In World of Warcraft, when they first debuted mounts that could carry passengers, I immediately began the grind to get one explicitly so I could go to a low level area and give taxi rides to people who were too low level to have a mount. It's one of my best memories of playing that game. Helping people is inherently satisfying.

Now you are making me want a game where 100 players are stranded on an island and have to work together to build a big raft to escape a volcano and to feed each other and keep everybody alive along the way. It's like an anti-battle royale. The goal is to get as many people leave the island alive as possible instead of fighting each other. This is one aspect of humanity not yet tapped by the games industry.

I think there’s an important detail to note with your endgame experimentation: As with life, the odds of getting to the top 2 is not the same for every player. For players who frequently win or come close to doing so, taking a chance to approach a non-threatening player-even giving up the round to them-costs very little. Presented with a novel scenario, _why not_ risk losing one round (out of five to ten that day, dozens of rounds in a week) to satisfy one’s curiosity? On the other hand, I would wager that a player who typically gets knocked out in the first half would rather take the easy victory. …I suppose this could ultimately be construed as a crude metaphor for how financial security influences people’s appetite for risk.

the universal game language of the "crouch crouch" at another player to communicate friendliness and camaraderie is one of my favorite things about the human existence. Even when we don't have words, we find ways to forge and establish positive relationships with one another. I think its such a beautiful and sweet thing, and it warms my heart every time it happens.

In the game Team Fortress 2, pacifists are so common they’ve been called friendlies by the community. Most people let them go around the map unharmed giving out sandwiches and high fiving.

pacifism is actually very common in pvp shooters, and I couldn't agree more that it says something about human nature. Sometimes it only takes one person acting in a silly manner, emoting, reaching out a hand, for the rest to go "oh, to hell with it". I have personally played a lot of overwatch and team fortress 2, where matches quickly can turn into conga lines and dance parties. A real world example of this it's the Christmas truce of 1914, where british and french soldiers emerged from their trenches to celebrate Christmas. I believe there's something very human about that :)

Pro-social dance moves and cute costumes are effectively pay-walled in Fortnite. Free players only get an avatar in an army costume and a much-derided free dance. This means that the many free players would probably have an even harder time being pro-social. Manufactured Discontent by Folding Ideas goes into this more and is a great companion to this essay. Great work!

A great book related to this topic is "A Paradise Built in Hell" by Rebecca Solnit. It's about real-life disasters where people in power expected the populace to behave like the kids in "Lord of the Flies," and instead they proved, time and time again, that the instinctive human response to disaster is to help each other. In fact, they often do more to help themselves than the authorities do, who instead try to hide information, preserve their own power, and put their personal interests before the greater good. There's also the Behind the Bastards episode "Elite Panic," which cites the book heavily.

The range of non-verbal communication in games is something that has always fascinated me. There's something so immensely human about having a silly little charades moment with an enemy player that is real neat.

Speaking of non verbal code for peace: In shooters with peeking, peeking left and right is called "the wiggle". The Wiggle is sacred and shooting someone who wiggles at you is heresy, as is abusing its power. I always found it fascinating how in a game where you sometimes can't talk and your only forms of expression are moving around and firing a weapon, peaceful communication always forms.

OMG WE'RE THE DEVELOPERS OF COMMUNITE!!! Thank you so much for including us in the video! We're huge fans and it was surreal to suddenly see a snippet of our game in your content!

There's an entire group in the game Elite Dangerous known as the Fuel Rats whose entire MO is to bring fuel to stranded players. They've been a group for years and years, with tens of thousands of players saved, all because they believe that encountering another player in a video game doesn't have to lead to conflict. On top of that, they are anarchist (in the actual sense, not the pop media, sophomoric depiction of it being chaos) with no inherent hierarchy or organizing structure beyond the mission statement and a general code of conduct being basically the golden rule and being competent at the job you've given yourself.

I didn’t expect this video to become one of the most fascinating discussions on the human condition. Well done!

