Point of the video is to focus on social features that made games feel more "alive" as I describe. I feel a strong difference in plenty of indie games compared to numerous big budget ones. It seems to me that indie games provide life into their games that bigger budget ones just don't do anymore. Not all, but most. This topic first arose when I made a video called "Halo Fans Need to Move On" that dives into the social element of Halo. This franchise used to be one of the best, if not the best, to ever do it in providing a social experience with plenty of content. Big budget games used to be able to provide both social interaction and top-tier gameplay with plenty of content. Pluck away that social interaction and we get left with a more dull product. CREDIT: I used lots of clips for this video, please check out my description where I give credit for all these. I try labelling what they were used for so you can pinpoint it.
the biggest erosion of social games in my opinion is the lack of persistent lobbies. In games like COD, and halo the lobbies used to persist with the same players until they either left, or the server shut down. Nowadays, after every game you get kicked back into a new matchmaking queue never to see the people you just played with again. The fact that you could play with the same people game after game in the old days meant you spent more time with the same players and had an oppurtunity to form friendships, or rivalries. Thats all gone now.
This is what killed modern battlefront 2. Zero community. The game died the second the updates stopped coming whereas Battelfront 2 (2005) is still going.
That's amusing to me, and perhaps indicative of our ages and/or gaming habits, because I look at matchmaking and lobbies as the beginning of the end of when gaming was more of a social experience. They were a downgrade from community servers in that regard, and most others too (and one of the reasons console gaming was looked down on). Everyone lost their "club houses" because it wasn't feasible outside of PC. Glad you had something that was better than what it's become though.
I miss the guys hoppin on a party and just talking about life, making fun of each other, locking in. It enjoyed it more than the games half of the time.
It was something about the ease of “join our party” or “M2AFaR” that don’t exist anymore. Games like Halo 3 had so many “message to all recent players” from people just trying to play a chill game of infection or MW2 with quick scoping or “infected” before it was actually added to the game.
There was a small period for me, after games stopped being social, that I found a new game, and it was socially active, it renewed that social aspect for me... but the game is dead now... and not just low population, I went back to look at it, it has 0 players...
Any games with community servers are automatically like this, just see how different competitive servers vs community servers are in CSGO / CS2, honorable mention goes to modded multiplayer clients, like Skyrim Together, FiveM, SA-MP, and COD Plutonium.
Games nowadays are made for the engagement, not the experience. They want you addicted to sweat matches and microtransactions. They don't want you just hopping on and having fun experiences with new people. They don't want gaming to be a fun hobby, they want it to be an expensive habit.
@@JonPL i play fighting games, an at its core competitive and sweaty genre. Other modern multiplayer games especially fps games are more sweaty to me even when I want to chill. Fgs playing games in lobbies against the same people or ranked feels relaxing. With other people you chat and learn from and with them, in ranked its competitive but you often get a good amount of down time to do some fun things or often run into the same person and have some sort of rivalry with them. Modern fps games you rarely see the same people multiple times and its a colder environment. Maybe its also the team based nature that makes sweat hit harder in fps games. In fgs its 1v1. So you directly interact with one person, get inside their head or they get inside yours. In fps games you don't get that chance and due to sbmm can often be more so in conflict with your team. The lack of people talking often makes it worse. And all you'd have to say is negative anyway.
It's an issue with American culture and how much it dominates the global world. Look up the Protestant Work Ethic, the defining philosophy of the US despite it having been secular for so long. In effect, nothing can exist just for 'fun', everything must have some sort of functional component to justify its existence. Video games cannot exist simply as entertainment. They must function either as moral mouthpieces or money-making machines. This is why we've seen the explosion of the NFT/Play 2 Earn games; the gaming industry cannot accept the idea that video games have no functional meaning, so they attempt to give it meaning through monetary value. It also takes the form of aggressive monetization or simply arguing over which game is better via its quarterly revenue or the parent company's stock when neither make a good game (If you think so, then you have to believe Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the best games of their series and cult classic games are actually garbage). The only side of the industry capable of ignoring this is the Indie scene, which brought you Battlebit Remastered, Risk of Rain, Beta Minecraft, and many more games solely built to be fun and not functional.
I believe this is why Lethal Company blew up. Not only is it fun, but it kinda forces you to be social. And the proximity voice chat definitely helps a ton, it’s downright hilarious.
Most popular games are team games already you're supposed to be working with your team??? This is the problem man, people are just clowns, they don't care to talk or try and have fun OR try and win it's ridiculous. Neither situation is common anymore lol
What shows how delusional some gamers are is how game most AAA companies have made record breaking profits the past 4 years yet people defend the ever increasing prices and monetization in games.
Yup. Or they tell you it's "Free to play" so you can't complain. I don't think any of us asked for shitty free to play versions of our favorite old games@@reethardio6432
Pretty much. You're right at the age where you're going to notice more and more that products don't cater to you, they're going after the young money.@@MrHocotateFreight
@@MrHocotateFreightyeah my wife’s 10 year old boys wouldn’t shut up about stupid VR and Gorilla Tag so we bought them an Oculus Quest 2 just before the name change. They were on that stupid VR headset every day for hours, one of the kids cried when he opened it for Christmas, he got legit emotional over a VR headset he wanted. I get it, I was probably just as happy at age 12 when I got my N64 but he def doesn’t have his priorities straight because he will procrastinate doing everything just to stare at his screens a little longer so once they broke their touch controls for the headset I said “well if you want it repaired you need to find and buy new controllers or fix it, you didn’t take care of your things so that’s on you”. It has been 3-4 months and they still haven’t saved their money to buy new controllers. They could have but decided not to and bought other things. Now that headset sits dead on a shelf (thank god) so it’s mostly ps4 pro and iPhones. Their mom does not want to buy them anymore electronics because they can’t control themselves or limit their own time and it’s always a fight to get them off to do something like take trash out or do the dishes or come eat some food.
There were so many times I'd hang out on the PS3's social platform, Playstation Home, and just wander around picking up people to play games with for the night. I'd introduce myself, we'd find out the games we liked to play; then I'd friend them, send 'em a message, and we'd go grab our copy of whatever game we wanted to play, and gamed for most the night. It felt so satisfying getting to do such a thing with random people around the world. It also helped that back then, PSN was free. So the barrier to entry and socialization was much easier. I'd argue that these days however, people are a lot more adverse to striking up conversations with strangers online, than they were back in the day. I feel like my social gaming experiences in the mid-2000s was partly an aspect of the times. Idk if something like that could ever happen again.
I have fond memories just like yours, most kids nowadays don't know how to have a phone call and don't even know what a controller is, so eventually it's just going to be us keeping the games alive..
Yea games are usually better with other people, the social side of gaming declined for some reason. Games only spread because it helped people socialize.
My Gen Z coworkers hate talking to people. They prefer text chat if at all. Makes the headlines of “Highest youth loneliness” despite being digitally connected make more sense.
@lexc1560 I hate texting as a Gen Z. It gets boring. I try to be more social. In person connections. I'm awkward, but I enjoy it so much. I miss social games. 😭
I told my friends long ago that introducing "party chat" was going to be the end of socializing in online games. Today if you don't have a squad to play with, you'll discover that game chat is pretty lonely. Everyone is in party chat, likely with people that aren't even playing the same game.
It has nothing at all to do with party chat. Party chat has been around since like fucking 2005 maybe even before idk. The main difference is 90% of these games if you had a mic plugged in, you were automatically connected and forced to be in game chat unless u muted out or went to a party chat. Now 99% of the games have it turned off by default to where you have to go into the settings and shit just to get to game chat……back then you were forced, now it’s optional, big difference
@@Foggycallabasashillshelicopter Which still leads back to party chat. Yea, make it optional since everyone is using party chat features anyway. Also, there was no party chat on Xbox live in 2005. Private chat for you and one other person. The thing is what do you tell the kid that's new to online gaming. What if they don't have friends on discord or Xbox live yet. Since game chat is now an option that's off by default, why should they be force to add discord and jump around different channels just to make friends to socialize with while playing a game?
I do think the amount of harassment and toxicity in the golden age wasn't always so great looking back on it. You definitely want some room for trash talk and fun, but is there any line there? I think it depends on who you ask.
As a gamer who started in the mid 90's, watching the decline of the gaming industry is just sad. Going mainstream was a death sentence. It's only going to get worse from here.
its pityness that struck gaming tbh doesnt matter what game well theirs some games where you can meet and talk to people like rec room vr chat but shooters are just shit now its about getting better and talking shit rather then say wanna add eachother and play again 10 years later your friends with him now but nowadays its just gone
@@Ichi_takumi2 If you got some time on your hands then I recommend Squad. It's similar to battle bit but with IMO a better game play loop. The game is heavily focused on communication between players. A mic is required to play it and the community is very friendly and 95% of players are willing to help new players if you just ask!
Going mainstream doesn't have much to do with it imo, they didn't have to change anything about the social features but they did it for more money. They got teams of psychologists and shit out here making algos and ways to milk every dime off us. Even if it wasn't mainstream this was always going to happen. Making people alone and isolated makes them buy more shit. It's just how it is.
Damn man, I’m sorry. If you’re on computer, almost everyone on Gmod has a mic cause it’s a pretty social game. No party required just pick a gamemode. Been playing since 2013 and it’s still the same just a little less people. This video made me realize that’s why I still play it; can’t get everyone with a mic consistently anymore
I’m 28. This was some of the most fun I’ve had gaming and I do believe, the golden era of gaming. Where we had actual map packs and expansions that contained all you needed as extra content for games and it wasn’t NEARLY as predatory as it is today. It’s not just a- back in my day thing, back in the day, games were just made with more passion and love, and the community showed that in the lobbies
At my middle school, COD MW2 was THE game. One day the quiet kid in my math class overheard some other classmates and I talking about it. At the end of class he slipped me a note with his gamer tag on it. All he said was "hey let's play today after school." I still remember our first game was Domination on Afghan. After getting off the bus that Friday, we played, laughed, and shit-talked other players for HOURS. He ended up being a homie that I would play many subsequent CODs with. After COD fell off and I changed high schools I never heard from him again. NinjaXP hope you are doing well bro!
As a 17 year old, I'm glad my parents didn't get me a phone first but a PS4 going home after school with and hopping on to play BO3 and Minecraft, I miss that alot
On the Xbox 360, I ended up deleting most of my friend's list of people from school and randoms once the introduced the Netflix app. About 70% of my friend's list stopped using the Xbox as a gaming console and more of just a streaming box. There'd be people I'd play CoD with after school for years and then for about 2 years until I deleted them when they all just watched Netflix
An issue I've had, is that as it's become more difficult to be in voice chat or games have become less social, the people that end up using mics almost always end up being super toxic in my opinion. Some trashtalk can be fun but it used to be broken up with more fun interactions, which I don't experience anymore. That's led me to stop using voice and often just mute all when I enter a lobby. No point in interacting with a team mate that is just going to complain and whine all game.
i think its because of all the forced niceness we see. never thought fascism in gaming would be an issue but here we are, where cod, the centerfold of toxic assholes in online gaming is banning people for being "jerks" whatever that means. i miss the days when i could talk trash without worrying about getting banned, so now i go overboard with it out of spite. if youre gonna make me be good ill show how bad i can really be
@@ThePhantomGodofNightikr? So many people put on a facade to pretend to be nice and virtuous. But in reality, they don't give a damn and are actually the biggest assholes just trying to get brownie points. It's sad.
yeah i feel that. i don't usually use voice chat because i have a feminine voice and i don't like to risk the "GAMER GIRL" reactions. i tried to play rust once and i used voice comms to talk to my friends. two weirdos immediately came over, started following me around and making uncomfortable/graphic sexual jokes nonstop until i eventually had to mute them. it feels like whenever i leave voice comms on in other games, it usually just results in some squeaker saying "ggez shitters" in post-game and not much else. feels like more risk than reward
Playing Halo Infinite vs remembering what Halo multiplayer felt like growing is rough. The social playlists are filled with people that are sweating to level up battlepasses rather than just trying to enjoy the fun modes. Nobody talks anymore, you never really get messages after lobbies from randoms asking to stay partied up. I'm sure there are still times like that but it just doesn't feel as common unless you buy CoD every year.
