“Why can’t we be friends?”

So while asking people on topics I could cover for this week’s blog somebody had mentioned “why not do a blog on friendships with regards to gaming?” This was actually a great idea as I thought of how some of my best friends are gamers like me and talking about games and playing them gives us a shared interest. Granted we all have our own favourites for what games we play, what consoles we like. Ultimately it is a shared interest which provides discussion.

Think back to some of your favourite games you played online with friends. Sometimes you would message each other to come online and play a specific game co op together. You would even sometimes try to arrange to both be online at a certain time. This was certainly the case for me as I would message one of my friends for them to play Fifa or Call of Duty together, even Gears of War. We would both jump into games and play them for hours losing track of time. This felt like such escapism for me.

Then when it came around to certain game announcements or console announcements I could have massive discussions about them. The one friend I know is a massive Metal Gear Solid fan and we could sit chatting on Whatsapp or in person about our favourite moments and letdowns. Granted there would be banter playing against each other online or on the same team about how many kills we had got. There was an edge of competitiveness, but it was all good fun.

Even speaking to people online purely to help with a certain game co-operatively I felt that we both had the same goal. Purely to get to the end of whatever it was we were playing. Yet, throughout the time we could be playing the game through the whole way through we would get on better. We would try to arrange certain times when we could play together online to finish it all. After finishing whatever game it were we would ask “what other games are you struggling with? Maybe I can help you”. Again this started purely with 2 random strangers just saying “I’ll help you out”, but at the end you had felt you had made a friend to game with. Even in some cases people would try to arrange to meet up in person for the first time.

In recent years I have faced a battle with Depression as well as Anxiety. The moments where I could escape these feelings were playing together online with friends. It’s like at that time of doing that nothing mattered and I just wanted to enjoy the moment. There are a lot of factors which have made me feel better, but I can say personally gaming with friends certainly helped me. At the end of the day whether it be cooperatively gaming or competitively we all are better with company than being on our own.