This reminds me of one of my favorite things I did when playing World of Warcraft: befriend someone I didn't know in the enemy faction. In the game, there were factions Alliance and Horde, and on the server I was on there were lots of areas where you could attack anyone of the opposite faction. Also, if you said something "out loud" in the game, it would translate that, consistently, into a kind of gibberish for the opposite faction to see. So you could figure out a mapping of short phrases to say a very, very limited amount of comprehensible things to the enemy faction. I played a character that could both heal and had an ability called mind control that let me take control of a character of the opposite faction briefly. I used it to take control of and heal people of the opposite faction. One of my favorite memories from the game was spending a few hours running around doing quests with an orc (Horde) with my human priest (Alliance) after befriending them in that way. We also used the game's system of emoting and some of my short phrases to communicate. It was a blast. I loved this video!

It's strange how this feels like some sort of nature or cultural documentary

I was kind of expecting to see our interaction here. I met a monkey suit player who threw meds at me, we danced and then they Naruto ran away. It was funny and I saved it a couple of years ago. It was still Chapter 2 by the pizza place on that map

Something similar is happening in the online scene of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Players can't directly interact with, but are finding ways of helping and guiding each other through the levels and even teaming up to take on them together, at times waiting for those that stayed behind to catch up, etc.

I always fondly remember the game "journey" in terms social play. It's pacifist by nature and only centred around puzzles and exploration. After playing it once you have no incentive to do it again, but to guide another new player through their journey. And all that without emotes, no chat, no talking. Truley beautiful.

Dude listen. This video almost had me crying. Like this was so unexpectedly beautiful and moving. I had no idea what you meant by "humanity" in Fortnite. I was like "Oh is he gonna be talking about the increase in bots? And like talk about the implication of that maybe idk???" Nah, this was so much more than that. That supercut of all the players that hugged you back ESPECIALLY got to me. And you worded everything so well. This was just so so good man. I don't know what else to say.

I'm fairly sure I've run into you before! It was years ago, a monkey costume was behaving passively so I left them alone, but when they tried emoting to me they got assassinated by another player who was lurking nearby. Not sure if it goes against your code of pacifism, but I got bloody vengeance for you.

One of the reasons I loved Death Stranding was the ability to positively passively interact with other players to give hints, useful equipment, or even just words of encouragement. It was the perfect game for 2020, every player was in their own bubble, but solidarity could still be achieved through a collective shared experience of individual hardship, loneliness, and random acts of kindness. Beautiful game.

I was seriously waiting for you to mention the gas station phenomenon, and I'm so glad you did! It was so much fun to run your own gas station, and it was right around the time when covid hit too, so that extra social interaction was pure gold. This was an awesome video, great job!

I think what makes these peaceful encounters so endearing, and why the non-combat game mode falls flat, is that the players are expected to fight and then go against that expectation. If the players are peaceful in a game that expects them to be peaceful, it just isn't the same.

Something about friendship as rebellion is so beautiful

Great video, but I do want to point out one missing game element that is really important in the humanity discussion. I used to befriend players until I started getting repeated violations for "teaming". Often my new friend and I would be just running around the map together doing emotes and only ever attacked if provoked, so it didn't really offer a gameplay advantage. In the video the focus is on the penalty for making friends being loosing the match, but in this case I was being threatened by EPIC with loosing all access to the game. People have been permabanned for teaming (according to a quick Google search). BUT to be reported for teaming, another player must report you and your new friend. So my ability to make friends was, to me, ultimately hampered by other players. I was REALLY hoping I could go back to less serious game play since they introduced ranked and non-ranked matches, but I gave up pretty quick after another teaming violation! It wasn't even ranked, so why would someone even care?!? I am really disappointed everyone in battle royal unranked still takes it so seriously, but I suppose I've become part of the problem. Also might be the West Coast server.

In classic World of Warcraft I would dress up my orc lad in only boots, a pink shirt, and a pirate hat. I would dance in hostile areas and would usually get opponents to just sit and dance with me.

Its amazing what humans will do when given the chance to be good. In Rust (which is notorious for being the most toxic game ever) my SO and I made a base that looked exactly like a 711. Just to be fun. You could go inside and everything. We only had a small back area that was cut off for supplies. It was an easy raid but the server loved it. Made cars just so they could pretend to get gas. When it was raided finally people we didnt even know fought to protect our base. People rallied in the chat to drop everything to protect the convenience store. It was amazing and heartwarming honestly. People said the thrill of being the good guy is what really made that wipe.

