Have you ever made any real friends through / via gaming?

[DoctorObviously]

Hello Escapists!

I've been gaming since I was five years old and when I stopped to think about it today, I've noticed I actually have made zero friends over the course of sixteen years via the use of video games. Oh sure, I have played with plenty of people whom I've gotten along with, but I've actually never had made a real friend through gaming. Now, my definition of having a friend is quite old-fashioned. Today's Facebook-based society allows you to have exactly one thousand friends with one thousand clicks of the mouse. For me, that doesn't cut it. The weird thing is that I find myself quite easy to talk to and talkative in return, so arguments or questions are never a one-way street.

Maybe it's also relevant to mention that I don't really like multiplayer games. In sixteen years of gaming, there are only a literal handful of games that I can point at and play at my heart's content. I usually like single-player experience, pretty much for the same reasons of Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw. I find players in competitive and even co-operative games to be either harassing assholes (i.e. StarCraft II) or the fleshshields who pick up all your ammo and health (i.e. any badly designed co-op game).

When it comes down to it, my question to you, Escapists, is:

1) Have you made any REAL friends through gaming (in any form of gaming)?
2) If yes, under what circumstances did you find this person?

 

[tippy2k2]

I suppose the "real friend" definition is questionable here but...

I have a group of friends I played Call of Duty 4 with back in my college years. I'm from Minnesota and they're from Ohio so I've never seen them in real life (I've seen pictures and whatnot from Facebook). If they stopped playing games, I'd have stopped buying Call of Duty ages ago. Ghost is on my shelf in spite of itself; not because I'm a CoD fan anymore.

I also play fantasy football with these guys so I trust them enough to send them $100 at the beginning of the season (and trust them enough to give me my $400 second place prize! Suck it Ohio!). I also have a few of their phone numbers and we generally game at least once a week. Honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm kind of broke (and my car isn't trustworthy enough to drive down to Ohio), there is a very good chance I'd have been down there to do the fantasy draft in person with them.

If they don't count, then no (although I have made friends IRL indirectly via the shared hobby of video games).

 

[MysticSlayer]

Gaming has certainly been a jumping off point for discussions with people who would later become my friends. Hearing someone talk about Magic, Call of Duty, BioShock, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect, and other games is sure to get me interested in having a conversation, and since I'm not a very talkative person, those are decent ways for me to feel comfortable inserting myself into a conversation. Sure, I might have made those friends through other means, such as discussion common world views or tastes in beer, but games are just as good for getting a conversation started as any other topic.

As for meeting people in a game, it depends on your definition of a real friend. I haven't met anyone I started playing an online game with in person, but at the same time, a few of the people I met playing Call of Duty and Halo eventually became very good friends. We offered support for each other in hard times, enjoyed joking around on Facebook and Teamspeak and Skype, had discussions on numerous topics that interested us, and of course looked for opportunities to play CoD and Halo together while occasionally branching off to play another game. Sure, they weren't friends in the traditional sense of actually meeting each other face-to-face, but I'd say my interactions with them weren't that different than my interactions with traditional friends. We just had to find a different way to have the conversations and fun times that traditional friends can have.

So overall, yes, I'd say games have helped me to make friends in the past.

 

[Randoman01]

I once had a conversation from a guy in Alaska. this was back when I was playing StarCraft II.

 

[Phasmal]

Yep. I met my boyfriend on World Of Warcraft.

We ended up meeting up after I broke up with my ex and my ex was being weird about it. So my now boyfriend came up to visit to cheer me up and also to be around in case my ex went full on crazy. After a while I went to visit him and we eventually ended up moving in together.

I think it's easier to form close connections like that over games like WoW. I've got several other people I met around the same time from WoW.

 

[Foolery]

Not really. I won't go into details, but there was a small group of 3 people I used to play games online with for nearly 3 years. But truthfully, they didn't really consider me a friend, mostly just someone to pass the time with when the other members in the group were busy. So, after being constantly excluded and ignored for a bit, I just cut ties. Better to move on.

You just don't know if you're a "real person" to them, let alone a "real friend". So you probably shouldn't get too attached. With people you meet in real life you can feel the connection if you are to be friends.

At best, internet friends are fair weather friends. They can turn off the friendship as easily as turning off the computer.

 

[Evonisia]

I've made some (gaming) friends when I first got Xbox Live during the good 'ol Halo 3 days, plus a bunch of people whom I either fondly remember or continue to speak with over World of Warcraft (even more so now that I'm a roleplayer on it).

Does it also count if I made friends with people over gaming related websites? Before I basically had an exile from bothering with my PC for a while I was good (gaming) friends with somebody over at Halo Fanon, we were basically in Steam communication 24/7 and sometimes played games together when his Australian not master race internet didn't fail him.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Yes I have. His name is Aaron. We work together, but we weren't really friends at first. He works in the back, and I work out front. Somehow, I became friends with another coworker there, and none night four of us were playing FEAR 2. We were going for trophies, so we weren't really playing correctly. Aaron and I ended up on the same team, and once we actually started talking to each other, we found out that we had a lot in common besides just being friends with this other person. I've been friends with him ever since.

