Screen pals

Jam was pacing nervously in the lobby of his Los Angeles hotel on the eve of Twitch Con waiting to meet Darryl, who he had known for over a year but never met.

Jam and Darryl have spent countless hours in a group of approximately 20 virtual friends who play video games with and against each other, know something about each other’s actual lives, but don’t know what to expect face to face.

“I didn’t know what to expect at the Twitch meet up,” said Jam Michael McDonald, a gamer and the marketing and communications manager with Ryerson Futures and Zone Startups, “but I felt comfortable finally meeting my friend in person.”

His online competitor and companion, Darryl Hui describes gaming as a “nerve-racking” experience.

Darryl and Jam met through Jason Kittell, a gamer with over 20k followers who goes by the name of SKITZ.

Kittell organizes a big streamer channel as the moderator, meaning he moderates the chat to make sure the game is reaching it’s intended audience that it wants, keeps the chat lively, makes sure there are no outliers or people who intend to cause harm.

“At Twitch Con I finally got together with the online community group of people I’ve known for years but only chatted with through text or voice through headphones,” said McDonald.

University of Toronto Scarborough Psychology professor Steve Joordens says he’s ‘curious as to how successful Esports players are in real life, worried that they might not be —a stereotype.’ He feels as though it looses the human interaction.

“Interpersonal skills in a context like when you’re not that comfortable —those were the sorts of things developed in sports like mastering a game,” said Joordens.

It’s different when you’re looking the person in the eye, ‘why did u not pass me the ball?’ But online you can think your response through and change it a couple of times before clicking send.

“You don’t see their body language and they don’t see your body language in order to respond properly and appropriately. In the online world, how do you know?” asks Professor Joordens.

Virtual reality (VR) transforms every gaming interaction into a more personal one, more authentic than what you experience in standard games.

David Dowie, a 23 year-old computer science student at MacEwan University and Echo Arena competitive VR gamer says, “Virtual reality gives an extra dimension of communication, body language.”

Validating the relationship made online and enhanced in person is very team oriented as Dowie explains, “it is almost mandatory that you communicate with each other. You get to know people you play with whether it is in the lobby while waiting for your next match or even during the game in between rounds.”

Professor Joordens says Esports is “certainly not like traditional sports. They’re not out there in the real world.”

The term “social life lite” loosely means social online interactions with people make you feel like you’re really interacting with people to an emotional and bodily extent.

Although as a gamer, Dowie explains how “most of the people that I made strong connections with are competitive people that strive to better themselves.”

Professor Joordens believes in the value of hard working young adults keeping up a part time job was advantageous and believed to keep kids out of trouble.

The notion that it got you out there working with other human beings: talking, interacting, and building friendships that last a lifetime. The only difference is it’s now on screen.

Esports is in itself a career, a community of likeminded individuals who strive for greatness.

As a community, officially meeting went a lot more smoothly than the members had expected, “everybody was really nice, exactly like I thought they would be in person,” said McDonald.

The strongest of friendships are not just made with those individuals that shared that competitive mind-set but that shared other interests. “We all got along really well, had drinks at the hotel and thankfully it wasn’t too awkward,” said McDonald.

Beyond their gaming lives, the community believes making connections with people who share other interests definitely leads to stronger relationships.

A relationship that started off as competitors online, developed into a friendship offline. “Felt pretty natural, we’ve all been chatting online for years,” said McDonald, feeling relieved to finally put a face to the voices.