The social context of video game play: Challenges and strategies

People who play video games do so in a range of social contexts: alone, with people they know and don’t know, in cooperative and competitive settings. However, little is known about what people enjoy or dislike about these contexts of play, or how to best design games to support player preferences. Using open-ended responses from an online survey (N = 326) and a series of interviews (N = 16) this study shows that the solitary context offers immersive, relaxing, autonomous play, as well as the avoidance of unwanted social interactions. Social play, however, provides competence-enhancing experiences (via competition or teamwork or both) via interactions with others. What was disliked about these contexts indicates where design improvements to both the solitary and social play experiences can be made