NO GAME, NO LIFE 1

No Game, No Life: Developing Relationships Within Online Gaming Communities

Phillip Park

12/2/2014

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Real life is more fictional, stated the disembodied, but familiar, voice speaking into my
headphones. Online you dont have the worry of Oh my gosh, what is this person gonna say to
my friends? When youre face-to-face with people theyre more concerned about their image
you dont have that problem in gamingall you see is their skill level. The voice belongs to a
twenty-three year old Australian woman known online by her username EmpressNinja, or
Empress for short. I was interviewing Empress on the nature of the friendships she had
developed online with other people and their relative quality to relationships developed in-person
when she made that rather odd sounding statement. For most people it would be considered
strange to have someone openly value friendships they have developed solely within an online
community as much or more than friendships they have made in person, but, for a sizable
population of the worlds gamers, this is not an unbelievable or foreign concept.
There are millions of gamers worldwide who are all part of a growing subculture that has
outpaced both the music and film industries in sales and revenue (Kamenetz, 2013). Gaming has
successfully rooted itself into cultures and societies around the planet, and it is here to stay for
the foreseeable future. Despite its pervasiveness, however, there is very little in the way of
exhaustive research done on all aspects of gaming as well as a bevy of persistent myths that have
plagued gamers for years. A popular stereotype attributed to gamers is that of the anti-social or
socially awkward loner who refuses or cannot handle interactions with others. This concept is
patently false given how heavily most modern games focus on the multiplayer experience. In
fact, games nowadays are incredibly social experiences, and players consistently have healthy
social interactions with people via the medium of online gaming even when lacking face-to-face
contact (Donhaidi, 2014). It is possible to develop a meaningful relationship with another person
solely via mutual participation in an online gaming community.

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The literature surrounding this topic is, at best, under-researched. Database searches turn
up maybe a dozen research studies that exclusively deal with the nature of friendships made
online, several of which have just been published within the last two years. Older research
studies that contain relevant information are usually found under more umbrella studies that
research the positive aspects of playing video games. Usually within said studies there will be a
small section that briefly discusses the social benefits of playing games but given that the topic is
far from the focus of the paper, detailed, relevant data is almost non-existent.
Additionally, what data that has been collected on video game friendships can be
conflicting. Studies published in 2007 or earlier contain data that would indicate online gaming
as being detrimental to the development of friendships. Studies conducted more recently, like a
mass survey distributed earlier this year in Germany, indicate that online gaming is actually
beneficial to relationships both online and offline (Kowert, 2014). This is not to say that the
initial studies were incorrect in their methodology or findings, rather it is likely a case of the
technology and culture advancing too rapidly for much of academic research to stay relevant
beyond a few years. While online gaming had existed for well over a decade prior to 2007, it
was not a development focus or even a frequent feature until 2008 when the popularity of the
Call of Duty 4 multiplayer experience helped launch a significant boom in both the frequency
and design focus of multiplayer in new games. This boom, combined with the speedy pace the
industry continues to advance at, means that previously collected data cannot be realistically
acknowledged to be as relevant or as useful as data collected within the last two to three years
(Kowert, 2013).
The majority of this essay will feature data and interviews pulled from an online gaming
community called Net-Jam. Given the niche role of this community and its purpose I felt it

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necessary to explain what Net-Jam is, my connection to it, and how this specific community
functions.
Net-Jam is the name of a gaming community centered around playing Call of Duty 4:
Modern Warfare (usually abbreviated as CoD4), a multiplayer First Person Shooter (FPS) type
game that mimics military combat. CoD4 was developed by Infinity Ward and published by
Activision (a game developer and publisher, respectively) in late 2007 and was a genre defining
hit. Its popularity and quality as a game became the benchmark to which all other FPS games
were held and it helped turbocharge the immensely popular and profitable Call of Duty series as
multiplayer experience. For many gamers, CoD4 holds a place of nostalgic importance within
their hearts and is often lauded as the best game of the Call of Duty series. This population of
gamers is quite large and is why CoD4 continues to be played religiously by thousands of players
around the world, even as newer Call of Duty games are developed and published.
Currently the multiplayer community of CoD4, as it exists on the PC, is broken up into a
massive list of thousands of servers. A good way to think of servers would be to look at them as
a bunch of Italian restaurants in a state. They all serve the same food with their own differences
and twists, but the core menu is the same. A server, like a restaurant, can only hold a certain
number of people, and is constantly serving food to people who cycle in and out throughout the
day. For a gamer trying to select a server to play on from the thousands of options, he or she
goes through a similar process to that of a person trying to select an Italian restaurant to eat at.
When selecting a server one tries to pick one that is nearby, first and foremost, as the physical
location of the server relative to your physical location dictates how strong your connection is to
it; a bad connection can negatively impact gameplay. Similarly, most people will not travel more
than a few miles to go to a restaurant because it simply takes too much time. Once you have

