I know several people who have met online like this. I'd concur with the authors that working together to achieve an objective is kind of table stakes for an actual relationship. I've always felt that meeting someone in class and working together on homework and what not was something like that. But the key for me is that when you work with someone on a project you get a better understanding of how they approach things and how their values stack up.
Value stacks are something I heard about in a "Marriage and Family" class in college where the professor discussed that if you value say "economy" more than "time", you spend a lot of time to save a few cents, but if you reverse that stack order your spend extra cents to avoid spending the time. If the person you're dating has a very different stack than you do, it will be a source of problems going forward and doesn't suggest you'll have a successful marriage.
Playing video games together should certainly be a way to get a handle on how someone's values stack up relative to yours.
>if you value say "economy" more than "time", you spend a lot of time to save a few cents, but if you reverse that stack order your spend extra cents to avoid spending the time. If the person you're dating has a very different stack than you do, it will be a source of problems going forward and doesn't suggest you'll have a successful marriage.
This exact difference exists between my wife and I. For example, when her car needed a replacement part, she enlisted her dad in an effort to find the cheapest part on eBay, attempt to replace it themselves, and then shop around for the cheapest mechanic to install the part they bought. When my car needed a part replaced, I took it to the dealership where I bought it. I figured they'd have the part on hand and know how to do it right. They would overcharge, but not a criminal amount.
We've come to an understanding: I like to use money to reduce stress. She likes to save money because it gives her a feeling of accomplishment. Not very different from hobbies.
> Value stacks are something I heard about in a "Marriage and Family" class in college where the professor discussed that if you value say "economy" more than "time", you spend a lot of time to save a few cents, but if you reverse that stack order your spend extra cents to avoid spending the time. If the person you're dating has a very different stack than you do, it will be a source of problems going forward and doesn't suggest you'll have a successful marriage.
Adding onto this, I feel like the child/children from a marriage like this also get mixed signals from their parents on what they should value in things like this. So firstly it confuses them and secondly, if they pick a side of any of their parent then they would feel like the other parent doesn't get them which might make them feel bad.
For a good marriage/parentalhood imo, there should be a common layer of value stack ie. bedrock of shared values and trust in a relationship. Disagreements can occur but with the idea of we are more similar than different. Maybe Video games help in either checking that or measuring that. I am not sure if competitive games better reflect it than relaxed games but honestly I feel like if you are already into a relationship and say video games don't work, then you also adapt to the other person values.
I met my wife playing World of Warcraft some 16 years ago. She played a protection paladin, and I was a restoration shaman who was pretty new to doing group content. She had been looking for a healer for a heroic dungeon she and her friends were about to do, and I messaged her. We all got on really well, and three of us (myself, my wife, and one friend from that original group of five) still play WoW to this day.
It can be mind boggling to think how different my life would've been if I had been on a different server at that time; if I didn't play a healer; if I'd been an Alliance character instead of Horde; or if I hadn't been reading trade chat or just plain hadn't been online at that moment. Lots of variables had to be in place for us to meet.
My story isn't digital, but similarly required so many variables to coincide.
My friend got promoted and wanted to celebrate by going to a bar. His peer/colleague was also invited, and she had been hit by a bus only days before, totaling her car, but she wanted to come and convinced her neighbor to drive her to the bar. I came late, and sat far from my friend, as he invited several people, and the seats near him were taken. My friends colleagues neighbor was also at the end because she is shy and wasn't going to get into the main convo. She was cute, but I wasnt trying to pick her up, mostly just pity-chatted with her since she was clearly uncomfortable being there. And it turns out we really enjoyed chatting with each other. We meshed so well in fact, that we ended up marrying later. Obviously I skipped detail, but a lot happened for us to meet, and the window was tiny.
What if I or the peer had been busy, or my friend didn't get the promotion, or the peer's car hadn't been totaled? Or my wife, who didn't drink, had refused to go to the bar?
When I broke my leg in 2006, I had a Windows machine and a modem. I searched around to discover a game that could occupy my free time. I wanted a puzzle game: I knew that much. I was looking for multiplayer games, so I happened to find “Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates” whose introductory game, Bilging, was essentially “Bejeweled” in a co-op MMOG context.
I loved the game and the concept so much that I stuck around for years. Eventually, I met a woman who was from Catalonia. And we began a long-distance romance. And for months, our romance built on the foundation of our crew and our pirate flag, and our community-building within the game’s context. We won many victories and pillaged much booty, and eventually she offered to come and visit me where I lived in Arizona.
