Gaming Alone, Not By Choice

Hey Duders:

It's slowly dawned on me over these last few years that, after college, I've exclusively become the only one of my friends who still continues to play and enjoy video games. Most of them have either gotten married, worked on their career, or found other hobbies that they find more satisfying, and left video games to the wayside. As a result that's left me the odd one out, as I still play games quite frequently, but am almost exclusively left with single player campaigns or random match-making. I was wondering if any of you encountered this and how you combated it: find other people to play with online, join a club, just be a vagrant at your local GameStop, etc. I have fond memories of staying up all night playing through cooperative campaigns (Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo Reach in particular), and I don't want my youth to be fading quite that fast that I'm aged out of games like DOTA 2, Counter-Strike GO, etc.

Sincerely, Isaac

I find myself gaming alone because my work schedule almost never coincides with any of my friends. I don't mind doing matchmaking with randoms or working my way through campaigns solo. Online communities can often provide some good co-op partners if you need them. GB's community is usually pretty active with that type of thing. If you're planning on playing Destiny join Lincoln Force, the GB Destiny Clan.

Don't worry about your youth fading, games don't have age limits for enjoyment. Just have fun and go with it, duder.

Hmmm... I have one very old friend and one fairly old friend who both play. That's who I play 90% of video games with. I keep thinking about trying to get some GB members on my various friend lists, but I'm too anxious and shy to feel comfortable interacting with strangers in such a close way.

On a more helpful note, if you're comfortable with it, you can probably find a dozen of more duders around here from any given platform who would play. In fact, expect a few friendly souls to wander in and offer you their gamertags/psns/friend codes/steam accounts.

That's unfortunate man, sorry to hear. I honestly don't hang out with my friends that much, one of which hasn't even contacted me in two years (though my mom and his still keep in contact on Facebook); I don't know what's up with that, perhaps he thinks he's too good for me or something :P. He was pretty into games though. I keep in contact with one of them, and he's an avid game player as I am, even though it seems he can't afford them due to no job, so he rents them a lot, and has other friends that buy them. I hope to hang out with him soon when I'm not working.

As for you, I'd say it's time to get some new friends maybe, but that may be hard if you're not really motivated to do it. It sounds like you're about my age too, if you're a few years out of college. Do you have siblings that are interested in games as you are? I'm very much a campaign player, and rarely go to multiplayer, but in general, I think gaming is still a very social thing, and it really sucks when there's no one in person to go to and talk to about the same interest. Sometimes when I play a new game, I wish my friend that hasn't hung out with me in a couple of years actually would so we could discuss the game.

Sometimes it feels like when I was young and had so much time I was clamoring for co-op games to play with my friends, even resorted to a lot of shitty ones just so we could play together. Now these days I have to play everything alone and everything seems built for co-op, so I feel like I'm not getting the maximum enjoyment out of the games. I think the 'Souls' series offers and interesting compromise to this situation, which is probably why I like it so much.

I've almost always played alone, so there isn't much difference nowadays.

Yeah, from the N64 days up through the first Rock Band my friends and I would regularly have some fun playing games but after that it kinda stopped because they lost interest or had less time due to stuff. It happens.

Giantbomb.com has some cool people who play games, though, so that's always a possibility. I personally am a wimp who doesn't deal well with socializing with people so I don't do that as much as I could.

If anything, you can find communities or clans here on the GB forums to many games with multiplayer mode(s).

I'm sure there are a lot of people like us, especially those of us over 30. I do enjoy a good, even bad when played with friends, coop game. I remember playing through one of the cain and lynch with one of my good buddies and even though it wasn't a good game we had a blast going through it. Now, I'm in a similar place were mostly I play single player games, spelunky, xcom, dragon age and that's fine cause I can go through them at my own time and pace. However, every now and than I want to play some COD or destiny. I played lots of borderlands one and two and played with random people alot. When I knew I was going to have a long play session I would bounce around looking for people who would talk, work together, and generally not be fucking nuts. Now I have a list of friends, who I may not really know, but I know we play games together well. Somethings need to be done with others.

