14 DAY TRIAL // A new study from the North Carolina State University suggests that, despite the stereotypes that are socially promoted, playing video games actually promotes more social behavior and makes players more willing to interact with others.
The lead author working on the research, Doctor Nick Taylor, is quoted by Polygon as stating that, “This won't be a surprise to the gaming community, but it's worth telling everyone else. Loners are the outliers in gaming, not the norm.”
The team has reached its conclusions after visiting more than 20 gaming events both in the United Kingdom and in Canada in order to record the patterns of behavior for thousands of attendees.
378 individuals were also chosen and tracked in order to get a detailed account of both their gaming activities and the way they interacted with other humans.
The study focused more on players who were interested in MMORPG experiences and might not apply to other genres.
The doctor adds that, “Gaming didn’t eliminate social interaction, it supplemented it.”
The North Carolina State University study is innovative because it does not distinguish between the time a gamer is actually engaged with a title and the time he spends only watching others playing, which reflects the current shift towards more spectator titles and the rise in streaming.
The research has also found that regardless of whether they were winning or losing, gamers that were tracked tended to socialize at the same rate during events and they were equally generous to the other participants.
Traditionally, gaming has been seen as a solitary activity which sensationalist reports in the media said could affect the development of players and could make them unable to deal with others in social contests while encouraging them to exhibit self-centered behavior.
But the most important titles of the present are MMOs and Multiplayer Online Battle Arena titles and their core mechanics require players to cooperative and compete with each other, constantly interacting both in the virtual and in the real world.
The increase in interest for eSports also means that there are more events than ever offered for those who are willing to compete in a real-world location, where physical proximity also means that social interactions are promoted.
The biggest events of the calendar will see thousands of players meet and play against one another, while hundreds of thousands watch at least part of the matches online, using streaming, constantly discussing the performance of their favorite teams.