New Delhi, India, June 23, 2020: PubNub, a real-time communication platform, today announced survey findings on chat functionality and its impact on gamers and their relationships. Five-hundred gamers were surveyed via a third-party survey platform and results indicated that 43 percent of gamers found friendship and/or love through the chat function while gaming. In addition, 40 percent of gamers were able to meet more people, love interests, and friends via gaming than in person. Chat has emerged as an extremely important function in a gamer’s life.
Online gaming has already gained a strong foothold in the entertainment industry. The Indian Online gaming industry is growing at a healthy rate of 22%, and its revenue is expected to touch $1 billion by the end of 2020. No longer, people play games merely for entertainment; for many of them, it’s a serious calling. It is not surprising that people are finding deeper and meaningful relationships, through a common interest in online gaming. Realtime communications will continue to enhance this experience and offer greater opportunities for the development of these human connections. The survey found that 36 percent of respondents developed a lifelong friend through chat while gaming. More than 20 percent of those friendships have lasted at least five years and over three percent have persisted for more than two decades.
“Connected experiences are at the heart of changing people’s lives,” said Todd Greene, CEO and co-founder of PubNub. “Gamers have received a negative reputation for being isolated and lonely, but the advancement in chat functionality is changing the game, literally. We want people to experience life in realtime, whether it’s through crushing candy, winning battles or bringing home the Stanley Cup. We want them to experience realtime connections, relationships, friendships and communities.”
Of those surveyed, 60 percent of the gamers were female, and millennials made up the largest age demographic with 31 percent of respondents being ages 25-35. More than a third of the gamers surveyed indicated that a good chat functionality significantly affects the likelihood of them playing a game or not. Poor chat functionality can limit a gamer’s ability to form meaningful relationships, and, as the survey suggests, even discourages people from playing titles without good chat functionality. Additionally, noted in PubNub’s findings, almost a quarter of respondents say they would feel isolated and unable to make friends if it wasn’t for a chat in gaming.
“I’ve been a gamer since 2006. I have made some amazing friends while chatting on The Legend of Zelda. For a newcomer in Mumbai, these friendships have offered me a family and a strong support system today. The connection we have is strong, and if it wasn’t for the ability to chat through gaming life would have been lonely in the city,” said Jonathan Martin, 28, life-long gamer and middle school teacher.
Antara Dara, a 32-year old software programmer, said, “I met my now-husband through WoW. November 2016 is when we first met in the game. He wanted to join my guild, and for some reason (I am not sure why) I told him that he couldn’t join my guild until he was at level 30. He would keep chatting with me every time he leveled up. I finally let him in, and since then we’ve been inseparable. I lived in Bangalore, and he lived in Pondicherry. He came out and moved in with me in April 2017 and we got married in March 2019.”
Additional results from PubNub’s survey, include:
- 67 percent of gamers have formed some type of relationship via gaming, which includes a casual friendship or dating.
- 36 percent found a lifelong friend, with more than 20 percent of those friendships lasting five years or more, and three percent lasting more than 20 years.
- 8 percent found marriage or partnership via gaming chat.
“At Indiawyn Gaming, we are building an interactive mobile entertainment platform delivering gaming and live shows with a social element for our users in India. Realtime data flow among our app users and with our backend is a foundational element of the platform. Users should be able to interact and follow each other’s journey to form a cohesive community which becomes the stable base on which Indiawyn can move up the value chain,” said, Vinod Sankar, CTO, Indiawyn Gaming. “PubNub’s realtime communication platform is a perfect fit for real-time messaging between app users and the backend platform at a scale necessary to handle a billion users in India.”