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narrowed down your range of selection, you look for a server that is the right size for what you
want. If you like a smaller setup, you find a server that is less frequented by others and instead
rotates out a small number of core people. This is like choosing between a hole-in-the-wall pizza
parlor on an off street or a much larger, popular restaurant in the heart of Downtown. Once your
size is chosen, now you choose the server with the right game type. For the layman, this is like
choosing a restaurant that specializes in different aspects of Italian food. Maybe you really want
pizza, so you find a pizzeria and pass up on the restaurants that focus more on their pasta. Once
all of this is decided, you can finally go to the restaurant and enjoy your meal or, in this case,
play the game.
During gameplay is where the real social interaction begins. Some servers have limited
interaction options and people generally use the available type-chat feature within the game.
Largely, this is how first contact is established between players. In the chat you can talk to the
other team, coordinate with your own team, or just generally shoot the breeze. As each team
deals battle with each other, often a rapport will develop between more vocal players who fight
or kill each other often. From there, the relationship can develop into its next stage. More
organized servers, like Net-Jam, have a separate TeamSpeak server for communication.
TeamSpeak is a third-party program that lets people group in an online voice-chatroom.
TeamSpeak servers are widely used by gamers to have a reliable program to talk to each other
during cooperative or competitive team events and games.
I was invited onto the TeamSpeak server sometime in early March 2014 where I got to
know several different people. Communication on one of these voice servers is definitely
different from what most people are used to, but it is no strange experience for a seasoned gamer.
In the TeamSpeak server we go by our usernames as opposed to our real names, and after some

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time you respond to your username as you would to your given name. Online, I frequently go by
Rattle, and the people I interacted with had their own names, like Gryphus_1, Siege,
CaptainOutlaw, and EmpressNinja. The concept sounds silly at first, but you stop noticing it
after a while the more immersed into the culture you become. Joining this niche subgroup of a
much larger subculture was relatively easy given my gaming background. There were no
stringent entry prerequisites and there was no application process or initiation, just an invitation
and good conversation.
As a gamer and a part of the Net-Jam community I contain certain biases as a result of
my experience in this specific subculture and subgroup. I view gaming as a positive activity and
firmly believe in the activitys abilities to benefit its participants in a myriad of different ways.
My own experiences have led me to affirm my thesis, and while my experiences can act as a
starting point or supplement to good research, they cannot be considered a replacement for good
and thorough research. My goal with this essay is to help dispel some popular myths about the
impersonal, anti-social basement dweller stereotypes that continues to be attributed to gamers
and to highlight an understudied area of positivity within gaming.
In an effort to supplement the existing, but limited, academic research done in this area I
conducted a series of eleven interviews with eleven different people, all of whom are regular
participants in the Net-Jam community. The interviews were conducted privately in a separate
voice chat channel and captured with the recording function built into the TeamSpeak program.
The interviews averaged around eleven minutes in length and the interviewees were asked a
series of questions designed to collect some initial demographic data and then to open a dialogue
about the relationships they may or may not have developed with other members of Net-Jam. Of
the eleven participants, only two were female. The ages, however, ranged widely from as young

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as 15 to as old as 55 with notable variance within that range. Each user interviewed are
considered regulars in the community and often average well over ten hours of play-time per
week and have been established as active members on the server and the TeamSpeak for several
months. While the location of the participants was not explicitly discussed within all of the
interviews, at least four of the subjects are not American and at least one is not a native English
speaker. With such a breadth of player backgrounds one might conclude it would be very
difficult to develop any kind of meaningful relationship with someone quite literally across time
zones, but all of my collected data directly contradicts that point.
A full ten out of the eleven people interviewed consider other members of Net-Jam as
their friends. They each acknowledged that they considered most of the regulars to be their
friends, and that they each had an additional core group of other users they considered to be
distinctly close friends. Interestingly, all of the ten participants who claim to have developed
relationships with other Net-Jam members also assert that for them there is no distinction
between their online and offline friends in terms of sentimental importance. That said, most
acknowledged a certain oddity that comes with only interacting with someone via a faceless
voice chat. There is always a distance between people whenever they dont actually meet, but I
wouldnt consider that like, a disadvantage to getting to know someone, states milspec, a
member of Net-Jams moderating team. Another member of Net-Jam under the pseudonym
Alluzion explained to me that All the admins and members, I can talk to themtheyre my
friends. I can go to them and theyre always there for me, whether its about Call of Duty or
other issues that Im having, theyre there. Her sentiment was one that was expressed almost
unanimously by the other members of Net-Jam. Sometimes, if Im at work, I really miss having
the contact with these people, stated Terror, a 51 year old member currently residing in

