When it comes to video game communities, there are a lot of people who will opt to be part of this community through participating in live chats, posting tutorials of gameplay, promoting the game, or even just as an active player. In this blog post I will analyze the various ways that people engage in communities in an effort to make the game more enjoyable for many different people.

The most major impact on gaming communities in recent times has been the advent of streaming. Streaming allows players to show other players what they’re doing in a game in real time, and third party apps allow people to comment in a live messenger on the same website. One app that is very popular is Discord, which is designed for gamers to share content while they do video and speak to each other. This was already popular before coronavirus ended up locking people in their homes because many gamers already liked to stay home and play video games all day and all night. What did not seem “social” to most of society is now the most social thing anyone can do.  And now everyone is on zoom, google meet, Teams and other apps that are very similar to Discord. 

It strikes me as kind of ironic that what used to be antisocial is kind of super social now. While my family members are not used to using something like Discord to communicate, my friends and I are very used to it and we have a community that we have created and built through Discord that is very handy during this difficult time. I feel like I am more likely to be communicating with my friends because of my experience using Discord and also that we have something to do together and talk about.  It is difficult to make conversation on some of these video chat sites but if you are doing something you always did, it feels more natural and normal.  

There are a lot of different communities in the gaming world but for people of my generation, we have grown up playing video games our entire life. It was very common for my friends and me to watch each other play a video game and that allowed a lot of kids to hang out together even if it was a single player game. There are more professional gaming communities as well, where people have a common appreciation of games or particular games. And of course there is always an opportunity to get on a game and meet someone new on online games.  That is a community that is always there, always awake, always online and it is a diverse, international community.  I have met some really interesting people and those that live really far away on some gaming sites and I think I have the benefit of being really comfortable with the technology of games and being able to take advantage of the various communities that are involved in gaming.