Wow, sometimes the power of gaming to bring people together simply cannot be denied, and while we don’t have a specific story right now that proves this point, we wanted to express the general sentiment.
That’s right! Who could argue that joining together to achieve tasks or engage in a little friendly competition can form connections with people even from different backgrounds and belief systems in a truly beautiful way, even if we don’t have anything to point to that would confirm this at the moment?
Games are powerful, period. There’s no reason for us to say that at this juncture, but they simply are.
Whether it’s a Republican and Democrat having a frank conversation about their beliefs in a World Of Warcraft chat, or an Israeli and Palestinian child overcoming their differences to form a winning Fortnite team, these are the sort of things you can imagine have probably happened at some point that incontrovertibly demonstrate the ability of games to bridge divides.
Of course, we don’t have any particular examples to point to here. A study showing that people from different races, ethnicities, or creeds became friendlier when they played a Back 4 Blood co-op campaign together would be helpful. We don’t have that study, and it may never exist. But it would be interesting, right? And we all know it’s true, regardless.
Look, gamers, in retrospect, we maybe should have found some sort of tangible real-world story to hang this article on, but we were so anxious to get the point across about unlikely allies coming together through gaming that we just had to run with it. Oh, one instance off the top of our heads is that we play video games with our cousin sometimes and he’s pretty different than us. Probably not the most powerful example, but again, you get the drift.
So the next time someone tells you gaming is a frivolous pastime, you let them know in no uncertain terms that gaming can bring people together and just hope they don’t have any follow-up questions.