I sit here now waiting for my new white PS4 to show up tomorrow and know that I will have to search for new people to play destiny with. Its really one of the biggest problems I have with destiny, and that is it doesn't really look like something to be played solo. Borderlands was easy to go through by myself, but ten times better with four people. Going into multiplayer is one thing cause its mostly everyone for themselves, but I enjoy the playing in a group of people actually working together. If you are playing destiny on PS4 find me tomorrow, BoFooQ.

I'd imagine that's why most of us are here. When you can't share your hobby in real life, the internet is there for you!

So this isn't real life?

I stick to single-player. At least I don't have to pay extra or spend time trying to get into MOBAs or MMOs. No worries then. No disappointing people or dealing with... uhm, less mature audiences.

Most of my friends don't really care about games. A good buddy of mine does but he's mostly into WoW and single player games. I guess I am too at this point probably mostly out of necessity as well.

Find friends who aren't married and aren't parents is the only the thing that has worked for me. My friends who still enjoy gaming tend to work in tech, so it doesn't conflict with their careers as much as others.

Pretty much DOTA 2 is the only game I play with friends these days, but that's plenty.

I'm 28, and only a handful of my friends still game regularly. The ones that do are big on PC stuff (League, Warframe, etc.). So I mostly play alone these days.

But a few weeks ago, we played a 50 round game of Mario Party. And on Saturday, we played Metal Gear Solid 2 for like 5 hours. Few and far between, but playing online with strangers just can't compare to that sort of thing.

I don't really have a way to combat it. I can go weeks without playing with my friends because again, most of my friends aren't really into it. Plus I live pretty far from the ones that are.

But if you enjoy it, keep on enjoying it however you want. I'm not married, but I work hard and have plenty of hobbies. Even if I take long breaks from games, I know they'll always be there.

All my friends stopped playing games as well. All of us are in our mid 20's. I'm the last one left... and I'm okay with that. None of us ever played the same game types, we all had completely different work schedules, relationships and family situations. We all moved in different directions. It's cool, I'm okay with it. Actually it sucks and I miss my friends and it's terrible.

I'm 27 myself, and I know the feeling of being the only one of my friends truly dedicated to the real american pastime: video games. I've been with my girlfriend for 6 years and she has almost no interest in games. She likes doing goofy shit in Mortal Kombat and that's about it. I told her how to throw Scorpion's spear and she was tickled pink. She writes for xoVain, a makeup site, which I don't care about at all for obvious reasons. Foundation makes my beard all wonky. But games are for when I want to unwind. Same with just netflixing an entire run of a TV show, or watching super weird foreign art films. It's cool to have interests to yourself.

For me, games have always been a solo experience. Even multiplayer games, I never really grouped up with my friends. Most of my friends still play games at least a little. We'll drink and talk about games all the time, but it's the same way we talk about movies and music and really any pop culture. We all like these things, but we like them in our own way. Games, like other pop culture, have always been a way for me to enjoy alone time. Everyone says Destiny is best with friends, but fuck my friends. If I wanted to hang out with them, we'd be at a bar or just hanging out or whatever. I'm not the type of person who wants to hang out online. I play a lot of League. With strangers. Almost exclusively. I play a lot of Diablo 3... also alone. It's cool. I love these games despite the fact that I'm doing it by myself. Enjoy single player. It's a great thing. Get way into podcasts or audiobooks.

What I'm saying is video games are cool, we all know this because we're taking the time to post on a message board on an out of the way site about video games. I know you love them. Don't feel bad about the way you love them. You could have no one in your life at all and you turn to video games for refuge (I've felt that way!) and posted on message boards about how it seems crummy (I've posted on a lot of message boards, mostly Weezer related, I feel like I probably knew young Patrick Klepek) but whatever man. Games are good solo, they're good with friends. Any game that's only good in one of those ways sucks and you should stop playing it.

In high school, my house was the place to be on weekends for multiplayer gaming. After graduation, everybody left town and I lost touch with my regular gaming crew. I'd say that was the end of multiplayer games for me. I work with some people who play games but we mostly have different tastes in games. I work the late shift and they all have things going on in their lives that prevent us from gaming together regularly when we find a game that we all play.