It's always a euphoric moment when you meet a friendly person in one of those games, and it's even more a euphoric moment to see a youtuber attempting with all he's strength to be one. THANK YOU for that video, it was awesome, in every unexpected way

This was quite different from the usual videos, but very enjoyable. One thing I think is worth mentioning is that how players act within a game is highly dependable on the actions (or verbs) a game offers the player. Even if Fortnite is focused on combat, you can still emote in friendly ways, which makes making friends more achievable. I imagine making friends on COD would be nigh impossible. Even on PVE games, if when you meet a monster you can only interact with it by killing it, that is what the player will do

I have NEVER heard Axolotl pronounced that way, but I looked it up and OMG that is the correct (Mexican Spanish) pronunciation! I can’t believe I both knew axolotls came from Mexico and I also knew how Mexicans pronounce the letter X but I never connected the two.

I have stopped playing most online multiplayers because of this very reason, ironically i started to find them very isolating. So I'm really hoping some developers see the value in changing how online games should be. Great video as always.

i've been playing this game for over 5 years at this point, and this is a beautiful and surprisingly indepth look at the psyche of a game that incentivizes the opposite of a cooperative environment. aside from playing with randoms in duos, trios or squads, there's not a lot of player to player interaction aside from the usual eliminating and being eliminated, but when you manage to find those very rare moments where, for example, you find a player who isn't very good at the game and manages to somehow get into the final storm circle and you make friends with and just show solidarity, it makes you remember that (mostly) all players are human, living and breathing at the same time as you, and i find that really beautiful. in a world and industry where antisocial behaviors are encouraged by systems put in place by others to maximize profits , finding time to connect and have a silly moment with someone who is alive and in that moment, is an amazing feeling that only just serves as a reminder that people can be great and lovely... it's encouraging. i've never seen a video on this game that i love that is so professional and well researched, the fact you've spent over 4 years just doing all this to find that human spark in a game pretty devoid of it is just incredible. fantastic video! ❤

Kind of made me emotional thinking about playing a game where we're good people to each other as a goal. Also, while you weren't commenting on capitalism directly, it does feel like an examination of it in an interesting way

This video reminded me why I apreciate the multiplayer in Death Stranding so much. A game where helping others but building a bridge or a charging station is encouraged and furthers your connection to them. It even showcases the power of collective action through its road building. No one player can get the materials to make an entire road, but many can. More games should learn from Death Stranding in this regard.

I think the game Journey does this very well. You're a pair of two, relatively unknown players whose goal is to reach the peak of a mountain with nothing but beautiful chimes as a form of communication. Together, you tread across abandoned civilizations, face deadly creatures, and uncover secrets while relying on each other. If you ever seen let's plays for this game, there's this shock yet relief to be with this new companion in Journey's desolate setting. No spoilers, but the gameplay loop, structure and replayability lends itself to that deep humanistic spirit and connection despite not knowing who the other player is.

I swear I remember reading something once about how Golding wasn't actually trying to make a point about the fundamental cruelty of humanity, but rather to specifically point out that British schoolboys of the kind he had taught would descend into utter madness in that scenario. Pretty sure that same source also pointed out Lord of the Flies was a direct response to a more idealistic book called Coral Island, a book multiple characters reference in Lord of the Flies as an expectation for how this sort of thing should go. Admittedly, can't remember where I read this and it could very easily have been bunk, but it's always been an interesting thought.

I can't believe after all that work, it was only worth 700XP. That should be a huge deal. You should be on some leaderboard somewhere or something.

The videos of John Green attempting to play Fortnite without shooting first are amazing, highly recommend (and if you only have time to watch one, you should watch Episode 2)

My favorite part of this video is how he's constantly time traveling between chapters

As an avid player of Fortnite, this video kept striking me with how long it must have taken. By the looks of it, this experiment started sometime in _2020_. If all of the gameplay recorded was specifically for this video, I've gotta say, I'm incredibly impressed. Just outrageous amounts of dedication to the craft.

