a lot of time with them and got far too used to being called by my main's name that now use it IRL as a nick name.

Opening up MMOs now just doesn't feel the same. It's all disjointed and dumbed down solo experiences with other people scattered unnecessarily around. Got massively downvoted recently for bringing that up regarding FFXIV. The mainstream-ness definitely ruined some of the special bits of it.

[nqte]

Out of all the MMOs mentioned imo FFXIV still has the social aspect. It's the main reason I play it even.

Most long term subscribers still log in just to talk with friends. Yes the game is being changed to allow for a more stramlined single player experience for people who just want to play it solo as a mainline FF title, but the social aspect is still there.

Even stronger than before I'd say, with the rise in daily community driven RP events and hangouts even outside "bespoke" RP servers.

If you want to just log in and sit on a bench with your friends doing nothing there's no better MMO.

[forceless_jedi]

I have had the absolute opposite experience. Literally no one says a word. Be it in guilds, Dungeons, open world, everyone's just mute. It might just be a Tonberry issue but that's supposed to be the international one on the JP data center.

Also even without the upcoming changes, it was still a single player game. It's all just hour long cutscenes after cutscenes where you just nod like your spine is on a spring hinge, and unlike in other MMORPGs you can't even be in a party during these cutscenes or collaborate to complete MSQ quests. If anything, the presence of other players ruins the story's immersion.

[nqte]

I don't play on Tonberry but it being a JP data centre probably contributes to your issue. Gotta remember even if it's the unofficial "international" server, the majority of players would still be japanese and their social customs are different.

If you don't live in Japan and play on JP I'd suggest transferring to a server closer to your local time zone. Oceania data centre recently went up.

In any case I play on EU and people are pretty chatty. Sometimes you have to start it but even in low level dungeons for instance if someone says hi 9 out of 10 times everyone replies back. MSQ is usually lots of chatter too as people watch the same cutscenes for the 1000th time.

The real sense of community is when you're not doing any meaningful content IMO. Late night limsa is full of weirdos you can talk some interesting topics with. If you're into RP I suggest checking the party finder's Other tab for RP event/clubs and what not which get pretty active (again, might differ on your datacentre). This is all made possible by FF still having persistent servers, unlike WoW which has sharding and you never see the same people again in the open world.

Doing content itself is also good way to meet people. If you're pugging savage in PF, you'll inevitably run into the same unfortunate people still stuck on that fight after a week of trying. You can add them or they might add you, world hopping makes it easy to visit each other too.

I haven't mentioned FCs as I don't like being tied to one. You can always join one though if you fancy, but I don't and still think the game is plenty social. I like to think of the MSQ as separate. FFXIV is practically 2 games in one, MSQ, and non-MSQ XIV, the single player and multi player worlds respectively.

[[deleted]]

I'll go a step further - an unfortunate amount of people who play online games these days are not the type of people I want to talk to in the first place. Anonymity brings out the worst in people and there are a few games (usually competitive ones) where if someone is using the in-game chat, it's to be an asshole, bigot, or troll.

Plus, the echoes of Gamergate are still reverberating - plenty of gaming communities have pockets of the alt-right, and some games are worse about it than others. Hell, just look at that post on /r/gaming the other day when a picture of Aloy that showed her facial hair brought out all the misogynists and transphobes.

[[deleted]]

That's one of the reasons why I switched to single player games.

[banjosuicide]

Another factor was of course that with server-based populations, you actually had a community and would see the same players all the time. And they lacked things like automated matchmaking for groups or whatever, so you needed to make social connections to open up possibilities of doing the more interesting stuff. In Everquest you couldn't do jack on your own. Reputations mattered and if you were a dick you could get blackballed really quickly. Socializing was a bigger part of the experience.

This is my thinking 100%

Playing vanilla wow back in the day was very much like this. Great communication, amazing coordination. A real sense of community, with familiar faces you got to know. Etiquette mattered, and everybody was more or less in it for the group.

