Positives and Negatives to Online Multiplayer Gaming

Although most gamers play a whole lot of online games, we don’t really think much about the effects of them on us socially. Gaming can be a very social activity depending on the game, but its effects in real life can be either positive or negative. It can help you advance in certain ways, but it can also give off negative effects too. Which one is better though? 

Since online games are very social games, there are sure to be some benefits to playing them. One of the benefits to online gaming is that you learn teamwork through playing with other people. When I play two player video games with my brother, I feel like we work together better than we do in. You can also understand people’s behavior better by playing online games. I found that when I played games like Roblox with some friends, after a while I’d start to understand how they’d react in certain situations which you wouldn’t find in real life. The final in the list, but certainly not the last, is cooperation. It does go hand in hand with teamwork, yes, but you learn to not argue with your team members because you have to work together. These are just some of the positives to playing online video games, but there are sure to be more as well. 

Whilst there are some positives, there are also quite a few negatives that come with them, the main negative being aggressive behavior. You may be working together with your team well in your game, but what about the opposing team? A lot of gamers show aggressive behavior to the other team while playing a video game: from rage quitting the game because the other team has been successful to screaming and swearing at the other team through voice chat. While they are getting angry to members of the other team, they could also get angry at their own teammates. I’ve had times when I’ve played with my brother that he would get angry at me for accidentally helping the other team out, and I can assure you it’s not as nice of an experience. This can pull through to the real world. Humans are creatures of habit, and if they learn the habit of aggressive behavior it can be hard to get out of that. Those negatives can be horrible, and may turn a lot of people off from playing online video games. 

After figuring out the pros and cons, we need to decide which one is better. If you count up the number of positive and negatives, there are more positives than negatives altogether. What truly matters though is the weight of the positives and negatives like items on a scale. While there are more positives, the negative I listed above is a very heavy negative, and would make a lot of people rethink their online gaming experience. In my opinion the positives outweigh the negatives still because of the types of online games I tend to play. It would probably be different if I played shooting games or similar games to that, but since I play Minecraft mostly it’s alright. The weight of the pros and cons are all up to personal opinion though, so I’d recommend you make that choice yourself. 

Although some games are fun to play, some are better than others at helping you socially. Minecraft is a good one for me since I play more with friends than on multiplayer servers, but I’ve done some research to find some of the best games to play online. One of the games I found is Kind Words. This game is a game where you can write letters to people and let out your feelings, but you can also respond to other people’s letters. It seems like a nice, positive game, and one where you won’t just get angry at other people. Another game I read about was Sky: Children of the light. The website says it’s a game “where compassion, community and wonder greet you at each turn.” That sounds like the sort of game I want to play. If you know where to look, I’m sure that you’ll find some more games that would be similar to these games. 

Since you now know more about the social benefits and negatives of online, you should be wiser when picking which video game to play. Make sure to think carefully about the pros and cons in the game you play and read reviews about how people react when playing that game. If you ever find yourself getting aggressive when playing video games, I’d recommend that you stay away from that game for a little while and play one of the games listed above or a calming single player game. Just make sure to stay calm and remember that games are made for fun.