I should probably go to bed but this looks so interesting

Kind of wild that this is my actual first exposure to Fortnite gameplay.

This actually really reminds of my time playing City of Heroes back in the day. There was an area called "The Hollows" that you worked your way through very early on with every character. It covered about levels 4-18. It was a single giant area you would need to traverse slowly on-foot since most of your time there you don't have a travel power yet. It could literally take you 45 minutes to run across the thing while trying to avoid aggressive NPCs. Because the game used an "Instance" system for all the missions (going to a door somewhere on the map and a small private map just for team being created when you click on it) it was pretty common for low level players to get Doors on the far side of the map surrounded by much higher level NPCs that can one-shot you. The Hollows became one of the most hated areas of the game because of this. Until people started helping each other. Much higher level, often max level, players started hanging out in The Hollows for the sole purpose of helping everyone else. People would provide heals, rez, clear out problematic mobs blocking doors, and use group travel powers like group fly and teleport to help people get to where they needed to be quickly. All for nothing more than a thank you and the expectation to pay-it-forward and help someone else later down the line. My server, Infinity, eventual had an entire Super Group, i.e. guild, form around helping in The Hollows, called Paragon City Search and Rescue, that had someone active in The Hollows literally 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The selflessness and kindness I saw and paid-forward in that game are still some of my absolute favorite gaming memories to this day. I can't recall even a single instance of someone using a racist, homophobic, or sexist slur or joke is the about 7 years I played.

Journey has always been one of my favourite and fondest video game experiences. Beautiful game, visually and emotionally. I'm not a Fortnite player (not a fan of shooters in general, the only one I play regularly is Splatoon) but the idea of playing as a friendly pacifist appeals to me a lot!

I think Mario Wonder did a wonderful job integrating social interaction with strangers into the gameplay, I'm always so happy when I finish a level with someone, I've even seen people wait for each other for a long time.

As a side note: One of my personal favorite videos I've made _is when I played passively_ in Fortnite, I had a whole accidental rescue operation when helicopters came in and found some random kid out in the edges of the map and got the to safety and equipping them with a weapon and healing items. Definitely fun playing medics or rescuers in battlefield based games!

I am a Fortnite player and this hit hard. Even during squad games players have the choice to abandon you, and often do. I started playing in 2021 to seek friends online. Many other players also wanted this, and I felt as though I was getting somewhere. But someone was always pulling the strings. Now when I log in I am reminded of failed friendships and all I have is the game they make for me. Thanks for your work. This is the first time I've watched one of your videos.

I think another good pro-social game is Don't Starve Together. In that game, having cohorts around you is a sanity boost, which is critical in the game, besides greatly helping collect the resources and build the tools you need to survive.

I always loved your essays but this is on another level. Maybe because the scale felt different (spanning over games, novels, movies, real time events, and include very time costly experiments). I just want to say thank you for this. This was eye-opening, something I rarely (if ever) feel after youtube videos. On a side note, the indie game journey would have also fit nicely in here as you randomly meet other players in the game but without the option to communicate. Yet, friendships are made which can make the ending even more powerful because it feels like you lost a real friend even though you don't know anything about them. In fact, you can end the game questioning if that encounter was a human or a bot at all. Which opens another fascinating argument of what it takes to befriend somebody, or rather, something...

"By acting as a carebear on the battlefield." SIR. You never cease to AMAZE ME with your content. It tickles the unexpected.

How fitting, it’s Halloween and this channel rises from the dead once more to deliver an excellent upload.

This whole experiment sounds really fun, specially the part where you got to make friends at the end of the matches. I was a bit on the defense at the beginning since I'm always a bit wary of how people who discredit the things games can accomplish like creating little communities of regular players on team games just because they see the shooting and think is just about violence. Replace the bullets with ink and you get splatoon which is just as fun as fortnite and creates a playground that is not that different from playing dodgeball. But at the end I really liked the call for more titles where the core gameplay loop is cooperation. I'll be checking out some of the indie titles you mentioned these developers are going against a very strong current.