She visited for a few weeks, during which we visited my parents, and we found ourselves engaged to be married. Thereafter, we continued our game-based LDR, but she also insisted that I not only upgrade to ADSL, but also that I travel to visit her in Spain.
It turns out that real life was far more difficult for me to manage a romantic relationship. It fell apart, and so did the airline that was supposed to take me home. My parents intervened, rescuing me and bringing me home, but I was profoundly damaged by that experience, and honestly, if some kind of romance develops online, you’d better test it ASAP in real life, lest either of you be deceived by the masks worn in online communities, especially any type of game.
The interviews in section 4 are particularly informative for people trying to start a long distance relationship and want to determine compatibility with their partner. The items also apply to in-person romantic interactions, but multiplayer video games offer structure.
- Games also provide couples with “constant opportunit[ies] to come up with new silly things” (C9A), primarily inside jokes and topics of conversation that they discuss outside of their time spent playing together
- “I take competitive games pretty lightheartedly, so it’s not as if I get upset or anything. I think it’s funny when I die. I think it’s funny when he dies. I think it’s funny when we trade and we both kill each other. It’s a nice playful feeling to have a one-up over him or jokingly having beef with each other.”
- when asked as to the value C6 derives from menial in-game tasks such as raids versus the value of open-world exploration, C6B used the analogy, “It’s like doing chores [together] versus going on a date.”
How things have changed. When my spouse and I lived in different cities for several months, we stayed in touch thanks to...
America Online!
It turns out AOL was the only service that allowed dial up access in two different places without paying for two accounts. That was around 1993. And of course we didn't want to rack up long-distance phone bills. It was before AOL even allowed access to the Web.
I get the impression dating via games is becoming much more common in general.
Anecdotal example - I'm 39 and used to be an avid counterstrike player, and back in my days (2005-2014) it was 99.9% men. But every so often I play it now and I've been surprised by the number of women I've played with, and doubly surprised by the number of them who have made flirtatious advances. So much so that if I was single I'd almost consider it a reasonable avenue for meeting someone.
I credit ESO for helping with my LDR over 7 years. Time on the phone wouldn’t have been the same. With games you are doing things together and sharing experiences.
My husband and I play Wingspan together when I’m traveling for work. He likes board games in general, so it’s something familiar for both of us. And Wingspan is complex enough to reward skill, but also random enough that the outcome isn’t guaranteed when players are of different levels.
After I met her in person, I flirted with my now wife over a long distance by squirting ketchup and mustard at her in the VR sandwich making game Cook Out! It's no substitute for the real thing but VR definitely feels more intimate because you can see the other person's avatar moving along with their real motions, and the spatial audio makes it feel like they're really there.
I add multiplayer to most of my puzzle games now because couples love it. Redactle is the main one. Often Redactle is too hard to beat alone but it's great for a colab.
I met one of my closest friends in World of Warcraft.
Me and my wife started with distance, but we started craving being close within just a few months. We were lucky enough we were able to start living together within 1 year.
As of right now (15 years later), I cannot handle it. After having kids I realized I am a person who heavily need physical contact, I cannot manage a ldr I suspect (nor I want to)
When my wife and me went to university in different cities we met online most evenings in World of Warcraft, doing stuff together. Helped a lot during the few years of physical separation to stay in touch, plus now I have a wife who actually „gets it“ when I say cannot quickly go away from the computer for some time when healing a dungeon group and vice versa.
> A minority of couples (16%) displayed a preference for
1v1 gameplay, exemplified by casually competitive trivia games
such as Skribbl.io (a Scrabble clone) or drawing games similar to
Pictionary.
Uh, skribbl.io is definitely not a Scrabble clone lol (And also not really a 1v1 game)
38 comments
Value stacks are something I heard about in a "Marriage and Family" class in college where the professor discussed that if you value say "economy" more than "time", you spend a lot of time to save a few cents, but if you reverse that stack order your spend extra cents to avoid spending the time. If the person you're dating has a very different stack than you do, it will be a source of problems going forward and doesn't suggest you'll have a successful marriage.
Playing video games together should certainly be a way to get a handle on how someone's values stack up relative to yours.
>if you value say "economy" more than "time", you spend a lot of time to save a few cents, but if you reverse that stack order your spend extra cents to avoid spending the time. If the person you're dating has a very different stack than you do, it will be a source of problems going forward and doesn't suggest you'll have a successful marriage.