The best I can think of is to find people on the forums. I'm not a very social person but I'm getting a little tired of missing out on co-op/multiplayer so I've started putting members from the site on my friends list. There's a lot of us who are looking for mature players who just want to chill and have fun. We're all here because we have at least 1 common interest to begin with.

I totally know the feeling. I have friends who play games but nowhere as often and not everything that I play. It is nice to still have someone I can waste the day with playing Mario Kart 8. But I envy those who have even small group of friends to game with. Especially now that all these couch multiplayer games are coming out.

have you ever considered setting up like a game night with other guys who are married? There are some wives happy to let their men have a guys night out to go out camping or just socialize with their friends

There's always the internet, though I'll admit I've never really stuck with playing any game with anyone I've known from here for very long, but I've also always been one to prefer playing alone (even if I'm playing a multiplayer game online) over playing with others, even back when I had easy access to friends who did play video games on a regular basis. I'm young enough that I still do, it's just hard to coordinate stuff with school and life in the way sometimes.

That's how it goes I guess. A former roommate of mine convinced me to reinstall League of Legends, but I'm not a freshman anymore and I actually am sort of busy this semester so I'm not sure how much I'll play, especially when I have hot modern and relevant games like Lightning Returns calling my name.

Yeah, I pretty much never play anything cooperative, since I don't have any friends to play with...

@sterling: No, it's just fantasy.

@mc_hify: So one could assume then, they we are caught in a landslide?

Play with people you don't know in real life. There's a great group of GB guys who play DOTA and CS:GO regularly on the PC Gaming Hub, as well as a wide variety of odd games too.

Consoles I'm not so sure about, that's always been the platform I'd get if I know people who also have one.

I've always played alone, my friends just like playing Call of Duty and other multiplayer FPSs, I don't really like MP FPS games and just like normal single player games which they've probably never heard of.

I used to play an insane amount of multiplayer, but stopped several years ago. I'm slowly getting back into it, but random match-matching does not appeal to me at all. I was playing on a server by myself with some bots the other day, which someone told me was a little sad, but I was pretty happy tootling around learning the game without anyone informing me my playing skills were poor. The biggest thing for me is finding a server that also has a forum attached to it. Makes it easier to make and keep connections.

Yeah, same for me after college. And the thought of voice chat with randoms never sounds very appealing to me. It seems like there are just enough games with workable anonymous multiplayer (Dark Souls, Journey, NFS Most Wanted, etc.) to keep that itch scratched for me. But I understand shooters are much more fun in party chat with friends.

Posting here is a good start I think, this community seems pretty respectful and groups are always forming up for the newer games.

Another possibility is to browse Twitch and see if you come across any streamers you think you could get along with, and get to know them and their followers.

yup i have been gaming alone for about the last 3 years since college ended...it sucks ..so i figured i am now going to buy a projector (Epson PowerLite 500) and display my awesome skillz playing video games outside my window for everyone to see :P

Wow, I'm glad to see I'm not alone with the number of people I play games dropping precipitously. Thanks for letting me know I'm not the only one, and that it is possible to get back out there and find other people, be it from Twitch, or Giant Bomb or wherever. Maybe I'll just have to post in a game's forum's section once I find a good multiplayer I really want to dedicate time to. Thanks again duders!

@pyromagnestir: you're also too good at video games and make things un-fun.

@earlessshrimp:

You're a bald faced liar! Except you have a beard!

I wasn't very good at Nidhogg, I remember that much. And you beat me at Divekick that one time we went faced off at Pax.

@pyromagnestir: See, now there's proof of video games make friends and such. That was also pure luck. I think we were pretty on par with each other with Nidhogg though.

To be a little more on point: most of my friends either play stuff I'm not that interested in (lately: Destiny, Titanfall... SWTOR), and I don't think they'd be all too into things like Nidhogg and Sports Friends and the likes. Although, personally, never really had many local multiplayer experiences throughout life. It's basically been online making online friends playing on the same servers for years on end. The dream isn't dead! It's just changed shape.

I game alone because I don't have any real life friends, and my computer is too outdated to run new games that my online friends play. I don't mind it that much; I can still find good single-player games that my system can handle. I've been playing and enjoying Steamworld Dig lately.