While research shows that shared activities can help people to connect, it’s not always easy to do so in person.
That’s the motivation behind The WellPlayed Project, a series of online gaming events taking place across Canada, the U.K. and Australia, with funding from the Movember Foundation.
The University of Saskatchewan played host to an event Sunday afternoon, where gamers were able to forge friendships over matches of Apex Legends and Brawlhalla.
Developed by the Queensland University of Technology Games Research Lab in Australia, the project looks at how video games can be a tool for social facilitation. Its ultimate goal is to create a self-sustaining, large-scale, positive gaming community.
“The great thing about video games is that it’s not always possible to go out in the yard and play football — that could be due to all sorts of access reasons,” said Daniel Johnson, director of the Games Research Lab. “But I might be able to jump online with some friends.”
The nationwide “matchmaking” and gaming session connected gamers from across the country. While anyone was able to participate remotely, the U of S and University of Waterloo held physical events with computers for use. Johnson was on hand for the U of S event.
The events serve mostly as an icebreaker for people to give gaming a try and use it to have positive experiences, Johnson said.
“Some people are a bit unsure about jumping online,” he said. “They may not be sure how to do it or they may be worried that they’re going to end up in a toxic environment with a 15-year-old screaming at them.”
Players could either form a squad with friends or be “matched” into one by answering a survey rating themselves across five attributes — communication, skill, fun, teamwork and friendliness — and then being placed into a squad by an algorithm.
Typical matchmakers are largely-skill based, Johnson said, but WellPlayed’s is motivated by making connections.
“Our focus is very much on the social stuff, not the skill and competitiveness,” he said. “So the matchmaker is largely for friendliness, support, connection and not necessarily about winning this particular ranked match.”
Apex Legends and Brawlhalla are two battle royale-style fighting games, selected because they are free to play, can run well on most computers and aren’t too difficult to get into. Accessibility is key, Johnson said.
“We had a fellow with pretty significant social anxiety and he said it gave him confidence to reach out and connect with people,” he said. “Just being able to give people that confidence really makes a difference.”
A larger-scale event linking players from all three participant countries is set to take place in November.
