Wondering if your squad is waiting to play with you? There can be something incredibly familiar and heartwarming about logging into a video game and finding your friends already waiting for you. What might have been an ordinary evening can turn into hours of completing shared tasks, celebrating victories and having conversations that continue long after the game has ended. For some, however, the fun of playing a video game may lie as much in spending time with familiar faces as it does in the game itself, where an hour can quickly turn into an entire evening.A study published in the Computers in Human Behavior journal, by surveying 884 players in Taiwan aimed to understand the social environment within games and what it can tell us about player loyalty and problematic gaming. A report by PsyPost further explained the findings of the study, suggesting that playing with people a person already knows, and particularly those they trust, is associated with lower levels of reported gaming addiction.
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To examine these relationships and address a gap in the research, the team drew on two theoretical frameworks: pleasure-arousal theory and brain reward circuitry theory. These frameworks helped them consider how enjoyment, social interactions and the rewarding aspects of gaming might influence player behaviour.The research was led by Shih-I Tai of Chang Gung University, alongside colleagues Thi Tuan Linh Pham, Tzu-Ling Huang, Alexander S. Dennis, Chun-Hao Liu, Gen-Yih Liao and Ching-I Teng. Rather than looking at gaming only in terms of the time someone spends in front of a screen, the team wanted to understand how relationships within gaming groups might influence a player’s experience. Their findings point towards a distinction between enjoying a game enough to return to it and developing a pattern of play that becomes difficult to control.In the course of the survey, the participants answered questions about the games they had played during the previous month, the size of their usual gaming groups and how many of their fellow players they knew outside the game. They were also asked to rate how much they trusted the people they played with. Another factor the researchers considered was escapism, which describes the extent to which someone turns to gaming to get away from stress or difficulties in everyday life.The results showed that the size of a gaming group and the relationships within it did not necessarily have the same implications. Players who regularly played in larger groups were more likely to report loyalty to a game and were more likely to continue playing and recommend it to others.
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Knowing fellow players in real life appeared to have a different relationship with gaming habits. Familiarity was associated with lower reports of gaming addiction, although it did not significantly predict loyalty to a particular game.Trust stood out more clearly: players who reported greater trust in their gaming companions also tended to report stronger loyalty to the game and lower levels of gaming addiction. Friends who know one another beyond a screen may be more aware of each other’s everyday lives, including work, studies, routines and responsibilities.The study also drew attention to escapism, which had a more complicated relationship with gaming. Using games to escape everyday stress was associated with greater loyalty, but it was also associated with higher levels of gaming addiction, meaning that the same activity can serve two distinctly different purposes.It is also possible that people who are less vulnerable to problematic gaming find it easier to maintain trusting relationships with their fellow players.The research, based on a survey of 884 players, informs a relatively specific field of inquiry, where the time spent playing a game does not tell us the complete story of why someone returns to it repeatedly, but perhaps the people waiting on the other side. Playing with familiar people doesn’t automatically make a game less addictive, but it does shape the experience, creating a sense of joy and pleasure that is only found in a certain space.
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