For those of you who clicked on this for the vague title designed to draw your attention, this article is about video games.
In their simplest form, video games are entertainment. They’re something you put on to kill time or have fun. However, any “gamer” would be able to tell you how they can be much more in various ways: one of which is in their ability to help them relate to other human beings.
Here are some ways I have established and maintained relationships through gaming.
How to use video games to socialize in college
Playing multiplayer is the most obvious and the one people think of most. This is extremely versatile. You can go online to either arrange something with friends or play with random people. You can pull out a system with a party game at an event and simply offer people to play. Depending on how things go, you could make a friend or two. Maybe an enemy or two if you’re not careful enough with Mario Party. If you have trouble initiating social interaction, this is possibly one of the most accessible ways to do so. Even if you don’t think you have a proper system, there are ways you can do things with your personal computer or even smartphone. They are more versatile than you may think and I would recommend doing research.
If you still don’t have access to something on your person, then clubs are a great resource since they have events that design social situations for you. From personal experience, clubs do not necessarily mind most people’s presence and have atmospheres that tend to be relatively open to anyone simply showing up. However, I do not know how it is everywhere so if you know for certain that a club is not welcoming to a demographic you are in then it is obvious that it is not where you want to go.
Story time
I expect that most people will want to play games with others casually and this is great. My go-to is possibly the most casually-played and definitely the best selling fighting game in the world: Super Smash Brothers Ultimate. I have had a good amount of fun playing this game simply going at it with others, but something else just as if not more important to me are people I have regularly played against and learned the game with.
The first time I got the game, I just played it like all the others in the series. I just mashed buttons and didn’t think too hard while I was using funny moves against my friends. However, one day I invited someone over to play and they destroyed me with their K. Rool. I was shocked because up until that point, we had been evenly matched in that we had no skill at all. They told me that they had been learning the game and at that point, my goal was set.
The next time we clashed, I wanted to win.
And to do that, I needed to grind.
I dedicated time to learning the basics and one day while I was doing this, my sister walked in on me. She sat down and seemed interested and I asked if she wanted to play. What ended up happening was that we both learned the game together.
She was my first rival in the game. I picked the heroic angel of Kid Icarus, Pit and fittingly, she decided on his near identical rival, Dark Pit. (She likes bad boys.)
We learned their attacks, combos, and technical applications and all the while motivated each other to become better players. For the first time in my life, I could bond with her over a video game. If it weren’t for this, our relationship would not be the same as it is today.
The next time my friend came over, we took turns fighting them and it was clear the tables had turned. We were the ones destroying and only matched evenly with each other. Even after I left for college, she sends me messages about how she is untouchable against her school friends and I can’t help but feel some kind of pride knowing that I’m the reason they hate playing against her. It’s something of a ritual we have now that we test our skills against one another whenever I go home for break.
You can really bond with anyone over anything if you put your mind to it, but video games have an undeniable value in their interactivity. People need to actively engage with them in order to have fun and sometimes you can even get something special out of it. Whether you want some friends or want something to do with them, this is one of many options. If you ask me, it can work pretty well.