Playing With Someone
The media oftentimes portrays video gamers as being anti-social loners, but past data has shown that many MMOs players were playing with their family or with their romantic partner. Thus, it was clear that a non-trivial percentage of MMO gamers were playing with someone they knew in real life - that gaming wasn't always anti-social and wasn't always simply virtual. And it was also clear that friends, romantic partners, and family members were the 3 main categories of people that gamers were most likely to play with. But because I had never asked all 3 at once, it wasn't clear how much overlap there was. To that end, I finally got around to asking all 3 at once and that allowed me figure out the percentage of players who are and are not playing with someone they know in RL. All the following data relates to whether a player plays (on a regular basis) with someone they know in RL.
First, let's start with the MMO players who play with their romantic partners. Overall, 25% of players are playing with a romantic partner. As we've seen before, and particularly because of the gender ratio in MMOs, female players are much more likely to be playing with a romantic partner than male players.
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I then asked about family members. For the purpose of this particular survey, respondents were instructed that husbands/wives counted as romantic partners and not family members. Overall, 19% of MMO players play with a family member (again, after excluding romantic partners). There were only marginal gender differences. As for age differences, it seemed that the 23-28 group (post-college, early career) were a little less likely to be playing with a family member.
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To get a better sense of who these family members actually were, respondents were asked to name the relationship of family members they play with. Overall, the most often listed family member were brothers, followed by sons.
There was a clear gender split though. Male players were more likely to be playing with their brothers, while female players were more likely to be playing with their sons. Woven into this is also of course an age difference. It is the younger, male players who are more likely to be playing with brothers, and the older, female players who are more likely to be playing with their sons.
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And finally, respondents were asked whether they play with any friends that they know in RL. Overall, 70% of respondents replied yes. Gender differences seemed to diminish with age
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So now this data lets us get to the main question we had - overall, how many MMO players are playing with people they know in RL and how many are not? About 80% of players are playing with someone they know in RL on a regular basis. In other words, only about 20% of MMO players are playing a game and not playing with someone they know in real life on a regular basis. The following table shows the gender distribution. For example, the "Two" category means playing with people from 2 of the 3 categories (friend / family member / romantic partner).
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Also, playing with people that are known from RL tends to be an enjoyable experiences for most of these gamers. The only gender difference appears to be among those who play with a romantic partner. Female players report more positive experiences with their romantic partners than male players report. Overall, these findings do show that the online game space can be seen as a place where existing RL ties are being strengthened.
So even though some critics of online games focus on how ephemeral online relationships are, it seems that most players play with someone they know from RL on a regular basis. It also helps us see these online games as places where existing RL ties are being strengthened rather than simply places where only virtual relationships are forged.