Ad | You must be aged 18+ to bet; please be gamble aware
For a very long time, gamers have been thought of by some as isolated individuals. However, this misconception isn’t true, as online gaming has now evolved to become a means of socialising with other people. It has proven to be a very effective method for connecting with other people worldwide, especially if you have difficulty forming social connections in person. It can even be on a local level, where you and a friend or family member play games online to stay in touch.
Many people have been able to form special connections with people they have met in-game. The “all” mic option in Call of Duty Mobile, for example, can be used to speak with your teammates of four players or the entire 100 players in a battle royale match, which can lead to collaboration with enemies and new friendships. The collaborative nature of some games, like It Takes Two, has been effective in encouraging teamwork and creating deep connections. In this piece, we will explore all the ways by which the 21st-century version of a penpal has changed.
Gaming Goes Social
Many will remember the days when we had to play games at an arcade for the best experience. For some it was a means of socialising, as we would sometimes save our money up to enjoy gaming at what was a unique time. However, gaming online in all areas, including casino gaming, has evolved—with smartphones and stronger computers on our laps, anyone can easily access the internet and play games that allow them to connect with other real people.
Casino games, for instance, have been a crowd magnet, with people planning entire vacations around a trip to Vegas. Approximately 40m people travel to Vegas annually, and tourism in the country continues to improve as more people have been visiting post-COVID-19. Well, the rapid growth of online gambling has also caused a change in how we experience casinos—you can still enjoy the buzzy look and feel of a real casino from the comfort of your living room sofa.
Games used to be reserved for solitary pastimes and, years ago, you had to leave the game to spend time with your friends. However, the case is now reversed—technology has flipped the script on us. You can now play online casino tournaments and have a friendly competition with your friends without leaving your home. There are many different types of games to choose from, and with how far the industry has grown, you will surely find something to suit your taste.
Top Gaming Platforms to Find Your Community
To build personal relationships, you need to have common interests. Gone are the days where you need to meet a hundred people to find ten that have similar interests to you. In this age, with just an Internet connection, you can be a part of a gaming community that is willing to accommodate millions of people around the world.
iGaming Communities for Casino Players
iGaming forums are one of the biggest platforms where you can find your community in this century. Members of these platforms can help each other out in any way possible; you will find people’s personal experiences about stuff like payout speed, game variety, customer support, and overall trustworthiness.
These platforms usually build their reputation on trustworthiness and are often transparent and quick to report issues they encounter with online platforms. Members of these forums form communities that look out for each other and try to make sure every member of the community stays as profitable as possible.
Casinomeister, one of the biggest platforms where you can find a solid iGaming community, features nearly 800,000 forum posts within 68,000 public threads. The community is one where the members respect one another and share information. It has been able to connect people and build relationships, even including marriages, and it hosts annual meetups in London called Meister Meetings.
The site is packed with features and even offers benefits for its users based on rankings—ranging from Newbie to Ueber Meister Member. Volunteer members, called Meister Minions, gather information about casinos to help with ratings. In the gaming world, these people would be referred to as game testers who report bugs. This is a solid example of all you can gain from joining an iGaming community.
eFuse—previously for Esports Networking
eFuse was a social media platform and a professional hub for esports and gaming. It was referred to as ‘LinkedIn for gamers’ because it focused on connecting gamers and industry professionals. The platform was launched in January 2020 and has was used by some gamers to build digital portfolios, find opportunities, and network with others with similar interests in the gaming community.
On its launch on January 2, 2020, it had over 23,000 people on its early access waiting list. It has since then been responsible for hosting large events for publishers like Activision-Blizzard, Epic Games, and Riot Games. If you are into esports, you will definitely know these publishers. The platform fulfilled its role as a place to meet, compete, and be discovered.
eFuse pivoted in 2023 to spin its assets off into standalone properties, and focused on tournament organisation.
It also owns Esports.GG, which is a very popular media outlet where many gamers go to find news and gaming content. Other standalone companies, besides Esports.GG, that are affiliated with eFuse, include Erena, Sidekick, and Egency.
Twitch—The Largest Live Streaming Platform for Esports
Twitch is one of the biggest live streaming platforms, with the most influential of streamers. The biggest and most popular streamers can be found on stream. Some of the most popular include Kai Cenat, Ninja, and xQc. Some might argue that Kai Cenat isn’t an esports person, but his 168-hour marathon spent playing the base game of Elden Ring shows he’s a dedicated gamer.
One of the major benefits Twitch offers in creating a sense of community is the live chat option, where you can interact directly with streamers and other viewers in real time, taking streams beyond live viewing. The platform streams various tournaments, like the smaller Valorant United Kingdom Circuit, to the major League of Legends World Championship, and Dota 2’s The International.
The communities on these platforms have great connections with streamers. For example, streamers like ClassyBeef, which is a Malta-based group of nine streamers, promote gambling to viewers. They currently have over 260,000 Twitch followers who now stream on Kick.com and offer giveaways with a lively chat. The group averages five thousand to seven thousand viewers per stream. The Fortnite community on Twitch is also very big, with streamers like Ninja amassing 18.6 million followers.
There are many other examples of Twitch streamers who have brought gamers together through the content they offer. The other community-building features, aside from the live chat, include subscriptions and donations, which have proven to be very effective in achieving streaming success through community-building.
Discord—Easy to Use and Low Resource Requirements
Discord is a very popular platform among online gamers because of how easy to use the platform is and the fact that it does not require you to have a professional gaming device before you can access it. The voice chat is one of the most commonly used features, as many prefer the Discord voice chat to in-game chats that are known for ruining your ms if you have them on.
As a gamer, you must understand the importance of ping/ms to your online gaming experience, as it is a code for how fast your network speed is. The higher the ms, the worse it is. Let’s say, for example, you are playing on 80 ms ping against a player that’s playing on 20 ms, you may lose in a gunfight against them more often than not. Because of this, players prioritise ms a lot.
Discord was launched in 2015 with the intent of being a platform to build a community of gamers and chat. The platform has fulfilled its intent and more. You can think of Discord as a less formal version of Slack that allows players to build their own bots. The team at Discord has been very active and more than willing to implement user suggestions. For example, a Twitch partner reached out to them on Twitter and asked Discord to create a server meant exclusively for Twitch partners, and Discord implemented that suggestion in two days.
The platform has also partnered with major esports teams like Cloud9, Shanghai Dragons, and Team Liquid. These partnerships have helped these teams build their fanbase/community by inviting followers from social media platforms to join their Discord servers. The platform has also been integrated with popular gaming platforms, like Steam and Xbox Live, to allow you access to the best gaming experience. In many games, you can even connect your gaming profile to Discord.
Final Thoughts
Online gaming has been very effective in bringing people together with the recent explosion of high-speed Internet in the last twenty years—the world is a much smaller place where you can connect with almost anyone. Joining esports communities is similar to diving into a world of gaming wisdom, where you can hang out with pro and other gamers, chat about game strategies, and swap secrets.
We have discussed the many communities that were birthed as a result of the influence of online gaming. The recent boom in esports participation has been effective in showing how communities can form and grow in the digital world that we are in.