I always love your videos, especially these that explore pacifism in games. You're the first person that made me realize how lacking games are when it comes to communal types of playing styles. I wonder, have you ever checked out a game called "One Hour, One Life?" You spend an hour in the game, starting out as a helpless baby who is totally reliant on other live players to raise you and teach you. I've seen countless players go into the game, intent on violence or mischief, but they always end up becoming so intertwined with and attached to the built community that they just stop, point blank. There's also a rumor that the better player you are, the more likely you are to get more kids (i.e. live players) to take care of. It's a game that genuinely makes me cry, especially the one from Call Me Kevin.

If you haven't seen it, I recommend the series Grand Theft Auto Pacifist by GoldVision. Dude has played GTAV Online as a pacifist for years, and catalogued his experience in a dry-humor style that gets surprisingly profound at times. I think he plays most games as a pacifist nowadays.

This was a wonderful video!! However I will say Lord of the Flies isn't supposed to be representative of all of humanity, it was specifically supposed to deride the social structures and conditioning of boys schools and how that affects them, so honestly it's more similar to Battle Royale than you'd expect. That's why people were so hesitant (before yellowjackets came out) for a "lord of the flies but it's girls" because without the context of who is there and what made them that way, you're just swapping the genders for the sake of it. Luckily Yellowjackets ended up having more depth than that, but I wouldn't say William Golding was wrong, necessarily. Just viewing things through a certain lens.

I've found LOTS of friendly players. From players throwing me Shield Potions (and allowing me to drink them), to players giving me a ride in a vehicle to a safe zone. I tried to do these, but always got k*lled :(

Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting this to be a premise of a video from this channel. I’m still here for carebear play in Fortnite though

Lovely concept and experiment, though I do have one point I want to add in regards to Lord of the Flies. Golding’s cynicism seems to largely center around children of that era, rather than being about humanity in general. The book is specifically written in response to another novel, “The Coral Tale: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean” which has the same school children stranded on an island premise, but they all have a perfectly fine time (which is also implied by said book to be due to Christianity helping civilize them, which is a whole other can of worms to sort through) which Golding thought was unrealistic. So he arguably overcorrected by writing about kids getting stranded and going absolutely feral, which I personally think can be read as being more of an indictment of the cultural values of that era in specific, rather than being about human nature in general.

really lovely and thorough video; however one thing i have to say is that there's not only combat and altruism focused games, there's a whole spectrum in-between those extremes, especially manifested through team centered combat games.

I appreciate somebody using Battle Royale for a analysis like this. Even though I mainly I consider it one of my favorite films of all time because of the campiness and great violence in the film, I think it's pretty cool and even kina relieving that the characters do try to cooperate and aknowledges how systems of violence force people to resort to violence. You stating this actually kinda reminds me of the live action film "Rikki Oh: Story Of Ricky", a movie mainly known for its over-the-top violence. While it's interesting that the show does show a man using violence to defend himself. It's less because of human nature and more because he is in a oppressive and violent prison industry that obligates him to perform those abilities and uses those to liberate the prisoners who do not want to get involved with that violence. The villains are the wardens and the guardians of the place rather than the prisoners themselves.

I feel like the problem with purely friendly MMO's is that trolls can play them backwards the same way you're doing here. You know, choose violence even when there's no reward. The only way to avoid that is to strictly limit what types of gameplay are possible.

Oooo I love this!!! I love playing Dead by Daylight and I almost always play surviver. Finding nice killers that let you fix the gens and escape, or carry the last surviver to a gate or hatch is always nice. It's something that reminds you that humans are funny little animals that like playing pretend and are inhetently copoerative, even when its disadventageious

As someone who’s constantly played the game since 2017, I’ve met countless amazing people, even some like me who are too anxious to speak. Whether it’s through things like helping people get their first win, just chilling with enemies in the middle of a match, or even helping someone through tough situations outside the game, it’s all possible. I made great lifelong friends through this game because of this exact idea, that complete strangers could help each other through the most mentally trying times in their lives from a single video game. I’m not saying the game’s fandom is all sunshine and peaches, there are **thousands** of bad apples, but you’ll find the game surprisingly harbours a great amount of bloody amazing people if you open up to them.