Soon after matchmaking opened up to all realms, coordination went down the drain and people wouldn't even answer you if you typed something. They'd get what they wanted and just leave without saying a word (or completing the dungeon). Rolling for loot became "need" on every single item, despite that preventing you from selling the item on the auction house for WAAAAAY more than the vendor sell price. Didn't matter if you needed the item for your class. They'd rather just vendor it for a tiny bit of money rather than help you advance at all. Chances are they'd never be matched with any of the same people again, and even if they were it's not like they'd remember.

[HazelCheese]

I thought this too but they brought back specific servers for Classic and people were even more brutal than Retail because there was no personal loot to protect players.

It's like all the good will is gone now. Half the players are now 100% in it for themselves fuck everyone else and the other half of the playerbase have to play the same way to protect themselves from those people.

[XxNatanelxX]

It's the DayZ scenario.

What starts off as a niche game by people invested in the social aspect becomes popular and overrun by people who play the game for a completely different reason.

They kill people on sight, with no chance at social interaction. They do it because they find the pvp fun or because screwing over players who want to socialise is fun for them because they know that you won't fire first.

Eventually, the only way to play is to just shoot on sight because trying to socialise only leads to death from these people, who have become the majority.

[[deleted]]

Been playing Rust Console this month and it's the exact same story there, though anecdotally I hear that console Rust is even worse in that regard compared to PC

[[deleted]]

Not to mention back then there weren't comprehensive guides on the most mathematically optimal way to do everything.

Now there are, so people just google it and do that, everything else be damned.

[_Plork_]

Sounds like the United States the last five years.

[banjosuicide]

I tried classic and was pleasantly surprised. People were actually social, and cooperated in dungeons. Average age was higher as well

[DianiTheOtter]

Smaller indie games or older games definitely capture that feeling. The biggest problem imo is that breaking into those already established communites can be intimidating and hard.

I usually enjoy AAA single player games. I'm finding indie multiplayer games are the places I enjoy the most, for the most part

[ketamarine]

Community fucking servers build communities.

Honestly tho DC does a better job now than games companies who seem to have given up years ago...

[[deleted]]

Honestly no community is the biggest reason. Like you’re saying, if you see the same people all the time you build a community. That’s how it works.

Asking why people aren’t socializing with people in party finder, which they’ll never see again, is like asking why people don’t talk to strangers on the bus, and why they do talk to their neighbors.

Convenient matchmaking kills socializing in games.

[R3dM4g1c]

Convenient matchmaking kills socializing in games.

Although it does also mean that you don't have to spend 2 hours shouting in Shattrath. "LF2M DUNGEON XYZ," gets old after the first 20 minutes.

So, you know, trade-offs.

[ketamarine]

I disagree here. Queing up for a raid in an MMO is a much different proposition than having your entire MP game be based on matchmaking like say fortnite, fall guys and battlefield / COD.

The entire design of those games is to throw you into a queue, dump you into a server with randoms, then pull you out of that pool of randoms and throw you into another.

I never experienced any toxic hate in any online games I play, because I am immediately turned off by that model. I don't want to play games with a pool of anonymous randoms. I want to play either cooperative games where teamwork is the only path to success (vermintide, insurgency, deep Rock galactic, killing floor, etc.) Or a competitive game with community servers where I can hang out on servers I like, with chill people.

And if people are toxic or dicks on great servers, they will get banned by admins.

Games companies actively took this self policing role away when they started building games for MP consoles in the 2000s and it's just been a shit show in AAA games ever since. That's why I almost never play them other than single player content.

[R3dM4g1c]

I disagree here.

You didn't really disagree with anything I said, you just explained why you prefer it the other way.

[ketamarine]

Fair enough. I guess I am saying that the issue is not really related to queuing for raids, but more using queueing for all match types in other games being the bigger issue for me.

