Pushing Buttons: Online multiplayer will never match the magic of playing with someone sat next to you
In this week's newsletter: From Street Fighter parties with friends to Minecraft with my kids, there's something special about playing together that's hard to recreate online
Regular readers will know that I find video games' ability to pull people together to be one of the most interesting things about them. I have a weakness for stories about outsiders finding each other, and games make that happen with charming regularity. I once wrote about a long-distance couple who stayed connected by playing Dark Souls, wrestling with that game's opaque online matchmaking to ensure that they could always find each others' summon signs, hidden in a nook behind a wall or under a distinctive vase. And I'm fascinated by how Eve Online has attracted a particular flavour of person - usually science-fiction-obsessed, very often in some position of power in real life - to create an intergalactic community that mimics the economics and power structures of our own, but with extra skullduggery.
Online gaming has brought us so much in this regard: people have formed lifelong friendships through all kinds of video games, from World of Warcraft to No Man's Sky. Twitch is part of this continuum, too - streamers don't just play games for an audience, they create communities, where relationships can then form.
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