Halo 2 was my first online game and I was really good at it from playing system link and campaign on legendary. I'd get so many friend requests and party invites from random people
It’ll never be better than peak Halo 3. Hop into lobbies, talk to some people, party up for a few games, start a custom lobby and invite all of your recents. 16 mics blaring while you all play Fat Kid. It was awesome man.
I miss going onto games TO meet new people and be social. I still see it this way sometimes and my heart gets broken when i go an entire night without talking to anyone.
Hey bro idk what platform you’re on but I would be 100% down to play with ya I also used to do that but gave up when I went a whole week straight in Cold War and no one talked at all
It really is like a great aspect of social gaming is going out with a whimper. I remember playing modern warfare and halo as a teenager and being caught off guard by it. I was an only child that had really only played single player games on a GameCube or PS2 before I got the 360. It was like a revelation that I could meet new people, meet new friends, that I could hang out with whenever. I had it continue on with R6 when siege came out. The fact you would always eventually find a group, your group. But as time went on matchmaking changed and a lot of the player base changed, unfortunately I just didn't fit it anymore. Nowadays I usually play co-op games with my gf, but I'm still hoping for a reemergence of social gaming of the same caliber. Hopefully I'll see you guys there too
im an introvert, always have been. I usually mute all mics worry of some negative people. But the odd times id make some cool friends, with the changing of system in voice chat like "less negativity, less toxicity" potential to be banned or something like that, i find voice chat has been coming scarce, sometimes listening to the conversations in games like COD, Battlefield, Halo, etc, was funny to hear even if I didn't join, it just seems like the gold of the early 2000s in the social gaming community is dying with simplicity in most things.
On top of the voice chat stuff you mentioned, even games that didn't have voice chat had some awesome social interactions that i don't experience as much with the way the landscape has changed. RuneScape was awesome growing up cause I could just wander around and stumble across people who would start conversation and kinda just hang out for a while. Eventually we'd go our separate ways. Nowadays a lot of the time if i try an MMO a lot of people are just running around and grinding their asses off, chasing whatever FOMO driven attraction the developers introduced. Not as many people experience the world and take it easy between the action. Most people just stick to talking with friends on discord or not at all and don't engage in text chat for casual conversation. Just something I noticed over the years which made me nostalgic for my early online gaming days. Good vid, subbed.
Last time I interacted with someone random online was in Halo 2 Anniversary earlier this year. They made a multiplayer map using forge and I showered them in praise with how amazing the map was. We chatted for a good 30 minutes before I left.
Discord killed it a little bit by kind of making it easy for us to fall into our bubbles. Back in the day with in-game chat and custom games, we made friends in 15 minute and joined custom games to where we would join a custom games where we only knew one person
This is what led me to play VRChat pretty heavy. I've slowed down a bit because I have other things I really wanna do too, but there's been many many many moments that reminded me of those old Halo 3 custom game lobbies from back in the day. But the social nature of the game means it's fine to just hang around and chill. I've met a ton of great people and made some great memories. One of my favorite is just chilling on a beach in a world a friend made, just standing around the fire playing some drinking songs and a little bit of alcohol. Woulda been a great night without the alcohol too but it was all just a vibe. But I really do miss games being more social. And I could probably attempt at just being more social in games. I usually don't because i'm watching youtube in the background or "i'm only gonna be on for a few minutes" and then it's hours later and I coulda been doing something. Or any number of reasons like that. Eh...
Battlebit was sooooo much fun for the first 2 weeks or so, the voice comms were so big of a draw for it, everyone was so friendly and the mood was always light. The gameplay is alright, the progression is kinda boring, but the community was hilarious. It killed my attention as soon as I noticed the people that were still playing were the ones taking it too seriously and the funny hyjinks werent really there anymore
Taking it seriously and roleplaying in voice chat fun. What i have noticed in Battlebit, is nobody even talks anymore. I think a lot of those early players probably got permabanned due to their antics in voice chat.
@@olso8621 nah, think they just moved on like I did. No one I played with religiously in the first few weeks plays it anymore. It was a fun game but the progression didn't really feel rewarding enough to keep us hooked
im 19 while i wasnt in the golden age of gaming, i started gaming really young, and caught the end of it, even though i barely played any of it, i missed playing halo reach and mw2 and all the fun stuff that the game allowed you to do, like talk shit, or make friends, new games give zero choice, you cant pick maps, queue up against the same players again, or play casually, every gaming experience is so competitive now.
Bro I ask "Anyone got a mic" at the beginning of every lobby I enter. Idk if it's social anxiety or what, the amount of people with mic symbols who remain silent is easily 85% I'm a pretty chatty dude, and I constantly find myself longing for the days of old, when the only way some of us communicated outside school, was on games. I would give anything to go back to those days. Man, we had it so good and we didn't even know it. Before bills, and jobs and life. Miss you guys. Everyone who I came across and connected with back then. I hope you're all well
Private voice chat is what turned people away from talking in lobbies. This created a natural open room for people communicating with one another. Before Xbox Live party chats were huge, I was very much vocal in game (I was in my teens around then). Now, hardly anyone talks and I just want to sit in silence as I play my games. Sad, because I use to love talking to others now I don't want to bother.
I'm the same way. I loved the social aspects but now even if someone is talking in game I don't want to engage with them because they're probably the reason I'm not having fun, and unless we add each other and group up I'll never play with them again so taking to them is a waste of effort.
I agree with this, but I find that VR is a lot more limiting in quality for games. I am yet to find a VR game that can be enjoyed for extended periods of time, and it makes me sad that we can’t fully develop this frontier at a better pace. VR is great, but it has too many issues.
@@wyvrius agreed all the best games are PCvr mods like Left 4 Dead 2, Red Dead 2, Risk of Rain 2, FF14, Res evil 2,3,7,8, Deep rock galactic, etc. Notice only 3 of those are online social friendly L4D2, FF14, deep rock But notic
I will never forget the Deus Vult meme where it was almost midnight an my friend and I where put into the Knights army just yelling at eachother via emotes for about 2 hours I can still hear "Roman Catapults" in my sleep
I think this is why I really enjoy foxhole. The fact that every one is an actual person and they can all talk to you with proximity chat is awesome. I mean you can even talk to the enemys. It creates good memories and brings me back to a much simpler time like Halo 3 lobbies lol.
I think you put this so simply and I love that. You are completely correct, the 'living' part or the human part of the game is what we all miss. You forget that behind every character model, and every kill, and every death was some other guy enjoying the same game you are having fun in.
Great video. Another major change is the shift to matchmaking over community servers, they created tight-knit communities since you’d often end up playing on the same servers for years on end with the same people, it was amazing. Personally I’ve been into Insurgency for the longest time, that series had a tight knit community to start off with since it was so niche, add to that community servers & proximity chat (one of the first implementations circa 2006) and you got yourself one of the best gaming environments in history. I miss it.
While we don't have OG Insurgency on console we do have Insurgency Sandstorm and while yeah it doesn't live up to it's predecessor it's still better than most games when it comes to socializing I mean just yesterday I was playing and both teams had people were talking and it was some funny shit I mean had people talking shit and communicating strats and it was great especially cause it doesn't normally drop people after matches we grow on each other and come to recognize each other even after stints of not playing it's honestly a beautiful thing
I still remember my first social experience as a kid in the 90’s getting online on a 56k modem. It was for a game called Subspace (now Subspace Continuum, still free on Steam), I named my guy ZzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzz and the first person I ran into on my team I freaked out and started typing to them like crazy. No clue what their name was but I kept trying to get them to talk to me through text but they wouldn’t do it, so I kept following them for 5-10 minutes. Still remember that. And wanting to play online to interact with others. I wanted to play Duke Nukem 3D in MP and Warcraft 2 so much with people online I pretended to in map editors and made things for Mp matches. Nowadays? Everyone’s a sweat lord and nobody plays for fun, it’s all ranked or matchmaking to try and be the best. It’s not for social interaction anymore, even games like DRG 4 player coop people rarely interact by typing or voice chat. We’ve never been more connected but everyone feels so alone.
This video got me talking about it with my friends, who I've been squadding with for roughly the past 15 years. It was a bit nostalgic, talking about our lobby days in Gears, D1, D2, Halo, Battlefield, Monster Hunter, L4D and so on. But it didn't take long before we all started wishing we could've had the lobby experience you described. None of us are white. Most of us aren't men. Several of us don't speak English as a first language, and a lot of us are queer. The main reason most of us even got on mic in lobby was because we never played alone; most of the time we got people who just shouted slurs or griefed when we ignored them calling us slurs for being clocked as Different on the mic. Playing on mic alone was more annoying than fun. Lobbies were exclusionary for a lot of us who didn't fit a certain few molds. I very rarely have good experiences when I'm playing alone over the past 17 years I've been on mic, and I'm definitely one of the people who peeled off into Skype/Party Chat/Discord the second it was available because I was just tired of 8/10 games being toxic to the point of being unfun. If I was playing with trans friends or friends who spoke English second, the whole vibe would sour the second I switched languages to translate or if someone clocked me or my trans friend on mic. Which isn't to say we stopped hot mic altogether, but that even with me still trying to give game chat a chance, most of my encounters are still overwhelmingly Bad. The option quickly became: Do I go hot mic and get treated like trash, or do I go in with my friends or on silent so I have a better chance of enjoying the game I'm playing with what little free time I have to spare? My friends also make that same decision every time, and more often than not? We'll choose the devil we know. The newer waves of proxchat games are fun. The indie titles definitely bring back a lot of that charm, maybe because they're not built with the level of sweatiness inherent to AAA Competitive FPSes. I'm less likely to get a tween trying to do a Hard R speedrun in Battlebit than I am in OVW Ranked. But you're right - the dead mics are sad! Even if I'm probably going to switch off, I miss hearing someone on the other end and considering the opportunity to vibe. After all this time (and a lot of terrible experiences), I still seek it out, in memory of those few really cool people I found in lobbies years and years ago. It's something special, and I just wish it didn't suck so much for so many of us trying to just have a decent time on chat.
THANK YOU. The loss of open voice lobbies wasn't some "woke pandering" by corporations, it was corporations realizing that the toxicity in the average lobby was scaring off potential customers. The myth that girls don't play video games is not because girls don't want to play competitive online games, it's because the moment they open their mouths and non-male sounds come out of them they get flooded with sexual harassment and unwanted DMs, so girls have to either avoid those games or be silent and pretend to be male. I also can't imagine hearing the hard "R" every thirty seconds was all that fun for people of color, either.
This video was put together extremely well. I remember when I played Black Ops 2 on my PS3 back in the day trickshotting with the boys and playing search and destroy. It never got old. Playing Bo2 on PC or even on the PS3 now is boring because there is no one with mics. The old games were fun, I could just sit back and just listen to the people on game chat all day every day and be entertained. Also, to all my fellow cod trickshotters, I salute you for bringing a whole new side to cod that caused my addiction to gaming today.