However, he is the only person. Everyone else on the gaming system list I was either already friends with, or I've never met them in real life.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yup.

Half of my irl friends are people who I met during a Halo 2 lan party at another friend's house back when I was in high school. 10 years later we've all graduated college and are still friends. Most of us still hang hang out at least a few times a month, and still game together, and while a few have moved away, either to other states or entirely other countries, we still visit each other and talk online all the time.

So yes, I've made lasting friends through gaming.

 

[BigOrteil]

I play MMOs since I am 11-12 years old (I'm 22 now, started on UO) and never met anyone on the internet. At first I thought it was because of my bad english or my inaptitude to socialize but now I know it's because I just don't care about people in my games (so I guess it is indeed my inaptitude to socialize). I stay polite most of the time and try to be a good person overall but I never start conversation with anyone. Even when people talk with me, I just answer the strict minimum. When i'm in a guild I just talk when there's stuff concerning the next raid/missions/pvp. I guess i'm kind of anti-social but I like it that way. My best friend and I play the same games I don't really need random people to play with or to appease a social trip.

 

[Supdupadog]

Well I've made friends with people as real as can be when they're in England or Texas.

I did meet my boyfriend on WoW, so thats worth like 10 friends.

 

[Ferisar]

Yep. Some through WoW, some through League, some through others I knew from those games. I talk to many regularly still, and am very close friends with several others (have met up before, know where we both live, a lot of talks about what goes on in our lives, etc).

It's all about the atmosphere you're a part of. My guild from WoW was very close, and a lot of the people from it are still around. Maybe I got lucky, but it's pretty awesome. As far as the whole "real friend" thing goes, eh. I care about them, but I'm aware that we're far away from each other normally. I will definitely try to visit them all at one point or another, though.

 

[lacktheknack]

No.

I got close with one girl, but she vanished off the face of the earth out of nowhere. ;___;

 

[prpshrt]

Well, I played WoW a few years back and got to know my guild leader well. Idk how but she and I started to talk a lot (mostly her giving me advice on life cause she was a few years older). Added each other on fb and we exchanged numbers so she could text me when I was running late for raids. Unfortunately lost touch with this person because I quit WoW and realized my GPA in college couldn't take any more hits. Oh well. But yea, considering we were able to discuss somewhat personal matters with each other, I'd think that I was able to make a friend online. I still do occasionally say hello when i log onto battle net and i see her there.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I started a guild in WoW back in early Burning Crusade. Not only did I end-up meeting someone who lives within 20-minute's drive of where I live, but there's a group living in Vegas that the both of us ended-up becoming fairly close with as well. We started-out meeting for BlizzCon, and these days we even head down to Vegas about a week early just to chill with them and their friends before road-tripping to Anaheim for the Con, and now the guy who lived right near me actually ended-up moving down there just recently. I've been considering doing the same, but I'm a winter person, so I don't know how I'd do in any environment that isn't completely buried in snow for roughly 25% of the year.

 

[Autumnflame]

Yes from various gaming clans. and other communities

Its not so rare in this day and age

 

[Windcaler]

Im not sure what you mean by real friends. You stated that they arent the people you just friend to play with which is alright I guess but then you didnt really define what it was beyond that.

For me, Ive made met many people that I consider good friends through gaming. Ive met and hung out with many friends Ive met through the various MMO's Ive played and we still have strong bonds today. The officers of my old everquest guild still talk and get together on occassion even though none of us play the game anymore. I even run a monthly Pathfinder game over Skype that all eight of us play in.

I quit neverwinter a few months ago due to its crap expansion but in our guild there are quite a few people in our state. Were planning a get together next weekend at my place (a few of our European guild members are even flying in as part of a vacation). Im planning a big BBQ but there was also some interest in playing out some Werewolf: The forsaken so Ill have my books and storyteller hat ready just in case.

Then theres my friend Shawn who I originally met at a Marvel vs capcom tournament in a small arcade. He and I served together in Iraq, I was the best man at his wedding, and Im the godfather of his daughter. We get together to talk and work on projects often. I dont think theres a person Im closer to who I met through gaming.

From where I stand I consider them all my close friends. Friends I would have never met and had the privilege to know if it werent for gaming

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Yes. When I was little I deliberately befriended the new kid in my classroom because he had a GameBoy. He quickly became my best friend.

 

[Blow_Pop]

I have quite a few friends I've made through this site and gaming (most of them I do both with). And by real I mean we occasionally call and text each other (because most of them live in parts of the world I can't easily get to). If I were to do a full count it would be probably in the neighbourhood of 20. Though I'm low balling it because I'm pretty sure it's more. And most of them have my address and we exchange holiday/birthday cards.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Oh plenty of them. Mostly through my LAN party days, though I rarely see or speak to them as much these days. Still it was awesome to bond with people over Quake 2.