This exact difference exists between my wife and I. For example, when her car needed a replacement part, she enlisted her dad in an effort to find the cheapest part on eBay, attempt to replace it themselves, and then shop around for the cheapest mechanic to install the part they bought. When my car needed a part replaced, I took it to the dealership where I bought it. I figured they'd have the part on hand and know how to do it right. They would overcharge, but not a criminal amount.
We've come to an understanding: I like to use money to reduce stress. She likes to save money because it gives her a feeling of accomplishment. Not very different from hobbies.
> Value stacks are something I heard about in a "Marriage and Family" class in college where the professor discussed that if you value say "economy" more than "time", you spend a lot of time to save a few cents, but if you reverse that stack order your spend extra cents to avoid spending the time. If the person you're dating has a very different stack than you do, it will be a source of problems going forward and doesn't suggest you'll have a successful marriage.
Adding onto this, I feel like the child/children from a marriage like this also get mixed signals from their parents on what they should value in things like this. So firstly it confuses them and secondly, if they pick a side of any of their parent then they would feel like the other parent doesn't get them which might make them feel bad.
For a good marriage/parentalhood imo, there should be a common layer of value stack ie. bedrock of shared values and trust in a relationship. Disagreements can occur but with the idea of we are more similar than different. Maybe Video games help in either checking that or measuring that. I am not sure if competitive games better reflect it than relaxed games but honestly I feel like if you are already into a relationship and say video games don't work, then you also adapt to the other person values.
It can be mind boggling to think how different my life would've been if I had been on a different server at that time; if I didn't play a healer; if I'd been an Alliance character instead of Horde; or if I hadn't been reading trade chat or just plain hadn't been online at that moment. Lots of variables had to be in place for us to meet.
My friend got promoted and wanted to celebrate by going to a bar. His peer/colleague was also invited, and she had been hit by a bus only days before, totaling her car, but she wanted to come and convinced her neighbor to drive her to the bar. I came late, and sat far from my friend, as he invited several people, and the seats near him were taken. My friends colleagues neighbor was also at the end because she is shy and wasn't going to get into the main convo. She was cute, but I wasnt trying to pick her up, mostly just pity-chatted with her since she was clearly uncomfortable being there. And it turns out we really enjoyed chatting with each other. We meshed so well in fact, that we ended up marrying later. Obviously I skipped detail, but a lot happened for us to meet, and the window was tiny.
What if I or the peer had been busy, or my friend didn't get the promotion, or the peer's car hadn't been totaled? Or my wife, who didn't drink, had refused to go to the bar?
I loved the game and the concept so much that I stuck around for years. Eventually, I met a woman who was from Catalonia. And we began a long-distance romance. And for months, our romance built on the foundation of our crew and our pirate flag, and our community-building within the game’s context. We won many victories and pillaged much booty, and eventually she offered to come and visit me where I lived in Arizona.
She visited for a few weeks, during which we visited my parents, and we found ourselves engaged to be married. Thereafter, we continued our game-based LDR, but she also insisted that I not only upgrade to ADSL, but also that I travel to visit her in Spain.
It turns out that real life was far more difficult for me to manage a romantic relationship. It fell apart, and so did the airline that was supposed to take me home. My parents intervened, rescuing me and bringing me home, but I was profoundly damaged by that experience, and honestly, if some kind of romance develops online, you’d better test it ASAP in real life, lest either of you be deceived by the masks worn in online communities, especially any type of game.
America Online!
It turns out AOL was the only service that allowed dial up access in two different places without paying for two accounts. That was around 1993. And of course we didn't want to rack up long-distance phone bills. It was before AOL even allowed access to the Web.
Anecdotal example - I'm 39 and used to be an avid counterstrike player, and back in my days (2005-2014) it was 99.9% men. But every so often I play it now and I've been surprised by the number of women I've played with, and doubly surprised by the number of them who have made flirtatious advances. So much so that if I was single I'd almost consider it a reasonable avenue for meeting someone.
It is quality time in a reduced quality world.
Me and my wife started with distance, but we started craving being close within just a few months. We were lucky enough we were able to start living together within 1 year.
As of right now (15 years later), I cannot handle it. After having kids I realized I am a person who heavily need physical contact, I cannot manage a ldr I suspect (nor I want to)
1. Easy to learn and understand 2. Easy to buy and relatively inexpensive?
> A minority of couples (16%) displayed a preference for 1v1 gameplay, exemplified by casually competitive trivia games such as Skribbl.io (a Scrabble clone) or drawing games similar to Pictionary.
Uh, skribbl.io is definitely not a Scrabble clone lol (And also not really a 1v1 game)