What i notice is all of my friends from this generation of games still use mics, but a lot in our group that are new gamers or younger dont even buy them. I remember when the 360 would come with a mic..
The original 360 headset that would kill your ear if you used it for too long.. Man do I miss that thing. Although I remember when my dad got himself the fancy wireless earbud style one, and I was so jealous. Him leaving me with the OG headset was like giving the "Madcatz" controller to your little brother lmao.
I think VR is the rebirth of social games because most of them have proximity chat and are focused on communicating with mics on by default, and in vr headsets have a mic by default and allow people to do gestures with there entire upper body, the main example I think of is Pavlov ttt, I have countless hours on it and the best moments are not winning or getting cool kills, it’s the b\standout social interactions that stick with me till this day.
Pavlov yeah but the rest eh. Like I've had fun with vr chat but that's honestly a different crowd than the guys you would shoot the shit with back in the halo cod days.
You have made multiple videos on this, and your points have remained true. I believe that a social aspect can save games like halo and COD. Great job on the videos man, keep it up.
I think there's a few things that caused the decline of social gaming: 1. Private voice lobbies, discord, etc. Not only do these keep you with your friends and out of in game chat, they also provide you with larger community. You don't need a game's community and all the baggage that comes with it when you can get a subsection of that community that is easier to get along with. 2. The shift in focus of responsibility in popular multiplayer games. I feel like older FPS games in particular, while still having the ability to carry, largely distributed responsibility of winning and doing well across the team. With the advent of BRs (small group content), and the change of killstreaks to be "win more" buttons, individual responsibility became more important. 3. The whole "xbox live lobby" effect in general. It was a fun time, but that level of toxicity was exhausting, and video games got a stigma for it. New people trying to get in won't even try voice chat because they hear bad things about it, and friends bringing others in will stick to private chat because it's better for learning, and keeps away the toxicity that might drive the friend away. 4. The shift from servers to matchmaking. Rather than players you'll see at least the next game, if not every day, each player is faceless. They're just "the next opponent," and you'll probalby never see them again. 5. The shift from creating a fun game to a focuson revenue and player engagement. I think this one is obvious. A lot of these should only affect their individual products, but due to how trends are followed in gaming, they spiral into places they shouldn't. A lot of what happened both caused social gaming, and brought about it downfall, like most evolving technologies.
I was recommended this video randomly from RUclips and couldn’t be happier for it! Amazing job with everything you conveyed! I truly understand and have been gaming since the early 2000’s because of a little game called Halo combat evolved! I remember specifically finding and meeting so many people from Halo 3, Reach, Gears of war 2, Gears of war 3 and the original Modern 2! Such an amazing time that I still think was the peak for gaming! Luckily things go in cycles so, I can’t wait until we get back to those times of building communities and friendships in game rather outside of said games through social media!
I miss the old days honestly being born in 2000 and getting into games at around 4 to 6 and playing through as the stereotypical squeaker, I made so many friends that I no longer speak to anymore, how I wish I could go back to those days
I Miss the Old XBL Days. Some Of the Best Memories From Early On In This Life That I Have Were Made On XBL, Playing COD and Minecraft. In All Honest, Games Being Less Social Speaks Volumes On How Much Anxiety People Have These Days Just Being In Public. If People Are Too Scared to Say Something to Anyone In an In Game Chat Because They Might Get Banned Due to An Arbitrary AI, Imagine What Will Happen 5-10 Years From Now As People Are Already too Afraid to Speak Out On Many Pressing Issues. Very Well Done Video. You’ve Earned Yourself a New Sub!
Extremely great video! The lack of in game voice chat and lobby retention these days has definitely been a huge contributor as to why games don’t feel the same. It sucks that studios and developers are seekingly getting rid of these purposefully. Hopefully things turn around eventually!
Im only 24. But I started playing multiplayer games when I was 5, as a kid I was so happy that I could trash talk to older guys in the lobby and just listen in on some funny ass raunchy conversations on MW2, Halo, Gears, or whatever. I couldnt wait to grow older so I can make even more experiences like that on games, but theres nothing like that nowadays, and it kinda pisses me off because I feel like I was truly robbed of some great memories. You could play COD and have great times, get bored of it, and switch to Halo or Gears and instantly have fun again because those lobbies were just as wild. I am reminded of a quote by Hunter Thompson that I think fits, "...No matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and mad as I was, no doubt about that. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda, you could strike sparks anywhere..."
I was literally 10 years old on Gears of War 1 online its hard to believe when thinking of the gaming landscape now I had so many friends online and rivals I would see again since the community was smaller. I really think the focus on competitive gaming and metaprogression and how the monetization aspects contradict the competitive ambitions really make most big online games not the same as triple A titles back then.
I feel like how people act in game chat nowadays affect it also. Cod isn’t just banter anymore that followed up with a 1v1 it’s people sweating and then teammates screaming and reporting you because of how you play. It feels like your not even in it for fun anymore it’s just constant sweating and no chilling at all.
I agree with a lot of what you said. One of the biggest turn offs from gaming for me was no longer being able to stay in a lobby with the same people once a match ended. It was so much fun to play with the same people over and over doing silly stuff or trying to rematch and best them. I also think skill based match making has had an effect on this. Before you could match with people way more skilled than you and learn stuff from them and in the same match have fun with someone who is just learning the game and doing stupid funny stuff. I think playing battlefield 1 in a party with my buddies was the peak of gaming for me. We would talk nonsense and life and then switch into serious mode to win a game last minute. We would also play against rival clans match after match(since bf1 has a server browser and you stay in the same lobby once the match ends) which was so much fun talking trash while not being too serious.
As someone who first started multiplayer gaming as a teen by playing Halo and COD 4, I definitely remember the golden age and how fun the randomness of online gaming was. Now, I'm approaching 30 and have different priorities and perspectives. I think one of the biggest issues now is not wanting to be subject to some of the toxicity that goes along with many modern FPS games like COD. I'm not trying to come home after a long day of work and be subjected to racial slurs or anything like that. I'd rather just chill in party chat with current friends and catch up. I think some folks lament the fall of in game chat and interaction, but there were definitely some darker components.
Lethal Company has reminded me a game doesn’t really need to be fleshed out with amazing mechanics and gameplay. The prox chat alone has made many great moments and memories that reminded me why I play games in the first place.
- Why people don't communicate in online games anymore? - Because of permabans for writing/saying anything that MIGHT offend someone on the WHOLE FUCKING EARTH. Yea, EA?
with the newest of newest games i can say it doesnt help that everything is deemed "toxic" and a bannable offense and cod now has its AI voice detection too to make speaking alone a minefield to be banned but it is for sure something that extends out to the modern social culture of so many people getting "triggered" or whatever like it by boyish social chatter and then also that games are to be made competitive now and a second job with non stop dailies and battle passes instead of games made to be fun first and foremost
Yeah for some reason people just don’t talk in lobbies as much anymore. I remember anytime I joined a lobby I’d have to start muting people right off the bat because it was just so loud. Every single time.
This is why indie games have become so popular. Among us, battle bit, phasmophobia, and most recently lethal company have all picked up the slack in a range of genres.
I'm an introvert and usually I wanna play games to just chill out and relax. This video has inspired me start hopping into game chat a bit more and experiencing the game with other people.
As an introvert, I don't mind games becoming less sociable. Gaming by myself without my mic on just feels more natural to me even though I always used to be chatty in game chat back in the day. It was kinda what you did back then and it was all a new thing. I'll never forget using my mic for the first time over Xbox live thinking how cool it was tho
As a 40 year old guy who's been gaming online since 1996, these are the major culprits. It's actually pretty clear cut. There's no mystery here. 1. The death of server browsers in favor of matchmaking. This robbed us of the primary method by which open communities were formed, where people would develop a loose sense of comradery and familiarity that encouraged social fun without it being a requirement to be actual friends beyond the server. 2. The growth of e-sports. It's fostered a gaming culture that is too hyper-competitive for playfulness. This is why most of the games referenced that are successfully pulling off a social aspect today are not competitive games. In anything PvP focused today, if you're not ultra-focused try-harding while strictly adhering to a rigid meta, you're going to get trounced so hard it's negative fun while teammates rage at you. And if that game isn't balanced to have a strict, rigid, punishable by instant death meta, competitive gamers spew the worst fucking radioactive hatred at the devs you will ever see in your fucking life. And the pros/pro-wannabes can't even separate themselves from the people just trying to have fun, because no server browsers and even low-level matchmaking is plagued with pros smurfing. 3. Ultra-divisive modern politics that have devolved into active cultural warfare. Any online service that involves human beings communicating with each other are under pressure to preside over that conflict and act as kingmakers, and whichever side doesn't receive the favor of that service gets angry and attacks that service. And this environment is just generally making people more anti-social because they don't want to get caught up in some bullshit when they're just trying to relax after a day of work/school. (And no, this is not me laying blame at the feet of SJW's, feminazis, or whatever like many others in the comments. The shit gets flung both ways. Both sides are to blame. Hyper-sensitivity/main character syndrome and assholes who are allergic to the concept of respect or compromise are equally large and damning problems.) 4. The rise of streaming, which would actually be a boon to the social aspect of gaming, except for the moderation policies of the major platforms like Twitch and RUclips. Streamer logs onto random server and opens up voice chat with whoever randos are there, and someone drops the n-word. Streamer gets banned from their streaming platform. With as influential as streamers are now, and that even being a threat to livelihood for many, that's a severe chilling effect. If a game company wants to be cozy with the streaming sphere, it makes sense to promote non-social behavior in open matchmaking, and even so, it's best for streamers themselves to make sure they only hear the voices of people they trust.
-Players who doesnt speak English or have a different dialect are also a piece of the equation. The moment you speak a little bit of spanish, you have a great chance that get discriminated. -Also protecting noobs and literal children, because those are both players and mtx costumers. The more engaged those are in the game, the more chances they will spend money on the battle pass. -Also COPPA and other similar regulations worldwide.
The mobile game I started playing had proximity chat on by default and it was fun. We joked a lot even though we were competitors. The developers changed that in a recent update. It’s quiet and soulless now.
It's 3am, made a cup of coffee to sit down and listen to this. At 30 , these kind of videos hit so hard as these times of life were so much more fun, careless , and free. Memories on memories in lobbies and the party chat used to get pretty lit when you'd meet some cool people in matches. Thank you for this.
I miss when games were social, before everyone and their mother were trying to be an esports streamer. The last games I met long term online friends in were The Division and MW19, which was arguably the beginning of the decline in socializing in game. Now games come with VOIP automatically disabled and no pre or post game lobbies.
Honestly I know y’all hate this but vr has kinda given back the social energy I used to get from older games like bo2-1. It’s literally some of the best shenanigans I’ve had in gaming.
How does one start in VR! is the quest really the way to go? I had a gen1 vive but the headset screen broke before I could give it a good try (i bought it used which was my mistake). last I heard, VRChat was cracking down on skins and mods which was (apparently) causing the community to shift. Dont know how things are now though as I havent looked into it since I heard that 'news'/rumor
@@drawster00 If you are not sure about VR, start with Quest 2. Its not the best, but a cheap and good start. And yes, you would need a good PC to experience VR, so prepare to invest even more if you dont have one, cause some lobbies in VRC can be reaaaally heavy on your PC. About VRC: yes, they fucked up mods, but the avatars, or skins, are essencial to the game, they cant delete them. Its worth trying if you are looking for social experience and fun. I cant tell how its like for public lobbies, but Friends+ lobbies with right groups are amazing.