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Singapore. I must say, its a very interesting group of people and its very interesting to get
online to meet them again, continued Terror, It keeps me coming back.
The one thing that was echoed by every single interviewed member was how excellent
the community is on Net-Jam. Every person I had spoken to emphasized the importance of NetJams community and how heavily their consistent participation on Net-Jam was largely out of a
desire to continue interacting with the other members. When asked if the people were his main
draw to return to the server, Boards, a Net-Jam Administrator stated, Yes, definitely. The
people, their attitude and their skill levelthe social aspect of it was fun and sporting. Each
member individually expressed that it would take a massive change in the community to prompt
them to not return each evening to talk to the other members. The only other thing that was
mentioned as often as a mass community exodus as a reason to no longer return to Net-Jam was
a major, life changing event that for some reason prevented their current levels of participation.
The owner and operator of the server, Gryphus_1, boldly proclaimed that the only thing that
would keep him from coming back to Net-Jam would be most likely, death. Given his almost
eight years of activity on the server and his current status as its sole caretaker, his claim may not
be far from the truth.
For the uninitiated, the profound dedication to a community of people that, for all intents
and purposes, exist almost entirely as disembodied voices can be construed as odd. However, it
was noted in my interviews that a unique camaraderie is developed over time despite the inherent
facelessness involved in these kinds of interactions. Each member I spoke to carried fond
memories of specific nights or events that occurred solely online. For some, it was being tickled
by a particularly entertaining story. For others, it was running around within the game doing

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something rather silly; sometimes it was just for fun, sometimes it was simply to mess with the
people who were not in on the joke.
It was interesting to note, however, what remained largely absent as a discussion topic
within the interviews. Primarily, it was interesting how infrequently the actual game itself was
mentioned by the people I was talking to. Keep in mind, this server revolves around playing one
singular game within the massively popular Call of Duty franchise. Many of my interviewees
have been playing on the same maps, with the same weapons, on the same game mode for years
with very little variance in gameplay. Even the most dedicated of gamers can eventually be
bored to death of repetition, but the regulars at Net-Jam seem to power right through the
monotony one would associate with performing the same actions again and again. For many of
these regulars, the game is played for tens of hours a week and, in terms of sheer time
commitment, it is a major aspect of their lives. That said, in my interviews it was only rarely
talked about, and when it was discussed it was always within the context of how the Net-Jam
community interacts with each other in the game. This could be attributed to the questions posed
to the members during the interviews, but when asked what kept everyone coming back to play
at Net-Jam the answer was unanimously: the people.
In fact, the low incidence of actual gameplay mentions serves as a strong refutation to
any claims of sample size bias creating an unrealistic picture of the overall gaming community.
A point that can be made in opposition to my findings is that the overall selection process of the
servers within the game itself limits a potential community population to a group of likeminded
people who, by nature of having already undergone a sort of preliminary parameter adjustments,
would get along much better with each other than if the meetings were truly random. Yes, server
location and game mode are going to affect who chooses to enter and participate as a server

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member, but I assert that this in no way would be enough to significantly affect the outcome of
any collected data. To briefly revive the metaphorical Italian restaurants mentioned earlier, one
may enjoy a particular restaurant, but that does not necessarily mean one also enjoys the
company of the other patrons there. The bevy of server options available to a player means that
there is no shortage of other places with identical game modes and similar connection strength,
thus gameplay cannot be considered to be the primary motivator for returning to a server. My
interviews all suggest that is the truth given how little we discussed gameplay and how
prominent a focus each player individually put on the caliber of the community and the
enjoyment they derive from being a part of it. Of my eleven interviewees, only three have ever
had any other server affiliation outside of Net-Jam, affiliations that were invariably cut upon
officially joining the Net-Jam community.
For weeks, months, and even years these people (myself included) have interacted with
each other without seeing one anothers face, or even knowing anyone elses real name. All we
really have is a voice and a username, but for the majority of the players on Net-Jam this
provides as much of a barrier to the development mutual friendship as a paper dam would to
river. An overwhelming majority of the people interviewed spoke extensively of the friends they
have developed online and the good natured teasing and camaraderie that is bundled with the
entire experience. Despite gamings oft portrayal as a solitary hobby, in reality it is far from a
lonely experience. Playing games does not suddenly mean you have no social life, and if
anything the multiplayer format and consistent player interactions in games like Call of Duty
show quite the opposite trend. I know from personal experience that there is nothing quite like
logging onto the TeamSpeak channel and being welcomed by a small chorus of friendly voices.
The conversations I and many other Net-Jam members have had in the small hours of the

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morning range from the profane to the profound, and the relationships that spring from those
moments are every bit as real as the time spent experiencing them. The game itself becomes
secondary to the community that enjoys it, and that is not a bad thing to have happen. When its
two oclock in the morning and you have just laughed yourself to tears over a story being
regaled into your headset by someone living thousands of miles away from you, you find
yourself hard pressed to even imagine life without that game and the people you met playing it.

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36385-390. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.003
Kamenetz, Anya. "Why Video Games Succeed Where The Movie And Music Industries Fail."
Fast Company. N.p., 7 Nov. 2013. Web. 02 Dec. 2014.
Kowert, R., Domahidi, E., & Quandt, T. (2014). The relationship between online video game
involvement and gaming-related friendships among emotionally sensitive students.
Cyberpsychology, Behavior, And Social Networking, 17(7), 447-453.
doi:10.1089/cyber.2013.0656
Ledbetter, A. M., & Kuznekoff, J. H. (2012). More Than a Game: Friendship Relational
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Research, 39(2), 269-290. doi:10.1177/0093650210397042
When Playing Video Games Means Sitting On Life's Sidelines. (2013). National Public Radio.