2020 was the year of connected social games

The pandemic happened to all of us. And while the early sentiment that we were all in this together fell apart in the United States due to the deeper diseases of individualism and capitalism, people still craved ways to connect with other humans. In the first weeks of the stay-at-home orders, these attempts to socialize took the form of “happy hour” Zoom calls. And they were awful. People need distractions and structure to mitigate the pressures of spending time together. You get that with TVs or games at the bar or with (I’m assuming) the racist jokes while golfing. And video games are the best way to re-create that experience online.

The reason we turned to video conferencing first, however, is that games can have a high barrier to entry. Zoom was appealing because you could simply send someone a link and they could join you from almost any computing device. You cannot send an invite for Destiny, Dota, and World of Warcraft to your grandpa and expect him to know what to do next.