I’m only 24 but played CoD when it was at its peak and definitely miss when people came to game chat to talk. The last game I’ve played that felt social was Overwatch 1 when it originally released. Now you’ll be lucky to catch 1 or 2 people on your team in game chat
I stopped using my mic a few years ago, people would be too loud, playing music or just super toxic. Also I enjoy co op games and there are SO MANY little kids on there. Id love to help them but then they always want help and talk a lot, have no volume control etc. Its just a burden. I have noticed a few times if I pop a mic in and start talking like on Deep rock galactic or back 4 blood that one or multiple people who were silent jumped into chat as well. Also you have to think of the times changing, MW2 age was the tail end of interacting in person outside of school consistently. Social media blew up from there, apps, everything went online. So younger folks dont talk or only talk to someone they know. Add in the new extreme corporate rules around "hate speech" and you have a recipe for people shutting up and keeping their heads low.
I still remember making so many friends I still play with to this day on MW2 and Halo 3. I remember getting to play Halo 3 for the whole night for my birthday (I had to split play time with my older brother usually) and I remember telling the lobby and people actually sung happy birthday to me and then the people on my team basically played protect the president the rest of the night. I still think about it frequently and during the pandemic we got everyone back on to play again and it was so great. I genuinely feel bad for the people that didn’t get a chance to experience little things like that.
I played halo reach at my friends house almost everyday for 6 years. Cops n robbers, the kitchen, Jail, Fat Kid. I will forever remember those amazing times with my friends on split screen and online.
My first multiplayer game ever as a teenager was Modern Warfare 2 (the…original). I’ve definitely noticed a subtle shift over time. People still use voice chat but it’s for such a different reason. There used to be all these weird and wacky one off conversations in voice chat. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it did get toxic. But now, 9 times out of 10, when someone is using voice chat it’s just to tell me that they think I suck or I ruined their rank in a game after sitting in silence the whole time. It’s really depressing honestly.
I used to regularly host various lobbies in MW2 (sniping, michael myers, etc). I miss those days. I would play a few FFA matches and then send messages to all of my recent players inviting them to play, it was common to add people as friends and then you'd have a new buddy to play with regularly.
That era of gaming wasn’t the golden age of social gaming. It was its sunset. When 12 year old kids burst in to what used to be for adults and climbed over each other to try and be the edgiest edgelord in voice chat, it stopped being fun.
I miss the days of playing with Michael and Tyler on MW2 Such innocent times And yet the best too Hope life's treating all those who abandoned the Mic well
This,,, I would agree with the term 'abandoned the mic' and hope all of you the best. In my experience at least, I had/have made multiple efforts to casually talk in many different games to be met with utter silence. I guess one could blame a lack of effort day in and day out of talking to rando's trying to find a good group again - but it seems so much more difficult now than it used to be. Wheezy is right, if mic is off by default, many players will never touch the setting leading to desolate feeling lobbies, even though they're filled with other gamers. I abandoned the mic because talking now makes me feel MORE lonely now since you get fewer and fewer interactions - you just end up talking to yourself all night. I'd say its almost easier now to not try, just so I'm not let down at the end of the session
this style of video fondly reminds me of the youtuber "under the mayo" if I remember correctly. Absolute knowledge with that guy and gaming. Wheezy knows how multiplayer games (should) work while under the mayo knows how singleplayer games should work. I'm already in love with this channel and its simple editing style with supreme writing skills, well worth my subscription.
Wanna join my Discord community? I am trying to build a server for all kinds of gamers, but mostly filled with people who watch my content (Halo, COD, Gears, etc etc). I want to be able to house gamers that play some older games, but also new. join the discord community >>> discord.gg/Nb5NfT6AWX If you enjoyed the video, consider supporting me. These videos I am heavily passionate in making, but RUclips doesn't pay well and isn't stable. No need to do so, but the option is there: www.patreon.com/thewheezy
youre totally right here, but another factor is modding in single player modding. first there was forge mode in halo, making your own maps and modes, then there was skyrim with 700+ mods, literally hand crafting your entire own game
@@RUDY-COLEMAN true, though even before Discord we had Xfire, we had Skype, Teamspeak, Ventrilo... I'd say the bigger problem is you can't 'get away' with anything in game voice chats anymore, with stringent 'community guidelines' and the war on hate speech & harassment. people don't feel free to say anything anymore.
I think the rise of social media was the downfall of socialness in games. People have no more social battery left and just want to stay quiet and play the game. Facebook, snapchat, instagram, tiktok, infinite interaction with infinite people in a safe controlled environment. Why risk talking to people in-game?
Met my best mate 14 years ago because of an xbox bag. It was at school but dude, the memories even with randoms online in cod. Used to have so much convos about life and just talk mad shit. Moments of the time.
I think a lot of this ties into the online toxicity, particularly over Xbox live, and the voice chat clips you used in this video are a good example of that. I'd be lying if I said I didn't partake in it. I pretty much only play games in Discord chat with my buddies, with all randoms muted, except when I played DMZ. But I think we can all agree, that nobody wants to be shouted at over a video game.
Like #700, great video, so relatable and honestly the whole industry makes me sad... This social aspect is something that the Xbox 360 nailed, being it with their interface and Xbox Live or by the simple yet extremely impactful detail of including a cheap headset with their console. I'll always foundly remember late nights playing COD search and destroy because of all of this. Forced in-game voice chat is extremely underrated all these aspects are not understood by the big publishers, they don't even know that this is a problem and that it impacts theirs games.
Hey huge point i think ya missed! Fortnite, after its first peak it started to just become competative and hard so people just quit. The devs noticed this and then immediatly came out with its unreal engine update and started making the game a social platform, kind of just like forge! After they gave the og update to spike its players again, its player base hasnt lost any of that spike and I think thats because people are playing these social gamemodes that are just minigames or small competition where most people have their mics on at all times. Great video!
i miss the day when i log in warframe at 2-3 am just to match with my friends from different countries so i can play with them, then we start an endless survival, afk and talk sh*t alot, the best 3 hours of survival of my life ...
i wish for one day i could thank everyone alive and passed for the time i spent with them. i was never social in my life before the 360 and i met alot of people. i dont even feel like i like games anymore now that im trapped inside this bubble. every game might as well have bots only for how forgettable the experiences are now.
Very good video, I agree with lots of points you made. I noticed you didn't touch on the very obvioius reasons why a lot of these changes are happening in modern gaming though.
Imagine how those that played online throughout the late 90's/ early 00's ( The real golden age 🙃 ) have been feeling ever since the appearance of lobbies and matchmaking. Every server was it's own village, filled with people invested in it's prosperity. Many would grow big enough to justify a discussion forum, internal politics and social hierarchy. The arrival of modern console online multiplayer shoved all of that aside for safe, brief and limited online interactions.
All of this speech policing has made communities stale and boring. Sometimes people are scared of saying anything at all now if it carries the risk of a ban.
This is such a bullshit response lmao. If you are the type of person who cant communicate with others without acting like a total fucking sperg throwing out slurs 24/7 then yeah I'd imagine its pretty hard to socialise in a video game. Every person with a similar take to yours is actually just self reporting for being a massive loser.
I am so glad I am seeing this video. This thesis is something I realised a little while ago, even during the Pandemic- I am one of the most talkative gamers out there, it's almost like I just wanna hear myself at this point, because there's just nothing else going on. The channels feel dead. Everyone's just locked into their own...tunnel vision. Nobody really cares about the games they are playing. It's _pure apathy_ . It doesn't feel fun anymore. Life outside of video games is impending and sad and torturous, and I think social media, capitalism, and a collection of related things is contributing to this. The kind of fun you speak of in video games is something I still believe to be possible, I hope for a less dismal world, but it's a remnant of the world as we knew it 10 years ago. I think we all got so caught up in the act of growing up and chasing our dreams that we forgot about the most important artform of escapism we ever had. Now we're looking back behind us, like wow, that all went by. And we turn again to face the mirror, and we feel older. A faint smile gives us a glimpse of what once was, that grasp on our youth. One final look behind us at the world we had to leave behind, and though we cherish all the memories like clutching pearls, it's almost as though... We almost forgot to blink.
it needs to be said that this is just your perspective, for some people the social aspect is just not for them, and for some it actually makes it less fun. There are always toxic people in games that will make some people not want to play it anymore. To call them 'soft' for not feeling great about having strangers yell racial slurs at you is unfair, and out of touch. For white, male, straight gamers, it's fun because they don't have to worry about someone actively being toxic to you only because of your identity. Whenever a female gamer speaks, they're either met with straight up sexism, or weirdos, and 'nice guys' who are only nice because they believe they'll be their girlfriend for being nice. When you're a woman, and you're met with this kind of experiences when you use voice chat, you'd see how it's not a great thing for you. And this goes not only for women, but for people who aren't white, gay people, trans people, anything that's not cis, straight, white, and male.
Point of the video is to focus on social features that made games feel more "alive" as I describe. I feel a strong difference in plenty of indie games compared to numerous big budget ones. It seems to me that indie games provide life into their games that bigger budget ones just don't do anymore. Not all, but most. This topic first arose when I made a video called "Halo Fans Need to Move On" that dives into the social element of Halo. This franchise used to be one of the best, if not the best, to ever do it in providing a social experience with plenty of content. Big budget games used to be able to provide both social interaction and top-tier gameplay with plenty of content. Pluck away that social interaction and we get left with a more dull product.
CREDIT:
I used lots of clips for this video, please check out my description where I give credit for all these. I try labelling what they were used for so you can pinpoint it.
Hey you might want to pin this message, it's getting kinda lost in the comments.
the biggest erosion of social games in my opinion is the lack of persistent lobbies. In games like COD, and halo the lobbies used to persist with the same players until they either left, or the server shut down. Nowadays, after every game you get kicked back into a new matchmaking queue never to see the people you just played with again. The fact that you could play with the same people game after game in the old days meant you spent more time with the same players and had an oppurtunity to form friendships, or rivalries. Thats all gone now.
It's why I exclusively play in custom lobbies on MCC.
Valve games aren't like that with the exception of Dota 2 I think (never played that).
This is what killed modern battlefront 2. Zero community. The game died the second the updates stopped coming whereas Battelfront 2 (2005) is still going.
That's amusing to me, and perhaps indicative of our ages and/or gaming habits, because I look at matchmaking and lobbies as the beginning of the end of when gaming was more of a social experience. They were a downgrade from community servers in that regard, and most others too (and one of the reasons console gaming was looked down on). Everyone lost their "club houses" because it wasn't feasible outside of PC.
Glad you had something that was better than what it's become though.
surprisingly, Roblox games from what I've seen don't seem to have this issue
I miss the guys hoppin on a party and just talking about life, making fun of each other, locking in. It enjoyed it more than the games half of the time.
It was something about the ease of “join our party” or “M2AFaR” that don’t exist anymore. Games like Halo 3 had so many “message to all recent players” from people just trying to play a chill game of infection or MW2 with quick scoping or “infected” before it was actually added to the game.
There was a small period for me, after games stopped being social, that I found a new game, and it was socially active, it renewed that social aspect for me... but the game is dead now... and not just low population, I went back to look at it, it has 0 players...