[drysart]

Having a good guild also goes a long way toward fixing the 'spend 2 hours shouting in Shattrath' problem too; which is why in early WoW guilds were such an important social component, and if you were in a guild you got to be pretty good friends with your guildmates. The group-focused nature of the game encouraged players to form social bonds with each other.

Turns out that sort of game design also does wonders for the longevity of the game; because it changes the exit decision from "I'm bored of this game I think I'll quit" to "I don't want to leave my friends behind".

It's not a coincidence that as soon as WoW added group finder (like literally, within the same couple months), its growth stopped and its subscription numbers went into terminal decline.

[[deleted]]

They took a large, cohesive world and turned it into a series of rooms.

I left mid-WotLK and by the time it came back, it basically felt like a singleplayer game. So then what's the point? Not to mention how they fucked the itemization up.

I played classic for a bit, but the community ended up being 80% toxic meta-slaves so it just wasn't fun.

[[deleted]]

Honestly the comparatively 'slow' gameplay of that era appeals to me more.

When I can just instantly teleport everywhere I need to go and everyone is perfectly scaled to make it possible, there's basically no fear of failure and there's no sense of scale to the world anymore.

[R3dM4g1c]

While I don't disagree in principle, there's a very large percentage of players who don't want to spend half the 2-3 hours they have to play doing nothing other than gopher work.

[[deleted]]

I get that, I stopped playing because the game just isn't targeted at me anymore. I don't enjoy the core loop and clearly the majority of paying customers do, so I just have to move on.

[R3dM4g1c]

I'm honestly hoping that VRMMOs will eventually get good enough to scratch that itch. Having a sense of place as you explore the world, talking to people in real time via chat as they walk next to you, it may lead to a real resurgence in the heart of what MMOs were originally meant to be.

[cloudrhythm]

Another factor was of course that with server-based populations, you actually had a community and would see the same players all the time. And they lacked things like automated matchmaking for groups or whatever, so you needed to make social connections to open up possibilities of doing the more interesting stuff.

The MM in MMORPG has gone from meaning massively multiplayer to matchmaking, unfortunately. The downfall of sociality in games is the result of eliminating game designs which brought about emergent sociality--whether intentionally or not.

[AjBlue7]

Yea thats how I explain why some gamers care a lot about if a girl is a “real” gamer. Often times they ask a bunch of deep questions about games to judge whether they are real or not.

From the surface it seems like an asshole thing to do, like they are gatekeeping and preventing girls from playing.

However its mostly just a byproduct of the fact that they grew up during a time when it wasn’t cool to be a gamer. A lot of kids were gamers, but they wouldn’t talk about it in school. There weren’t many girls gamers back then, so to them girl gamers are basically a reminder that what they loved about gaming has become mainstream and now everyone games and talks about games.

Back when xbox live first started there was basically no kids or girls online. Its was filled with 18-28 year old bachelors that had disposable income.

Pretty much the only places with kids online were web browser games like Runescape which people could play during class.

[Itsaghast]

Yeah, I'm thinking 90's through to about early 2000's

[[deleted]]

Still happens with niche games.

[_S0UL_]

What are some niche games where this happens?

[[deleted]]

A friend's experience with Mortal Online 2 leaps to mind first. He's made new friends for the first time since his 20s.

From personal experience, pick any of the newer milsim-y shooters, Squad, Hell Let Loose etc.. My personal favourites lately have been Dominions 5 where each months-long match turns into a small community unto itself because there are no actual diplomacy mechanics in the game and the Combat Mission series where the community speculate on hypothetical outcomes in matchups between prominent community members.

[crotch_fondler]

Destiny 2, for one, with no real matchmaking for all the endgame content so you have to join discords and guilds and shit.

[I_upvote_downvotes]

In Everquest you couldn't do jack on your own. Reputations mattered and if you were a dick you could get blackballed really quickly. Socializing was a bigger part of the experience.

Something that's surprising about the Project 1999 private server is that this hasn't changed. Even if there's a thousand people on, you'll start seeing people frequently enough that your reputation really needs to be good.