fortnite during chapter 2 s6 had a temporary game mode where you could properly team up with strangers and talk to them it was incredibly fun and yeah most people wanted to team its had me excited at the idea of a br where you can team up and win with strangers im surprised it hasn't been done already considering a lot of movies like battle royal have the players team up and create tribes of some sort for periods of time

I've read quotes about "Lord of the Flies" from the author and the novel was about upper class people in particular

Although not as isolating as a battle royal, I remember purposefully being friendly to enemies when I used to play "Overwatch 1" and especially League of Legends. There's something incredibly rewarding about turning faceless opponents into friends. In LoL in particular, you could always see the moment where a match got reframed from a grind for points and accolades, into playing a sport with this nice person you'd just found. I'm pretty sure I've added as many enemies to my friends list as I did allies, after a game.

Have you ever played TF2? Dance parties and “sandwich heavies” (a class with a gift-able item) were common social interactions there. Many dances could be done while moving, so you could literally dance up to other players. And, while they would have to buy the dance to do it on their own, if they are next to another dancing player, they need only press g.

The fundamental issue with social experiments like that: The games systems make it all but impossible. Like in League Of Legends I sometimes told the other team that mine was kind of mean and if I could hang out with theirs. Then I'd go into their base and emote spam. Which on the face of it is a friendly act. As I try to connect with the enemy. But in reality its toxic behavior. Because I abandon my team and ruin the experience for everyone else. Also I still get killed most of the time for exp and gold anyway. Rarely is anyone standing next to me and does type /dance as well. There is the youtuber goldvision that tries pacifist runs of all games but it just highlights how impossible the task is. In his amongus games with Keith Ballard they at first think him to be the imposter most of the time but once they understand the gimmick they just sort of play "around" him. Games facilitate their systems above player intention. Only option is that a group of friends decides to mess around in one on their terms. But that can not happen organically with people online.

William Golding wrote Lord of the Flies specifically as a response to the popularity of the novel Coral Island, a book about British boarding school boys who are stranded on a Pacific island until they manage to "civilize" it with the power of Christianity and the obvious superiority of British culture. Golding spent many years teaching at a British boarding school and grew to strongly dislike Coral Island. Those sheltered rich brats weren't going to band together to build a society from scratch; they would turn on each other the moment things got difficult. Instead of pampered upper-class British 6-12 year old strangers who'd never left England before, the shipwrecked Tongan boys had been sailing their entire lives, were 13-19 years old, and were close friends. They were the opposites of the LotF kids in just about every way.

Never played Fortnite, but I can think of some examples of emergent nonviolent interaction between anonymous avatars in a game built exclusively around combat mechanics. I played a lot of online Dark Souls II this past year and there were many instances of friendly, nonlethal interaction depending on circumstances, usually initiated by a combination of avatar gestures and spacing out of weapon reach. Sometimes invaders might instead give gifts, or play along in a nonlethal game of hide-and-seek if the invadee is camouflaged, or even attempt to heal the invadee if they were in a particularly nasty spot already. I found that once I got past the initial rush of the chaos of invasions, I eventually stopped caring about the stakes of the encounter and started reacting more to the behavior of the invadee. Once I invaded another player's game to find the invadee just practicing their jumps off a certain platform with the gliding armor, and without getting a hostile reaction I just decided to spectate and give positive gestures at their impressive leaps.

Believe me, trying to do this in COD can be really hard. There are less emotes in warzone/codm and there is a lot more of an ingrained mindset for trying to be the best. The kindest thing that has happened to me recently in COD was somebody leaving me grounded as the Desperado (the only BR class you can get downed as a solo with) and kiting a bot toward me before driving off. They were explicitly trying to give me a second chance which was cool, but considering that was like one event in hours of BR it kinda proves my point.