Any games with community servers are automatically like this, just see how different competitive servers vs community servers are in CSGO / CS2, honorable mention goes to modded multiplayer clients, like Skyrim Together, FiveM, SA-MP, and COD Plutonium.
get friends then loser
Me too man
Games nowadays are made for the engagement, not the experience.
They want you addicted to sweat matches and microtransactions.
They don't want you just hopping on and having fun experiences with new people.
They don't want gaming to be a fun hobby, they want it to be an expensive habit.
You're playing wrong. Or wrong games.
@@JonPL i play fighting games, an at its core competitive and sweaty genre. Other modern multiplayer games especially fps games are more sweaty to me even when I want to chill. Fgs playing games in lobbies against the same people or ranked feels relaxing. With other people you chat and learn from and with them, in ranked its competitive but you often get a good amount of down time to do some fun things or often run into the same person and have some sort of rivalry with them. Modern fps games you rarely see the same people multiple times and its a colder environment. Maybe its also the team based nature that makes sweat hit harder in fps games. In fgs its 1v1. So you directly interact with one person, get inside their head or they get inside yours. In fps games you don't get that chance and due to sbmm can often be more so in conflict with your team. The lack of people talking often makes it worse. And all you'd have to say is negative anyway.
@@JonPLNo he’s speaking facts
It's an issue with American culture and how much it dominates the global world. Look up the Protestant Work Ethic, the defining philosophy of the US despite it having been secular for so long. In effect, nothing can exist just for 'fun', everything must have some sort of functional component to justify its existence. Video games cannot exist simply as entertainment. They must function either as moral mouthpieces or money-making machines. This is why we've seen the explosion of the NFT/Play 2 Earn games; the gaming industry cannot accept the idea that video games have no functional meaning, so they attempt to give it meaning through monetary value. It also takes the form of aggressive monetization or simply arguing over which game is better via its quarterly revenue or the parent company's stock when neither make a good game (If you think so, then you have to believe Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are the best games of their series and cult classic games are actually garbage). The only side of the industry capable of ignoring this is the Indie scene, which brought you Battlebit Remastered, Risk of Rain, Beta Minecraft, and many more games solely built to be fun and not functional.
I don’t usually play a lot of games except WoW and fallout NV in my early years of late 2000’s but, what is a swear match?
I believe this is why Lethal Company blew up. Not only is it fun, but it kinda forces you to be social. And the proximity voice chat definitely helps a ton, it’s downright hilarious.
Exactly without proxy chat and the social aspect the game wouldn’t have a Identity
Exactly like Hell Let Loose.
Battlebits
Most popular games are team games already you're supposed to be working with your team??? This is the problem man, people are just clowns, they don't care to talk or try and have fun OR try and win it's ridiculous. Neither situation is common anymore lol
No, it’s a co op game nothing forcing you to be social.
Being a gamer in your mid 30s is fucking depressing
Worse when these new kids don't acknowledge how absolutely backwards the gaming industry has gone
What shows how delusional some gamers are is how game most AAA companies have made record breaking profits the past 4 years yet people defend the ever increasing prices and monetization in games.
Its the mid 30s that have been feeding these trends by mindlessly buying activision garbage every year. Blame yourself first.
Yup. Or they tell you it's "Free to play" so you can't complain. I don't think any of us asked for shitty free to play versions of our favorite old games@@reethardio6432
Pretty much. You're right at the age where you're going to notice more and more that products don't cater to you, they're going after the young money.@@MrHocotateFreight
@@MrHocotateFreightyeah my wife’s 10 year old boys wouldn’t shut up about stupid VR and Gorilla Tag so we bought them an Oculus Quest 2 just before the name change. They were on that stupid VR headset every day for hours, one of the kids cried when he opened it for Christmas, he got legit emotional over a VR headset he wanted. I get it, I was probably just as happy at age 12 when I got my N64 but he def doesn’t have his priorities straight because he will procrastinate doing everything just to stare at his screens a little longer so once they broke their touch controls for the headset I said “well if you want it repaired you need to find and buy new controllers or fix it, you didn’t take care of your things so that’s on you”.
It has been 3-4 months and they still haven’t saved their money to buy new controllers. They could have but decided not to and bought other things. Now that headset sits dead on a shelf (thank god) so it’s mostly ps4 pro and iPhones.
Their mom does not want to buy them anymore electronics because they can’t control themselves or limit their own time and it’s always a fight to get them off to do something like take trash out or do the dishes or come eat some food.
There were so many times I'd hang out on the PS3's social platform, Playstation Home, and just wander around picking up people to play games with for the night.
I'd introduce myself, we'd find out the games we liked to play; then I'd friend them, send 'em a message, and we'd go grab our copy of whatever game we wanted to play, and gamed for most the night. It felt so satisfying getting to do such a thing with random people around the world. It also helped that back then, PSN was free. So the barrier to entry and socialization was much easier.
I'd argue that these days however, people are a lot more adverse to striking up conversations with strangers online, than they were back in the day. I feel like my social gaming experiences in the mid-2000s was partly an aspect of the times. Idk if something like that could ever happen again.
I have fond memories just like yours, most kids nowadays don't know how to have a phone call and don't even know what a controller is, so eventually it's just going to be us keeping the games alive..
Yea games are usually better with other people, the social side of gaming declined for some reason. Games only spread because it helped people socialize.
My Gen Z coworkers hate talking to people. They prefer text chat if at all. Makes the headlines of “Highest youth loneliness” despite being digitally connected make more sense.
@@lexc1560 I think society peaked in the 90s, it's just been downhill from here
@lexc1560 I hate texting as a Gen Z. It gets boring. I try to be more social. In person connections. I'm awkward, but I enjoy it so much. I miss social games. 😭
I told my friends long ago that introducing "party chat" was going to be the end of socializing in online games. Today if you don't have a squad to play with, you'll discover that game chat is pretty lonely. Everyone is in party chat, likely with people that aren't even playing the same game.
This!
Discord too
@@skinnybuggo Yep, even though it came out way later than the Xbox party chat feature. It didn't help the problem.
It has nothing at all to do with party chat. Party chat has been around since like fucking 2005 maybe even before idk. The main difference is 90% of these games if you had a mic plugged in, you were automatically connected and forced to be in game chat unless u muted out or went to a party chat. Now 99% of the games have it turned off by default to where you have to go into the settings and shit just to get to game chat……back then you were forced, now it’s optional, big difference
@@Foggycallabasashillshelicopter Which still leads back to party chat. Yea, make it optional since everyone is using party chat features anyway. Also, there was no party chat on Xbox live in 2005. Private chat for you and one other person. The thing is what do you tell the kid that's new to online gaming. What if they don't have friends on discord or Xbox live yet. Since game chat is now an option that's off by default, why should they be force to add discord and jump around different channels just to make friends to socialize with while playing a game?
i feel like so many companies thinks voice chat is toxic and have made so many restrictions on voice chat
They have. Everything is catered to children and now you have to watch what you say all the time to avoid being banned for like 3 weeks :(
@@Goober2564pedo corporations would want to cater to children playing 18+ games
@@FlamespeedyAMVthat’s a pretty great point, I think these devs are forgetting that l.
I do think the amount of harassment and toxicity in the golden age wasn't always so great looking back on it. You definitely want some room for trash talk and fun, but is there any line there? I think it depends on who you ask.
@@FlamespeedyAMV😂😂
Let me tell you, Halo 3's proximity chat was something special to experience. It's too bad Halo and voice chat are essentially dead.
Only game i see with an alive voice chat is cod
Although people still talk way less than back then
@@skidmarkgameing5034 The only time people talk on COD is to either say they f*cked your mom or to call you a racist slur.
Try Battlebit Remastered
@scythegaming99 same mass reporting problem as overwatch
As a gamer who started in the mid 90's, watching the decline of the gaming industry is just sad. Going mainstream was a death sentence. It's only going to get worse from here.
its pityness that struck gaming tbh doesnt matter what game well theirs some games where you can meet and talk to people like rec room vr chat but shooters are just shit now its about getting better and talking shit rather then say wanna add eachother and play again 10 years later your friends with him now but nowadays its just gone
@@Ichi_takumi2 If you got some time on your hands then I recommend Squad. It's similar to battle bit but with IMO a better game play loop. The game is heavily focused on communication between players. A mic is required to play it and the community is very friendly and 95% of players are willing to help new players if you just ask!
i can see AAA games becoming luxury and sub base and the secret is they want to fight hackers messing up the in game economy
Going mainstream doesn't have much to do with it imo, they didn't have to change anything about the social features but they did it for more money. They got teams of psychologists and shit out here making algos and ways to milk every dime off us. Even if it wasn't mainstream this was always going to happen. Making people alone and isolated makes them buy more shit. It's just how it is.
@@W-G”did it for money” goes hand in hand with going mainstream. Appealing to as many people as possible alienates the original demographic
I'm 16, never had the luxury of experiencing social lobbies like you guys did, I'm jealous
One of the closest experience I'll ever have to this is Club Penguin in the late 2000s and early 2010s, so sad to see it go
Me too
Same
Damn man, I’m sorry.
If you’re on computer, almost everyone on Gmod has a mic cause it’s a pretty social game. No party required just pick a gamemode. Been playing since 2013 and it’s still the same just a little less people. This video made me realize that’s why I still play it; can’t get everyone with a mic consistently anymore
i'm 18 and ive always had moderately social lobbies and still do, just join tf2 servers with alltalk idk
I’m 28. This was some of the most fun I’ve had gaming and I do believe, the golden era of gaming. Where we had actual map packs and expansions that contained all you needed as extra content for games and it wasn’t NEARLY as predatory as it is today. It’s not just a- back in my day thing, back in the day, games were just made with more passion and love, and the community showed that in the lobbies
im indian.
Exactly, I feel the corporations that took over don't allow the creativity that devs had back then
@@turkeysandwich1998 exactly, unfortunately
I wish I had appriciated it more as a kid.
At my middle school, COD MW2 was THE game. One day the quiet kid in my math class overheard some other classmates and I talking about it. At the end of class he slipped me a note with his gamer tag on it. All he said was "hey let's play today after school." I still remember our first game was Domination on Afghan. After getting off the bus that Friday, we played, laughed, and shit-talked other players for HOURS. He ended up being a homie that I would play many subsequent CODs with. After COD fell off and I changed high schools I never heard from him again. NinjaXP hope you are doing well bro!
It was so special to grow up in a pre-Instagram/social media era. Xbox and PlayStation WERE our way to connect after school!
As a 17 year old, I'm glad my parents didn't get me a phone first but a PS4 going home after school with and hopping on to play BO3 and Minecraft, I miss that alot
On the Xbox 360, I ended up deleting most of my friend's list of people from school and randoms once the introduced the Netflix app. About 70% of my friend's list stopped using the Xbox as a gaming console and more of just a streaming box. There'd be people I'd play CoD with after school for years and then for about 2 years until I deleted them when they all just watched Netflix
An issue I've had, is that as it's become more difficult to be in voice chat or games have become less social, the people that end up using mics almost always end up being super toxic in my opinion. Some trashtalk can be fun but it used to be broken up with more fun interactions, which I don't experience anymore. That's led me to stop using voice and often just mute all when I enter a lobby. No point in interacting with a team mate that is just going to complain and whine all game.
