Playing With Friends Makes You a Better Gamer

An anonymous reader writes "Computer scientists at the University of Colorado and the Stevens Institute of Technology have shown that gamers that play with friends play better. The study used the blockbuster FPS Halo: Reach as a testbed, and combined ground truth data on friendships from an anonymous survey with data about the multiplayer competitions extracted using the Reach Stats API. They found that the more friends you have on your team, the more assists, the fewer betrayals, the more you score, and the greater the probability your team wins, and that this 'friends for the win' effect goes above and beyond the benefits of playing with skilled strangers. (They also show that older gamers are statistically better than younger players, contrary to popular opinion.) Study lead Prof. Aaron Clauset, writing on his blog, says that friends 'may be able to effectively anticipate or adapt to each others' actions or strategies without an explicit need for verbal (and thus time consuming) communication or coordination,' and 'these effects may be fairly universal, and not merely limited to the traditional domains like sports and war, where practicing together has a long tradition.'"

Comments

Seems obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who games any amount should not be surprised by the "friends ftw" factor.

However, as for the younger games being better than older debate: my experience is that their reflexes are generally superior (see citations below) and they have a lot of time to practice, but their ability to think strategically can be pretty limited and consequently it is possible to outmaneuver them.

I'm not that old yet at 29, but I'm definitely noticing I'm not as good as I was at 15.

Citations: It looks like late 20s might be the fastest age group due to a superior combination of youth + experience:
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/biology/lesson-plan/63835.html
http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2009/Projects/J1319.pdf

Can anyone find any other sources on this? I used to believe teens had the fastest raw reaction time of any age group, but I'm unable to find any support for this.

Re:Seems obvious

[Fluffeh]

Can anyone find any other sources on this? I used to believe teens had the fastest raw reaction time of any age group, but I'm unable to find any support for this.

I don't have any links to references, but I can tell you that my mindest has changed competely in gaming from when I was a youngster in the early days, to now when I am in my early thirties. In terms of game theory, you might say that as a gamer I have become more "FTW". If I see someone in a group, be it a party in an online game, or a teammate in a fps, who is doing something stupid and will die - but not cost the team too much, I will let them die, happily knowing that their death didn't cause the group to fold, where in my youth I would have probably gone running off to save them - and likely cost our group/team two members.

I used to think that a successful raid/game was one where no teammates died when I was young. Now I look on a successful raid/game as one where my side meets the objectives (whether it be killing all the other players or performing the right strategy to kill the boss encounter). Yes, somewhat older folks have a different outlook - I think we play the game to win the game rather than being so engaged in the game to be emotionally connected enough to do dumb shit.

Full Disclosure: I was part of a server leading World of Warcraft guild for a number of years (I have since quit to focus on the real world), I played Conan Online, LoTR Online, Warhammer Online. Star Wars Galaxies, D&D Online, Ultima Online, Quake 2+ Unreal + UT and have been a developer working for Epic designing environments.

Older is colder, but often better and almost always craftier. Younger is faster, but often doing dumb shit - and unpredictable. If you learn that for yourself, you will do well in life.

This seems plausible

[masteva]

I've noticed while playing TF2 with some people who don't chat or speak during the game that they just... adapt. They know when you want that uber charge, they know when to sap the sentry, they know where they are needed. Granted this is with people I play with often and not new players, but it's rather neat seeing how they just seem to fit in where they need to without instruction, therefor, a better gamer.

Something like that

[Moraelin]

Something like that. Though actually, i'd say it's not even just KNOWING the skillsets, but being used to doing certain things as a group.

It's something that's been known in the army for example for, oh, maybe a couple thousand years now: a legion of 5000 people acting as a group and already being used to act as a group, beats a horde of 10,000 uncoordinated barbarians any day, even if maybe individually they're better warriors.

Furthermore, that as long as a unit stays cohesive, it has a fighting chance, and when it lost cohesion it's pretty much already defeated. They just may or may not know it yet.

I wouldn't even necessarily write it under "being a better gamer". It's more just about the group. If everyone is used to the rest of the group acting in a certain way, and viceversa, essentially they've formed some group tactics. It doesn't even have to be stated, and in fact it's even better if you don't have to. You just already know that that guy will try to flank, that other guy prefers to keep the distance and snipe, etc, and most importantly you found SOME way to do all that, that SOMEHOW works. And that by itself will beat the same number of uncoordinated players, even if maybe individually they can aim better or react faster or whatever other "good player" criterion one may take.

And it's not just about "knowing" that that guy's skillset includes sniping, or that other guy can sneak around, which might still leave one wondering if they will. It's already being used to what each of those will do, and already being used to dash in a certain situation because you're already used that there's someone counter-sniping for you while you do that.

That said, if army taught me anything, I'd say that limiting their conclusions to "friends" is misleading. Sure, you want bonding between them and all, but ultimately what matters even more than friendship is exactly that being already trained to apply the same group tactics as a group. If I had to go to war and had to choose whether to entrust my life to my best buddy who can't tell a gun's butt from its muzzle, or to that guy I thought to be the biggest douchebag in the company, I'd pick the douchebag any day. Because friendship is grrreat, but already having the reflex to provide cover fire and when to provide it is better.