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Playing With Friends -- The Importance of Social Play During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sebastian Cmentowski, Jens Krüger

TL;DR

This work focuses on the potential of games as a replacement for social contacts in the COVID-19 crisis and deduces that such crises mainly catalyze existing gaming habits.

Abstract

In early 2020, the virus SARS-CoV-2 evolved into a new pandemic, forcing governments worldwide to establish social distancing measures. Consequently, people had to switch to online media, such as social networks or videotelephony, to keep in touch with friends and family. In this context, online games, combining entertainment with social interactions, also experienced a notable growth. In our work, we focused on the potential of games as a replacement for social contacts in the COVID-19 crisis. Our online survey results indicate that the value of games for social needs depends on individual gaming habits. Participants playing mostly multiplayer games increased their playtime and mentioned social play as a key motivator. Contrarily, non-players were not motivated to add games as communication channels. We deduce that such crises mainly catalyze existing gaming habits.

Playing With Friends -- The Importance of Social Play During the COVID-19 Pandemic

TL;DR

This work focuses on the potential of games as a replacement for social contacts in the COVID-19 crisis and deduces that such crises mainly catalyze existing gaming habits.

Abstract

In early 2020, the virus SARS-CoV-2 evolved into a new pandemic, forcing governments worldwide to establish social distancing measures. Consequently, people had to switch to online media, such as social networks or videotelephony, to keep in touch with friends and family. In this context, online games, combining entertainment with social interactions, also experienced a notable growth. In our work, we focused on the potential of games as a replacement for social contacts in the COVID-19 crisis. Our online survey results indicate that the value of games for social needs depends on individual gaming habits. Participants playing mostly multiplayer games increased their playtime and mentioned social play as a key motivator. Contrarily, non-players were not motivated to add games as communication channels. We deduce that such crises mainly catalyze existing gaming habits.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 6 sections, 2 figures, 2 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Related Work
  3. Online Survey
  4. Results
  5. Discussion
  6. Conclusion

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: We asked the subjects several questions about their gaming habits and their opinion on social interactions. The pie charts illustrate the respective questions CQ1, CQ2, CQ8, CQ9, and the overall answer distribution of the 78 participants.
  • Figure 2: We asked the participants to list their reasons for playing games in general (bottom, CQ7) and for choosing specific games during the COVID-19 crisis (top, CQ6).