With the development of the Internet and computer/console hardware, networked games have become a staple of the gaming community. It has allowed players to partake in and share extraordinary experiences such as playing with a complete stranger for 3-5 hours straight with no verbal communication in a run through of Journey or coordinating a 2,670 player battle between four large guild coalitions in Eve Online. In my opinion, it has also led to pretty significant experiences between several individuals meeting casually in a lobby or a player hub. You hear stories of how people have met through guilds in certain MMOs, resulting in real-life marriages. I haven't had anything like that happen to me, but I got to meet some really interesting individuals when I was in middle school. I've been a pretty avid FPS fan since I was a kid, starting out with the classics: Half-Life 2 and Halo: Combat Evolved. So one summer, I decided to spend $20 on the MacOS port of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and was surprised to find out that there were still dedicated communities hosting servers 5+ years after the game's release. After browsing through several script-riddled servers, I landed on a clan named "Bravo Company" Free-for-all and Team Deathmatch server where I would spend most of my summer. The clan wasn't that big, only comprised of about 3-5 members, but they developed a decently-sized community casual/hardcore players. I became such a regular that they invited me to become one of the admins on the server, not knowing that I was only 12 years old at the time. Boy were they surprised; I'm pretty sure they all started laughing once they heard my prepubescent voice. But they still let me become a server admin. I ended up developing a friendly relationship with "BigDan," a German student trying to get through medical school if I remember correctly, and "Kc," a retired firefighter living somewhere in the Midwest. I spent probably hundreds of hours on that server, but looking back on it I don't regret a single moment. You see, we would have frequent conversations about whatever was going on in our lives or pretty much about anything, from Kc's difficulty losing weight and reminiscence of serving as a firefighter, to Dan's anxiety relating to upcoming exams, and although I was half their age or more, they respected my opinions or advice (you can understand why that was important to a pre-teen). Also, at the time, I was having pretty bad family issues relating to my step-father. At the time, I had grown up without having a father figure and didn't really know how to react. But as it turns out, Dan went through a similar experience, therefore we would have somewhat makeshift "therapy" sessions where we talked about living without a father and how it had come to influence us.
On the other end, the social aspects of networked games have also become utilized as somewhat "weapons" for monetary purposes. In many different video games across multiple genres, developers/publishers have been utilizing the appeal of rare skins or character models to demonstrate their prowess to others to fuel microtransaction systems. There's plenty of horror stories of adults, and even some kids, spending an exorbitant amount of money for just that sweet sweet loot. There was even the instance of Activision patenting a certain matchmaking system that would manipulate newer players to buy microtransactions by matching them with certain experienced players that had cosmetics for a particular hero or gun the newer player had interest in based on previous match data. Have you had any networked experienced that had a significant impact on you? What's your opinion on the microtransaction debate?
https://twinfinite.net/2016/09/journey-how-long-it-is/
https://www.polygon.com/2014/1/30/5360208/Eve-Onlines-Bloodbath
https://kotaku.com/activision-patents-matchmaking-that-encourages-players-1819630937