Heh...nice necrobump,
@Wolfy. Digging up a thread for 2017 is one thing. But it's an interesting read. And the probable change with corona aside, it's probably still as relevant as four years ago.
As for my opinion: it stayed somewhat the same for me. In my youth, video games were sort of a personal escapism. I consumed them like I did with books: I just explored the worlds more interactive than books. Talking about games wasn't something we did among friends. Oh, sure: the shared super nintendo we had saw quite some couch co-op play, but I can barely recall discussing anything in the sense you would expect ("this is too hard!" "Peach looks...kind of pretty, right?
" or those things early teens kind of should say). I mean...my nephew and niece came over (ages 4 and 6) last weekend to, among others, play some wiiu. Nephew is usually very shy/introvert, but once we got on the mario race track or played Mario bros U, he could barely stop talking.
...but back to me. In my UT days, I...erm...talked more than average. That is to say: Unreal Tournament (and later 2004) was a very fast paced first person shooter before voice chat became a thing. Merely stopping to type even one or two words could get you fragged instantly. So in that strange environment where most communication consisted of "GG" at the end of the match, I started using key binds to taunts to show sportsmanship. First were the included taunts ("nice!" "boom!" "Oh yeah!" "You like that?"...that stuff), later I added an entire scheme to communicate e.g. flagrunners positions with at most two key presses. It's not that I spammed those buttons, but about 4 or 5 of those comments in a 30-minute match kind of stands out when the other 15 players are complete mutes.
Also loved the two or three LAN's I been to. Was great to meet clanmates and semi-clanmates in person. I thought things would be more chatty, but when we started playing the only real difference was that the ping was much lower (which ironically made the pauzes of gaming the best moments).
After that, I mostly stuck to singleplayer games again (starcraft 2 was the only exception...and I didn't talk there). Hung out on forums a lot (and still do, obviously
), but about the only real co-op games I played were couch co-ops. As mentioned above: I like nintendo games for this feature. Their games are never about technological power but always about making sure it's a fun time. As such, I'm looking forward to the day my daughter's old enough to hold a controller.
I've been with my girlfriend for nearly six years. Never got her into console gaming (awww
). But I've grown into loving board games at least equally much. It's not just the social interaction (read: if board games mostly consisted of rehashing the same gameplay loops of the same franchiches in ever slightly better graphics, I wouldn't be into board games at all), but it's an important part of it.
When the pandemic hit, I had dabbled into tabletop simulator for a couple hours. It has since become my most played game (at around 300 hours), and continues to grow. For the obvious reason: I set up a hangout session with friends alongside the game, so we can chat as if we were together in all but disease-carrying ways. Sure, the excuse is "I've got to teach the rules", but really: that is sort of less crucial than just being able to chat with others.