Same here. I would love to interact, but if I’m interacting with a COD lobby in 2023… I’m good.
i think its because of all the forced niceness we see. never thought fascism in gaming would be an issue but here we are, where cod, the centerfold of toxic assholes in online gaming is banning people for being "jerks" whatever that means. i miss the days when i could talk trash without worrying about getting banned, so now i go overboard with it out of spite. if youre gonna make me be good ill show how bad i can really be
Yea you become a target. People don’t use mics because they’d rather not be harassed or blamed for team performance
@@ThePhantomGodofNightikr? So many people put on a facade to pretend to be nice and virtuous. But in reality, they don't give a damn and are actually the biggest assholes just trying to get brownie points. It's sad.
yeah i feel that. i don't usually use voice chat because i have a feminine voice and i don't like to risk the "GAMER GIRL" reactions. i tried to play rust once and i used voice comms to talk to my friends. two weirdos immediately came over, started following me around and making uncomfortable/graphic sexual jokes nonstop until i eventually had to mute them. it feels like whenever i leave voice comms on in other games, it usually just results in some squeaker saying "ggez shitters" in post-game and not much else. feels like more risk than reward
Man, I miss whenever games were social, I made so many friends and I'm still in contact with some of them today.
Playing Halo Infinite vs remembering what Halo multiplayer felt like growing is rough.
The social playlists are filled with people that are sweating to level up battlepasses rather than just trying to enjoy the fun modes.
Nobody talks anymore, you never really get messages after lobbies from randoms asking to stay partied up.
I'm sure there are still times like that but it just doesn't feel as common unless you buy CoD every year.
Halo 2 was my first online game and I was really good at it from playing system link and campaign on legendary. I'd get so many friend requests and party invites from random people
It’ll never be better than peak Halo 3. Hop into lobbies, talk to some people, party up for a few games, start a custom lobby and invite all of your recents. 16 mics blaring while you all play Fat Kid. It was awesome man.
I miss going onto games TO meet new people and be social. I still see it this way sometimes and my heart gets broken when i go an entire night without talking to anyone.
Hey bro idk what platform you’re on but I would be 100% down to play with ya I also used to do that but gave up when I went a whole week straight in Cold War and no one talked at all
It really is like a great aspect of social gaming is going out with a whimper. I remember playing modern warfare and halo as a teenager and being caught off guard by it. I was an only child that had really only played single player games on a GameCube or PS2 before I got the 360. It was like a revelation that I could meet new people, meet new friends, that I could hang out with whenever.
I had it continue on with R6 when siege came out. The fact you would always eventually find a group, your group. But as time went on matchmaking changed and a lot of the player base changed, unfortunately I just didn't fit it anymore. Nowadays I usually play co-op games with my gf, but I'm still hoping for a reemergence of social gaming of the same caliber. Hopefully I'll see you guys there too
Thanks for crediting my clip!
Awesome video, very well done. I miss the old days.
Can’t even swear in cod lobbies rated M for MATURE AUDIENCES.
im an introvert, always have been. I usually mute all mics worry of some negative people. But the odd times id make some cool friends, with the changing of system in voice chat like "less negativity, less toxicity" potential to be banned or something like that, i find voice chat has been coming scarce, sometimes listening to the conversations in games like COD, Battlefield, Halo, etc, was funny to hear even if I didn't join, it just seems like the gold of the early 2000s in the social gaming community is dying with simplicity in most things.
On top of the voice chat stuff you mentioned, even games that didn't have voice chat had some awesome social interactions that i don't experience as much with the way the landscape has changed.
RuneScape was awesome growing up cause I could just wander around and stumble across people who would start conversation and kinda just hang out for a while. Eventually we'd go our separate ways.
Nowadays a lot of the time if i try an MMO a lot of people are just running around and grinding their asses off, chasing whatever FOMO driven attraction the developers introduced. Not as many people experience the world and take it easy between the action. Most people just stick to talking with friends on discord or not at all and don't engage in text chat for casual conversation.
Just something I noticed over the years which made me nostalgic for my early online gaming days. Good vid, subbed.
Last time I interacted with someone random online was in Halo 2 Anniversary earlier this year. They made a multiplayer map using forge and I showered them in praise with how amazing the map was. We chatted for a good 30 minutes before I left.
Discord killed it a little bit by kind of making it easy for us to fall into our bubbles. Back in the day with in-game chat and custom games, we made friends in 15 minute and joined custom games to where we would join a custom games where we only knew one person
Not to mention guild chat in-game is dead since everyone is sitting on discord and most guilds require you to join it anyway.
This is what led me to play VRChat pretty heavy. I've slowed down a bit because I have other things I really wanna do too, but there's been many many many moments that reminded me of those old Halo 3 custom game lobbies from back in the day. But the social nature of the game means it's fine to just hang around and chill. I've met a ton of great people and made some great memories. One of my favorite is just chilling on a beach in a world a friend made, just standing around the fire playing some drinking songs and a little bit of alcohol. Woulda been a great night without the alcohol too but it was all just a vibe.
But I really do miss games being more social. And I could probably attempt at just being more social in games. I usually don't because i'm watching youtube in the background or "i'm only gonna be on for a few minutes" and then it's hours later and I coulda been doing something. Or any number of reasons like that. Eh...
Battlebit was sooooo much fun for the first 2 weeks or so, the voice comms were so big of a draw for it, everyone was so friendly and the mood was always light. The gameplay is alright, the progression is kinda boring, but the community was hilarious. It killed my attention as soon as I noticed the people that were still playing were the ones taking it too seriously and the funny hyjinks werent really there anymore
😢 RIP BattleTits.
@RNG-esus also the blizzard like insta ban reports
ban waves ruined it within 2 weeks. low T betas cannot carry the torch
Taking it seriously and roleplaying in voice chat fun. What i have noticed in Battlebit, is nobody even talks anymore. I think a lot of those early players probably got permabanned due to their antics in voice chat.
@@olso8621 nah, think they just moved on like I did. No one I played with religiously in the first few weeks plays it anymore. It was a fun game but the progression didn't really feel rewarding enough to keep us hooked
im 19 while i wasnt in the golden age of gaming, i started gaming really young, and caught the end of it, even though i barely played any of it, i missed playing halo reach and mw2 and all the fun stuff that the game allowed you to do, like talk shit, or make friends, new games give zero choice, you cant pick maps, queue up against the same players again, or play casually, every gaming experience is so competitive now.
Everything is so true. Its why a game like Lethal company has skyrocketed. It brings back the social aspect that everyone sorely misses.
Exactly
Bro I ask "Anyone got a mic" at the beginning of every lobby I enter. Idk if it's social anxiety or what, the amount of people with mic symbols who remain silent is easily 85%
I'm a pretty chatty dude, and I constantly find myself longing for the days of old, when the only way some of us communicated outside school, was on games. I would give anything to go back to those days. Man, we had it so good and we didn't even know it. Before bills, and jobs and life. Miss you guys. Everyone who I came across and connected with back then. I hope you're all well
Private voice chat is what turned people away from talking in lobbies. This created a natural open room for people communicating with one another.
Before Xbox Live party chats were huge, I was very much vocal in game (I was in my teens around then). Now, hardly anyone talks and I just want to sit in silence as I play my games. Sad, because I use to love talking to others now I don't want to bother.
I'm the same way. I loved the social aspects but now even if someone is talking in game I don't want to engage with them because they're probably the reason I'm not having fun, and unless we add each other and group up I'll never play with them again so taking to them is a waste of effort.
This is why ive been loving VR again, everyone is social and experiments with it, it's fun, and the games are designed to do so
I agree with this, but I find that VR is a lot more limiting in quality for games. I am yet to find a VR game that can be enjoyed for extended periods of time, and it makes me sad that we can’t fully develop this frontier at a better pace. VR is great, but it has too many issues.
@@wyvrius agreed all the best games are PCvr mods like Left 4 Dead 2, Red Dead 2, Risk of Rain 2, FF14, Res evil 2,3,7,8, Deep rock galactic, etc.
Notice only 3 of those are online social friendly L4D2, FF14, deep rock
But notic
I will never forget the Deus Vult meme where it was almost midnight an my friend and I where put into the Knights army just yelling at eachother via emotes for about 2 hours I can still hear "Roman Catapults" in my sleep
I think this is why I really enjoy foxhole. The fact that every one is an actual person and they can all talk to you with proximity chat is awesome. I mean you can even talk to the enemys. It creates good memories and brings me back to a much simpler time like Halo 3 lobbies lol.
I think you put this so simply and I love that. You are completely correct, the 'living' part or the human part of the game is what we all miss. You forget that behind every character model, and every kill, and every death was some other guy enjoying the same game you are having fun in.
Great video. Another major change is the shift to matchmaking over community servers, they created tight-knit communities since you’d often end up playing on the same servers for years on end with the same people, it was amazing.
Personally I’ve been into Insurgency for the longest time, that series had a tight knit community to start off with since it was so niche, add to that community servers & proximity chat (one of the first implementations circa 2006) and you got yourself one of the best gaming environments in history. I miss it.
While we don't have OG Insurgency on console we do have Insurgency Sandstorm and while yeah it doesn't live up to it's predecessor it's still better than most games when it comes to socializing I mean just yesterday I was playing and both teams had people were talking and it was some funny shit I mean had people talking shit and communicating strats and it was great especially cause it doesn't normally drop people after matches we grow on each other and come to recognize each other even after stints of not playing it's honestly a beautiful thing
I still remember my first social experience as a kid in the 90’s getting online on a 56k modem.
It was for a game called Subspace (now Subspace Continuum, still free on Steam), I named my guy ZzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzz and the first person I ran into on my team I freaked out and started typing to them like crazy. No clue what their name was but I kept trying to get them to talk to me through text but they wouldn’t do it, so I kept following them for 5-10 minutes.
Still remember that. And wanting to play online to interact with others. I wanted to play Duke Nukem 3D in MP and Warcraft 2 so much with people online I pretended to in map editors and made things for Mp matches.
Nowadays? Everyone’s a sweat lord and nobody plays for fun, it’s all ranked or matchmaking to try and be the best. It’s not for social interaction anymore, even games like DRG 4 player coop people rarely interact by typing or voice chat.
We’ve never been more connected but everyone feels so alone.
This video got me talking about it with my friends, who I've been squadding with for roughly the past 15 years. It was a bit nostalgic, talking about our lobby days in Gears, D1, D2, Halo, Battlefield, Monster Hunter, L4D and so on. But it didn't take long before we all started wishing we could've had the lobby experience you described. None of us are white. Most of us aren't men. Several of us don't speak English as a first language, and a lot of us are queer. The main reason most of us even got on mic in lobby was because we never played alone; most of the time we got people who just shouted slurs or griefed when we ignored them calling us slurs for being clocked as Different on the mic. Playing on mic alone was more annoying than fun.
Lobbies were exclusionary for a lot of us who didn't fit a certain few molds. I very rarely have good experiences when I'm playing alone over the past 17 years I've been on mic, and I'm definitely one of the people who peeled off into Skype/Party Chat/Discord the second it was available because I was just tired of 8/10 games being toxic to the point of being unfun. If I was playing with trans friends or friends who spoke English second, the whole vibe would sour the second I switched languages to translate or if someone clocked me or my trans friend on mic. Which isn't to say we stopped hot mic altogether, but that even with me still trying to give game chat a chance, most of my encounters are still overwhelmingly Bad.
The option quickly became: Do I go hot mic and get treated like trash, or do I go in with my friends or on silent so I have a better chance of enjoying the game I'm playing with what little free time I have to spare? My friends also make that same decision every time, and more often than not? We'll choose the devil we know.
