How Introverts Were the Real Winners: Video Games During the Pandemic
by Jonathan Avalos
May 12th, 2020
My research is mainly focused on Let’s Players. Although no media outlet is really talking about Let’s Plays, since I doubt anyone knows what that is to issue an article about it. So instead I’m going to write about how the general video game community has been affected by the pandemic. Not much has changed really, it’s the same for the most part. But if anything, the act of playing online multiplayer games has only intensified, putting a strain on game servers and game developers trying to adjust to a new influx of players.
For example, one of the games I play, SMITE, has had connection problems during the early months of the summer due to the servers (which allows players to connect with each other) not being able to handle the amount of new players starting the game. As a result I was ‘queued’ in order to play the game. Think of it as a virtual waiting in line; except you're looking at your computer screen with the text “RECONNECTING” and a buffering symbol.
Instances like this have been forcing developers to rework their server infrastructure, something players have been asking for anyway over the last couple years. The pandemic only forced developer’s hands into actually making these improvements and getting things into motion.
Developers have also tried to create in-game incentives to hook new players to continue playing, using the quarantine as an opportunity knowing that people can’t really do much else (who wants to read books anyway?). Whether that be increased levelling experience, free exclusive items/cosmetics, specific events that were made concerning the pandemic. etc. All of this is probably mumbo jumbo, but I’m basically saying that games are now giving out a ‘Free Lunch’ whenever players decide to keep playing. An extra something to log back in everyday.
That’s all I was going to write about, except an article on The Guardian came out a few days ago, describing how players in Animal Crossing, a very popular game about doing mundane things and being chill, are supplementing the game to do activities not possible during the pandemic. One player was using their virtual island as a space for sex-work, with players playing the role of dom and sub; creating and customizing spaces to mimic preferable places and activities of erotic play; etc. How players imitate erotic play is actually quite interesting. For example, hitting players with a bug net over and over again, to which the player being smacked with a bug net expresses the ‘cry’ emote. The creativity was cool, as in the Animal Crossing community, hitting people with the bug net was usually used as a comedic and absent-minded form of play. Interpretation and reuse of mechanics is one of the best parts of video games, as it can be chalked up to a form of “emergent play”. Usually this means games randomly generate unpredictable events for the player, but in this case, the emergence comes from players performing static actions to accomplish desired player-player interactions.
The main player who offered this erotic play service would originally require cash in their regular line of sex-work, but did not do so in Animal Crossing. Instead, other players who wanted this service compensated by doing house chores and helping with the main player’s garden. Rather than a monetary exchange, erotic play was paid through virtual labour, of keeping the player’s house clean and garden growing. I’m not an expert with this stuff so I have no idea what to make of that. But I can say that the GIFT is alive and well, even within virtual settings. It also reveals how important the virtual setting of Animal Crossing is if the player is only really asking for help in keeping a beautiful home, when they could also ask for gifts (which is possible to do within the game). Which goes into how the main mechanics of the game, being that of expanding your island is important to players, as well as the social aspect of ‘showing off’ one’s own island, etc. etc. As the pandemic continues, developers and players find ways to use games as both a distraction and substitution for the everyday.
Link to Article
More info on Games Mentioned
SMITE - https://www.smitegame.com/learn/
Animal Crossing - https://www.animal-crossing.com/