My favorite social system in a video game is Death Stranding. Players are encouraged to build structures and powerups that, when constructed, will appear in other peoples game world. You can also donate your old gear into common "share lockers" that other players can retrieve. You even get a notification when someone interacts with a structure you've built or uses an item you've contributed. Sadly it is otherwise entirely singleplayer. This video has made me realize there is a real lack of games with more pro-social and cooperative gameplay mechanics, especially ones where you're helping strangers.

This by far surpasses true pacifist in Undertale.

I played Fortnite for more than 5 years (only stopped because time got short irl). Together with two good friends we played A LOT. And somewhere around Christmas we got a carol singing emote from the game and did only that for a couple of games. It was an emote you could walk with so that was great and we traveled the map singing. We weren't the only ones and soon discovered other groups doing the same. It was absolutely magnificent and really fun. We ended up gifting another team the win by dying in the storm, so we wouldn't have to fight. Good ol days

i’m so excited for the essay about hollywood confusing redemption and death. that trope has been frustrating me for years. your videos are seriously the best

The amount of hours I’ve spent in tf2 just driving around the map in a little ambulance while things go on around me is probably more than I’ve played the game regular. I always try to drive from my spawn, to their intel, and then back to cap it. It’s only worked a handful of times, but always fun to do (:

You know, the first game I thought if when you mentioned the collaboration bit was sea of thieves. It’s a pirate multiplayer game, and there’s a lot of interactions you can do with real people. Really, it’s just not meant to be played solo, though you can. I don’t think it fits what you where describing, because there is pvp combat and some people are jerks and will just attack you out of nowhere, but similarly there’s a lot of friendly people who stop by to give you things and say hi. Idk, I just remembered it when you where describing a collaborative game. Love this video, very interesting!

I always liked playing the 4 person group royale mode in fortnite because I liked being in a team and the mutual aid. You go out of your way to revive these strangers at times

During 2020 I played a lot of Monster Hunter World, finished the story and eventually crafted a strong end-game armor/weapon set. Most of my time after that was spent observing the game's monsters and environments outside of any forced combat. I also responded to a lot of other players' SOS Flares, something that wasn't introduced before this game. It was awesome to help out a ton of lower rank players, despite the in-game rewards being useless at my rank...and I only got one odd response to my post-game behavior, which was from a random player that said "Why are you doing this? You've already beaten the game". I guess they were wrong.

I used to play Sea of Thieves as a solo slooper before I stopped because of the annoying pvp aspect. But the best part of the game for me was always finding other players that are just willing to vibe. Sometimes I find these people, I gesture the crouch thingy they'd give me a number of good loot, more often than not, not accepting my own gifts to them before going their merry way. That would without fail always make my night~

This video sounded so silly in concept when i first started watching but you’re right… and if people can’t put aside the dopamine and rewards of a video game made to be played for fun what expectations do we set when the rewards for stomping over others is financial in a world where that is the ultimate power. Really thought provoking stuff and I got all the vicarious feel good emotions when you ended up making those friends and truces, shows whats really important. Thank you for this video, didn’t expect fortnite to make me reflect on my own humanity but this was really enjoyable☺️☺️❤️

I think the main issue as you said is that there is no reason for players to really be friendly, and is even a ban if you team with other players. But you can complete all rewards in creative mode without any bullets

I think a big issue with a lot of current pro-social games is that they often end up being varying degrees of 3D chatrooms. I love playing videogames and I love those games in concept, but I feel there is an untouched middleground between having to find skilled groups of players in mmos for pve group content and chatroom style social games where there is no real challenge to overcome at all. We like doing sports and playing games and we like socializing and roleplaying. I would love more games that find this middle ground between a chatroom and a traditional coop game. What if we had an MMORPG that actively encouraged helping other players on their quests, encouraging people to actually interact with eachother and making friends to face the more challenging parts of the game with? It could even incentivize experienced players to help others who struggle, and roleplaying could be incentivized through a large number of "meaningless" interactibles and minigames in taverns.

My gf won a match being a pacifist a while ago.