The newer waves of proxchat games are fun. The indie titles definitely bring back a lot of that charm, maybe because they're not built with the level of sweatiness inherent to AAA Competitive FPSes. I'm less likely to get a tween trying to do a Hard R speedrun in Battlebit than I am in OVW Ranked. But you're right - the dead mics are sad! Even if I'm probably going to switch off, I miss hearing someone on the other end and considering the opportunity to vibe. After all this time (and a lot of terrible experiences), I still seek it out, in memory of those few really cool people I found in lobbies years and years ago. It's something special, and I just wish it didn't suck so much for so many of us trying to just have a decent time on chat.
THANK YOU. The loss of open voice lobbies wasn't some "woke pandering" by corporations, it was corporations realizing that the toxicity in the average lobby was scaring off potential customers. The myth that girls don't play video games is not because girls don't want to play competitive online games, it's because the moment they open their mouths and non-male sounds come out of them they get flooded with sexual harassment and unwanted DMs, so girls have to either avoid those games or be silent and pretend to be male. I also can't imagine hearing the hard "R" every thirty seconds was all that fun for people of color, either.
This video was put together extremely well. I remember when I played Black Ops 2 on my PS3 back in the day trickshotting with the boys and playing search and destroy. It never got old. Playing Bo2 on PC or even on the PS3 now is boring because there is no one with mics. The old games were fun, I could just sit back and just listen to the people on game chat all day every day and be entertained. Also, to all my fellow cod trickshotters, I salute you for bringing a whole new side to cod that caused my addiction to gaming today.
What i notice is all of my friends from this generation of games still use mics, but a lot in our group that are new gamers or younger dont even buy them.
I remember when the 360 would come with a mic..
The original 360 headset that would kill your ear if you used it for too long.. Man do I miss that thing. Although I remember when my dad got himself the fancy wireless earbud style one, and I was so jealous. Him leaving me with the OG headset was like giving the "Madcatz" controller to your little brother lmao.
I think VR is the rebirth of social games because most of them have proximity chat and are focused on communicating with mics on by default, and in vr headsets have a mic by default and allow people to do gestures with there entire upper body, the main example I think of is Pavlov ttt, I have countless hours on it and the best moments are not winning or getting cool kills, it’s the b\standout social interactions that stick with me till this day.
Pavlov yeah but the rest eh. Like I've had fun with vr chat but that's honestly a different crowd than the guys you would shoot the shit with back in the halo cod days.
You have made multiple videos on this, and your points have remained true. I believe that a social aspect can save games like halo and COD. Great job on the videos man, keep it up.
I think there's a few things that caused the decline of social gaming:
1. Private voice lobbies, discord, etc. Not only do these keep you with your friends and out of in game chat, they also provide you with larger community. You don't need a game's community and all the baggage that comes with it when you can get a subsection of that community that is easier to get along with.
2. The shift in focus of responsibility in popular multiplayer games. I feel like older FPS games in particular, while still having the ability to carry, largely distributed responsibility of winning and doing well across the team. With the advent of BRs (small group content), and the change of killstreaks to be "win more" buttons, individual responsibility became more important.
3. The whole "xbox live lobby" effect in general. It was a fun time, but that level of toxicity was exhausting, and video games got a stigma for it. New people trying to get in won't even try voice chat because they hear bad things about it, and friends bringing others in will stick to private chat because it's better for learning, and keeps away the toxicity that might drive the friend away.
4. The shift from servers to matchmaking. Rather than players you'll see at least the next game, if not every day, each player is faceless. They're just "the next opponent," and you'll probalby never see them again.
5. The shift from creating a fun game to a focuson revenue and player engagement. I think this one is obvious.
A lot of these should only affect their individual products, but due to how trends are followed in gaming, they spiral into places they shouldn't. A lot of what happened both caused social gaming, and brought about it downfall, like most evolving technologies.
I was recommended this video randomly from RUclips and couldn’t be happier for it! Amazing job with everything you conveyed! I truly understand and have been gaming since the early 2000’s because of a little game called Halo combat evolved! I remember specifically finding and meeting so many people from Halo 3, Reach, Gears of war 2, Gears of war 3 and the original Modern 2! Such an amazing time that I still think was the peak for gaming! Luckily things go in cycles so, I can’t wait until we get back to those times of building communities and friendships in game rather outside of said games through social media!
This shit hits hard. Its rare at all nowadays to find even a single person wanting to speak through game chat.
I miss the old days honestly being born in 2000 and getting into games at around 4 to 6 and playing through as the stereotypical squeaker, I made so many friends that I no longer speak to anymore, how I wish I could go back to those days
I Miss the Old XBL Days. Some Of the Best Memories From Early On In This Life That I Have Were Made On XBL, Playing COD and Minecraft.
In All Honest, Games Being Less Social Speaks Volumes On How Much Anxiety People Have These Days Just Being In Public. If People Are Too Scared to Say Something to Anyone In an In Game Chat Because They Might Get Banned Due to An Arbitrary AI, Imagine What Will Happen 5-10 Years From Now As People Are Already too Afraid to Speak Out On Many Pressing Issues.
Very Well Done Video. You’ve Earned Yourself a New Sub!
Extremely great video! The lack of in game voice chat and lobby retention these days has definitely been a huge contributor as to why games don’t feel the same. It sucks that studios and developers are seekingly getting rid of these purposefully. Hopefully things turn around eventually!
Im only 24. But I started playing multiplayer games when I was 5, as a kid I was so happy that I could trash talk to older guys in the lobby and just listen in on some funny ass raunchy conversations on MW2, Halo, Gears, or whatever. I couldnt wait to grow older so I can make even more experiences like that on games, but theres nothing like that nowadays, and it kinda pisses me off because I feel like I was truly robbed of some great memories. You could play COD and have great times, get bored of it, and switch to Halo or Gears and instantly have fun again because those lobbies were just as wild. I am reminded of a quote by Hunter Thompson that I think fits,
"...No matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and mad as I was, no doubt about that. There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda, you could strike sparks anywhere..."
I was literally 10 years old on Gears of War 1 online its hard to believe when thinking of the gaming landscape now I had so many friends online and rivals I would see again since the community was smaller. I really think the focus on competitive gaming and metaprogression and how the monetization aspects contradict the competitive ambitions really make most big online games not the same as triple A titles back then.
I feel like how people act in game chat nowadays affect it also. Cod isn’t just banter anymore that followed up with a 1v1 it’s people sweating and then teammates screaming and reporting you because of how you play. It feels like your not even in it for fun anymore it’s just constant sweating and no chilling at all.
I agree with a lot of what you said. One of the biggest turn offs from gaming for me was no longer being able to stay in a lobby with the same people once a match ended. It was so much fun to play with the same people over and over doing silly stuff or trying to rematch and best them. I also think skill based match making has had an effect on this. Before you could match with people way more skilled than you and learn stuff from them and in the same match have fun with someone who is just learning the game and doing stupid funny stuff. I think playing battlefield 1 in a party with my buddies was the peak of gaming for me. We would talk nonsense and life and then switch into serious mode to win a game last minute. We would also play against rival clans match after match(since bf1 has a server browser and you stay in the same lobby once the match ends) which was so much fun talking trash while not being too serious.
As someone who first started multiplayer gaming as a teen by playing Halo and COD 4, I definitely remember the golden age and how fun the randomness of online gaming was. Now, I'm approaching 30 and have different priorities and perspectives. I think one of the biggest issues now is not wanting to be subject to some of the toxicity that goes along with many modern FPS games like COD. I'm not trying to come home after a long day of work and be subjected to racial slurs or anything like that. I'd rather just chill in party chat with current friends and catch up. I think some folks lament the fall of in game chat and interaction, but there were definitely some darker components.
Lethal Company has reminded me a game doesn’t really need to be fleshed out with amazing mechanics and gameplay. The prox chat alone has made many great moments and memories that reminded me why I play games in the first place.
- Why people don't communicate in online games anymore?
- Because of permabans for writing/saying anything that MIGHT offend someone on the WHOLE FUCKING EARTH. Yea, EA?
with the newest of newest games i can say it doesnt help that everything is deemed "toxic" and a bannable offense and cod now has its AI voice detection too to make speaking alone a minefield to be banned
but it is for sure something that extends out to the modern social culture of so many people getting "triggered" or whatever like it by boyish social chatter and then also that games are to be made competitive now and a second job with non stop dailies and battle passes instead of games made to be fun first and foremost
Yeah for some reason people just don’t talk in lobbies as much anymore. I remember anytime I joined a lobby I’d have to start muting people right off the bat because it was just so loud. Every single time.
This is why indie games have become so popular. Among us, battle bit, phasmophobia, and most recently lethal company have all picked up the slack in a range of genres.
I'm an introvert and usually I wanna play games to just chill out and relax. This video has inspired me start hopping into game chat a bit more and experiencing the game with other people.
As an introvert, I don't mind games becoming less sociable. Gaming by myself without my mic on just feels more natural to me even though I always used to be chatty in game chat back in the day. It was kinda what you did back then and it was all a new thing. I'll never forget using my mic for the first time over Xbox live thinking how cool it was tho
As a 40 year old guy who's been gaming online since 1996, these are the major culprits. It's actually pretty clear cut. There's no mystery here.
1. The death of server browsers in favor of matchmaking. This robbed us of the primary method by which open communities were formed, where people would develop a loose sense of comradery and familiarity that encouraged social fun without it being a requirement to be actual friends beyond the server.
2. The growth of e-sports. It's fostered a gaming culture that is too hyper-competitive for playfulness. This is why most of the games referenced that are successfully pulling off a social aspect today are not competitive games. In anything PvP focused today, if you're not ultra-focused try-harding while strictly adhering to a rigid meta, you're going to get trounced so hard it's negative fun while teammates rage at you. And if that game isn't balanced to have a strict, rigid, punishable by instant death meta, competitive gamers spew the worst fucking radioactive hatred at the devs you will ever see in your fucking life. And the pros/pro-wannabes can't even separate themselves from the people just trying to have fun, because no server browsers and even low-level matchmaking is plagued with pros smurfing.
3. Ultra-divisive modern politics that have devolved into active cultural warfare. Any online service that involves human beings communicating with each other are under pressure to preside over that conflict and act as kingmakers, and whichever side doesn't receive the favor of that service gets angry and attacks that service. And this environment is just generally making people more anti-social because they don't want to get caught up in some bullshit when they're just trying to relax after a day of work/school. (And no, this is not me laying blame at the feet of SJW's, feminazis, or whatever like many others in the comments. The shit gets flung both ways. Both sides are to blame. Hyper-sensitivity/main character syndrome and assholes who are allergic to the concept of respect or compromise are equally large and damning problems.)
4. The rise of streaming, which would actually be a boon to the social aspect of gaming, except for the moderation policies of the major platforms like Twitch and RUclips. Streamer logs onto random server and opens up voice chat with whoever randos are there, and someone drops the n-word. Streamer gets banned from their streaming platform. With as influential as streamers are now, and that even being a threat to livelihood for many, that's a severe chilling effect. If a game company wants to be cozy with the streaming sphere, it makes sense to promote non-social behavior in open matchmaking, and even so, it's best for streamers themselves to make sure they only hear the voices of people they trust.
-Players who doesnt speak English or have a different dialect are also a piece of the equation. The moment you speak a little bit of spanish, you have a great chance that get discriminated.
-Also protecting noobs and literal children, because those are both players and mtx costumers. The more engaged those are in the game, the more chances they will spend money on the battle pass.
-Also COPPA and other similar regulations worldwide.
The mobile game I started playing had proximity chat on by default and it was fun. We joked a lot even though we were competitors. The developers changed that in a recent update. It’s quiet and soulless now.
