How did the pandemic shape how we think about video games? I want to answer this question with my story about how I started playing video games.
First, in the fall of 2020, I joined an organization that used Discord as its main form of communication outside of emails and meetings. At the same time, Among Us became popular, so all my organizations hosted Among Us game nights. I enjoyed playing the game and wanted to meet new people, so I joined the Among Us LFG server and started playing with random people regularly. One night, my internet went out while playing, so I left my computer to take a shower. When your internet goes out while you are on a Discord call, it kicks you from the call, but it brings you back into the call after your internet returns if your computer is still running the program. This is exactly what happened to me since my internet came back while I was in the shower. When I returned to my computer, I was on the same voice call, but with another person who asked me if I wanted to join their Discord server. After joining, I played Among Us almost every night with this group of people. However, one day they asked if I wanted to play a different game, which was VALORANT.
VALORANT is a “5v5 character-based tactical FPS where precise gunplay meets unique agent abilities,” according to the RIOT website. If you ask anyone who currently plays the game, it’s a “dogshit” video game where an extreme lack of precise gunplay meets good-looking agent models. For many people, such as ShahZaM, Kyedae, and Tarik, VALORANT is their livelihood. For me, VALORANT was a great escape from the reality I faced at the time. When I first started playing, I was in the second semester of my sophomore year of college, but at that point, I had spent most of my college career online. Additionally, I was questioning my career plans and goals after getting rejected by the “Big 4” accounting firms (Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG). I didn’t know what to do or what I wanted moving forward, and I was too burnt out to figure it out. I fell into a trap that I think every gamer can relate to, where I found the game fun, but I played it to escape.
Why am I telling you about this “dogshit” video game? I am telling you about it because I think so many people can relate to my story. I know numerous people where VALORANT is their first FPS game that they started playing because of the pandemic, but now they play games like CS:GO, Overwatch, Apex Legends, and Call of Duty, just to name a few. But what makes VALORANT different from the other games I listed? VALORANT has a different culture and player base than other video games, but why? Some say it is because it has a prettier user interface than other games, some say it is because of TikTok, and others say it is because it came out during the pandemic. I would argue that it is a combination of all three. What brought people to download and play VALORANT? The pandemic and the pretty interface. What kept people playing VALORANT? I would argue TikTok and the pandemic. Occurring all the same time are as follows: TikTok started becoming a more popular social media platform where people started posting gaming content; Among Us streamers, such as Pokimane, Sykkuno, and Valkyrae, started playing games other than Among Us on their channels; and a pandemic that kept most people behind a computer screen. Additionally, people started becoming heavily invested in content creation during the pandemic. Streaming on Twitch is an easy and free way to create content if you have a decent PC. While some Twitch streamers achieved their goal of making content creation a full-time career like Jollztv, joshseki, and FrtingGlitter, many did not (which I obviously won’t name). For all these creators, TikTok played a huge role in their success because they consistently posted on the platform and advertised their Twitch in the process. All in all, VALORANT is the main game that came out during the pandemic and during a time when content creation was a dream job for many people, which drew people to the game that would not have otherwise cared.
What can we expect from the next generation of gamers? I think we can expect gamers to look different than they did before. Many people used to picture gamers as boys or men that were perceived as incels, but now gamers are people from all backgrounds and genders. Now, there shouldn’t be a specific image in your brain when you think of a gamer. While I do not think we are going to eradicate toxicity from video games because that would be impossible, I think we are moving in a direction where the gaming community will become more welcoming and inclusive.