We trust that they will spend their time with us, that they will play by the same rules, value the same goal, stay with the game until it's over. And the reason is, it takes a lot of trust to play a game with someone. There's a lot of interesting research that shows we like people better after we play a game with them, even if they've beaten us badly. Gamers are virtuosos at weaving a tight social fabric. This is the principle Jane McGonigal was reflecting in her 2008 TED talk, when she said that, Further, playing that game together has built up a serious amount of trust and camaraderie, as we fight world bosses and opposing player factions together. Those of us who have made friends playing a specific MMO together have formed a tight affinity group around the co-constructed knowledge of that game.

Those of us with the fortune to have practice in a specific Semiotic Domain are prone to forming affinity groups. In What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy James Paul Gee introduces 'semiotic domains,' or social spaces where knowledge is co-constructed and meaning is defined by social agreement. This is how I, like so many others, ended up bonding with my вЂњaffinity groupвЂќ online.

I have a group of (IRL) friends that are close and have helped me out a lot, but there are many evenings, I am just left at home, alone, with nothing to do and no one to talk to.

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