What game?
@@480darkshadow Farlight 84
It's 3am, made a cup of coffee to sit down and listen to this.
At 30 , these kind of videos hit so hard as these times of life were so much more fun, careless , and free. Memories on memories in lobbies and the party chat used to get pretty lit when you'd meet some cool people in matches.
Thank you for this.
I miss when games were social, before everyone and their mother were trying to be an esports streamer. The last games I met long term online friends in were The Division and MW19, which was arguably the beginning of the decline in socializing in game. Now games come with VOIP automatically disabled and no pre or post game lobbies.
Its become a much more sad and isolated state of things. How a few minor changes could improve things so much
Honestly I know y’all hate this but vr has kinda given back the social energy I used to get from older games like bo2-1. It’s literally some of the best shenanigans I’ve had in gaming.
making me want to invest in one
How does one start in VR! is the quest really the way to go? I had a gen1 vive but the headset screen broke before I could give it a good try (i bought it used which was my mistake). last I heard, VRChat was cracking down on skins and mods which was (apparently) causing the community to shift. Dont know how things are now though as I havent looked into it since I heard that 'news'/rumor
@@drawster00 If you are not sure about VR, start with Quest 2. Its not the best, but a cheap and good start. And yes, you would need a good PC to experience VR, so prepare to invest even more if you dont have one, cause some lobbies in VRC can be reaaaally heavy on your PC. About VRC: yes, they fucked up mods, but the avatars, or skins, are essencial to the game, they cant delete them. Its worth trying if you are looking for social experience and fun. I cant tell how its like for public lobbies, but Friends+ lobbies with right groups are amazing.
I’m only 24 but played CoD when it was at its peak and definitely miss when people came to game chat to talk. The last game I’ve played that felt social was Overwatch 1 when it originally released. Now you’ll be lucky to catch 1 or 2 people on your team in game chat
I stopped using my mic a few years ago, people would be too loud, playing music or just super toxic. Also I enjoy co op games and there are SO MANY little kids on there. Id love to help them but then they always want help and talk a lot, have no volume control etc. Its just a burden. I have noticed a few times if I pop a mic in and start talking like on Deep rock galactic or back 4 blood that one or multiple people who were silent jumped into chat as well. Also you have to think of the times changing, MW2 age was the tail end of interacting in person outside of school consistently. Social media blew up from there, apps, everything went online. So younger folks dont talk or only talk to someone they know. Add in the new extreme corporate rules around "hate speech" and you have a recipe for people shutting up and keeping their heads low.
I still remember making so many friends I still play with to this day on MW2 and Halo 3. I remember getting to play Halo 3 for the whole night for my birthday (I had to split play time with my older brother usually) and I remember telling the lobby and people actually sung happy birthday to me and then the people on my team basically played protect the president the rest of the night. I still think about it frequently and during the pandemic we got everyone back on to play again and it was so great. I genuinely feel bad for the people that didn’t get a chance to experience little things like that.
I played halo reach at my friends house almost everyday for 6 years. Cops n robbers, the kitchen, Jail, Fat Kid. I will forever remember those amazing times with my friends on split screen and online.
My first multiplayer game ever as a teenager was Modern Warfare 2 (the…original). I’ve definitely noticed a subtle shift over time. People still use voice chat but it’s for such a different reason. There used to be all these weird and wacky one off conversations in voice chat. Sometimes it was fun, sometimes it did get toxic. But now, 9 times out of 10, when someone is using voice chat it’s just to tell me that they think I suck or I ruined their rank in a game after sitting in silence the whole time. It’s really depressing honestly.
I used to regularly host various lobbies in MW2 (sniping, michael myers, etc). I miss those days. I would play a few FFA matches and then send messages to all of my recent players inviting them to play, it was common to add people as friends and then you'd have a new buddy to play with regularly.
The real thing is we all grew up. Younger folks today don’t play console games like we did back in the PS3/360 era.
That era of gaming wasn’t the golden age of social gaming. It was its sunset. When 12 year old kids burst in to what used to be for adults and climbed over each other to try and be the edgiest edgelord in voice chat, it stopped being fun.
Yeah but they were funny
This deserves a lot more attention. Great Video!
I miss the days of playing with Michael and Tyler on MW2
Such innocent times
And yet the best too
Hope life's treating all those who abandoned the Mic well
This,,, I would agree with the term 'abandoned the mic' and hope all of you the best. In my experience at least, I had/have made multiple efforts to casually talk in many different games to be met with utter silence. I guess one could blame a lack of effort day in and day out of talking to rando's trying to find a good group again - but it seems so much more difficult now than it used to be. Wheezy is right, if mic is off by default, many players will never touch the setting leading to desolate feeling lobbies, even though they're filled with other gamers.
I abandoned the mic because talking now makes me feel MORE lonely now since you get fewer and fewer interactions - you just end up talking to yourself all night. I'd say its almost easier now to not try, just so I'm not let down at the end of the session
this style of video fondly reminds me of the youtuber "under the mayo" if I remember correctly. Absolute knowledge with that guy and gaming. Wheezy knows how multiplayer games (should) work while under the mayo knows how singleplayer games should work. I'm already in love with this channel and its simple editing style with supreme writing skills, well worth my subscription.
Wanna join my Discord community? I am trying to build a server for all kinds of gamers, but mostly filled with people who watch my content (Halo, COD, Gears, etc etc). I want to be able to house gamers that play some older games, but also new.
join the discord community >>> discord.gg/Nb5NfT6AWX
If you enjoyed the video, consider supporting me. These videos I am heavily passionate in making, but RUclips doesn't pay well and isn't stable. No need to do so, but the option is there:
www.patreon.com/thewheezy
Discord is what helped kill this but okay
Never forget the USS liberty and the men and women who died on that day
@@RUDY-COLEMANthought it was kinda ironic too
youre totally right here, but another factor is modding in single player modding. first there was forge mode in halo, making your own maps and modes, then there was skyrim with 700+ mods, literally hand crafting your entire own game
@@RUDY-COLEMAN true, though even before Discord we had Xfire, we had Skype, Teamspeak, Ventrilo... I'd say the bigger problem is you can't 'get away' with anything in game voice chats anymore, with stringent 'community guidelines' and the war on hate speech & harassment. people don't feel free to say anything anymore.
Great watch ! Encapsulates my feelings as well . Used to be on cod socializing everyday and playing with my best friends .. now it’s a ghost town
I really wish that Halo Infinite would bring back proximity chat, it would make a HUGE difference! Halo 2 was amazing because of it!
Really good video man!
I think the rise of social media was the downfall of socialness in games. People have no more social battery left and just want to stay quiet and play the game. Facebook, snapchat, instagram, tiktok, infinite interaction with infinite people in a safe controlled environment. Why risk talking to people in-game?
Met my best mate 14 years ago because of an xbox bag. It was at school but dude, the memories even with randoms online in cod. Used to have so much convos about life and just talk mad shit. Moments of the time.
Good ole days 😢
I think a lot of this ties into the online toxicity, particularly over Xbox live, and the voice chat clips you used in this video are a good example of that. I'd be lying if I said I didn't partake in it. I pretty much only play games in Discord chat with my buddies, with all randoms muted, except when I played DMZ. But I think we can all agree, that nobody wants to be shouted at over a video game.
Like #700, great video, so relatable and honestly the whole industry makes me sad...
This social aspect is something that the Xbox 360 nailed, being it with their interface and Xbox Live or by the simple yet extremely impactful detail of including a cheap headset with their console. I'll always foundly remember late nights playing COD search and destroy because of all of this. Forced in-game voice chat is extremely underrated all these aspects are not understood by the big publishers, they don't even know that this is a problem and that it impacts theirs games.
I think this video needs to been seen and shared
Hey huge point i think ya missed! Fortnite, after its first peak it started to just become competative and hard so people just quit. The devs noticed this and then immediatly came out with its unreal engine update and started making the game a social platform, kind of just like forge! After they gave the og update to spike its players again, its player base hasnt lost any of that spike and I think thats because people are playing these social gamemodes that are just minigames or small competition where most people have their mics on at all times. Great video!
the halo spotlight with jenga, man that brought back some memories. Awesome video.
I never really got to experience this era of gaming and it seems like such a fun time I’m genuinely upset I missed out on this
i miss the day when i log in warframe at 2-3 am just to match with my friends from different countries so i can play with them, then we start an endless survival, afk and talk sh*t alot, the best 3 hours of survival of my life ...
i wish for one day i could thank everyone alive and passed for the time i spent with them. i was never social in my life before the 360 and i met alot of people. i dont even feel like i like games anymore now that im trapped inside this bubble. every game might as well have bots only for how forgettable the experiences are now.
If you play games like Pavlov VR or Contractors VR, you get the same feeling as old Call of Duty
Honestly, you're describing everything I didn't like about online gaming.
Very good video, I agree with lots of points you made. I noticed you didn't touch on the very obvioius reasons why a lot of these changes are happening in modern gaming though.
Imagine how those that played online throughout the late 90's/ early 00's ( The real golden age 🙃 ) have been feeling ever since the appearance of lobbies and matchmaking. Every server was it's own village, filled with people invested in it's prosperity. Many would grow big enough to justify a discussion forum, internal politics and social hierarchy. The arrival of modern console online multiplayer shoved all of that aside for safe, brief and limited online interactions.
All of this speech policing has made communities stale and boring. Sometimes people are scared of saying anything at all now if it carries the risk of a ban.
This is such a bullshit response lmao. If you are the type of person who cant communicate with others without acting like a total fucking sperg throwing out slurs 24/7 then yeah I'd imagine its pretty hard to socialise in a video game. Every person with a similar take to yours is actually just self reporting for being a massive loser.
bruh jus dont say slurs it aint a wild concept lol
I am so glad I am seeing this video. This thesis is something I realised a little while ago, even during the Pandemic- I am one of the most talkative gamers out there, it's almost like I just wanna hear myself at this point, because there's just nothing else going on. The channels feel dead. Everyone's just locked into their own...tunnel vision. Nobody really cares about the games they are playing. It's _pure apathy_ . It doesn't feel fun anymore. Life outside of video games is impending and sad and torturous, and I think social media, capitalism, and a collection of related things is contributing to this. The kind of fun you speak of in video games is something I still believe to be possible, I hope for a less dismal world, but it's a remnant of the world as we knew it 10 years ago. I think we all got so caught up in the act of growing up and chasing our dreams that we forgot about the most important artform of escapism we ever had. Now we're looking back behind us, like wow, that all went by. And we turn again to face the mirror, and we feel older. A faint smile gives us a glimpse of what once was, that grasp on our youth. One final look behind us at the world we had to leave behind, and though we cherish all the memories like clutching pearls, it's almost as though... We almost forgot to blink.
it needs to be said that this is just your perspective, for some people the social aspect is just not for them, and for some it actually makes it less fun. There are always toxic people in games that will make some people not want to play it anymore. To call them 'soft' for not feeling great about having strangers yell racial slurs at you is unfair, and out of touch. For white, male, straight gamers, it's fun because they don't have to worry about someone actively being toxic to you only because of your identity. Whenever a female gamer speaks, they're either met with straight up sexism, or weirdos, and 'nice guys' who are only nice because they believe they'll be their girlfriend for being nice. When you're a woman, and you're met with this kind of experiences when you use voice chat, you'd see how it's not a great thing for you. And this goes not only for women, but for people who aren't white, gay people, trans people, anything that's not cis, straight, white, and male.