One small complaint though: The boys in The Lord of the Flies do not really turn on each other quickly. For this context and to not drag the tempo of the video I guess one can put it like that but it's hardly accurate. Not only does the setting explain a lot how it got to that, it's not the oh some friends got stranded and turned evil-story people try to boil it down to, but it also took MONTHS. Yes, the book deliberately do not tell you how much time passes, and the island is a tropical one so seasons do not change, but it is mentioned that their hair grew from private school short to "a mop". I'd say a minimum of 3 months. Probably longer. Is that quickly? I dunno.

This is one of my favorite things to do in Splatoon!! They call them squid parties! Also signaled with crouching (well, squid-modeing but same thing) and hopping around, love how universal that it lol I love the challenge of trying to get someone to stop their fighting to goof around and then seeing how many people we can get to join us. Sometimes people will take the opportunity for an easy kill, or kind of respectfully paint around the party but take the opportunity to get more turf coverage. But those rare moments when you get a full 8 player squid party going, painting hearts around eachother and everyone jumping into the water right when the timer hits 0, feels so so good and really warms my heart💕

Truly interesting, I've always found it interesting that despite the general lack of/nerfed communicative avenues, players tend to always find other methods of communication. Especially given how universal the idea of repetitive jumping/crouching is. And I'm a strong believer in the idea of human nature being inherently altruistic so it's wonderful to see this.

My first time playing Journey, a Very Experienced player was waiting at an important landmark, signaling to first-time players something interesting was there. I also got stuck at a part with a snow storm, and another player waited for me - chirping and dancing - until I figured out how to progress. Being scared and uncertain, but knowing someone is there to help you along - incomparable. ♥ Also, I love your cats.

This is a new type of video for you, but I'm here for it!

"We threw down our weapons and had a dance party until the end" I like that

I loved the little social component in Journey. The solitude being broken by random chance, your "struggle" being temporarily eased and shared with someone else... Super cool experience.

This was absolutely hilarious, unexpectedly enlightening, and immensely uplifting. Keep spreading your positive message. It's well received and most certainly necessary. Excellent video!

Didn’t expect this to be such a profound and genuinely funny video! As always, Pop Culture Detective makes a masterpiece that I will probably watch on repeat until the next one comes out!

Combat is popular in games because it’s mechanically simple both design wise, tech wise and is simple to grasp for players. The history of shooters espescially is filled with games that was attempt at something else yet pivoted to a PvP shooter. Fortnite kinda included! It was originally a co-operative zombie defense game. Great video though! I’ve had some similar experiences in Halo Infinite myself at times. For example: the game was bugged and I’d lost all my team mates. The opposing team just let me score a couple of flags just to be nice. :)

This was an excellent video man. Thank you for all the effort you put into it. I’m a big Dead by Daylight player and some of the most fun moments are the bits of silliness and camaraderie between both aligned and opposing teams. Roleplaying with the map features, doing funny moves with emotes, letting the last survivor out just so both sides can get a win. Humanity is good at heart.

This was great, I had read about Fortnite players offering taxi rides to others in-game and was wondering when you might mention it. Especially liked the editing!

I think you would love a game called one hour, one life. Its a game where you start as the baby of another random player who you rely on to survive until you are old enough to care for yourself. You then have your own children, who are new players. If you manage to survive, you will die of old age after around an hour. You can have entire families of strangers, all helping each other survive.

I was watching the part where you discuss collaborative behavior in videogames and I started thinking "Oh, I remember this cute game called Meadow I used to play in elementary school where I would run around and explore with people..." Then it showed up and I audibly gasped. Thanks for bringing back my childhood :)

Feels like such a missed opportunity not to mention 1 hour 1 life. The game is all about strangers working together. You cannot survive without your mother in the first 10 minutes of the game and later, when other children are born, you need to help them survive or see all you have built lost to neglect. There is not much a single player can achive in one life, but after generations of different players all working together, teaching each other and taking care of each other, a true civilisation can be achieved. Its a beautiful gameplay loop.

The Tonga story reminds me on the Great Bitter Lake association. A conglomerate of 13 ships being stuck in the Suez Channel during the and in the aftermath of the six day war when the channel became a border river. Instead of parting along eastern and western vessels they formed a quasi micro nation with their own social norms and sharing system. Fascinating part of history