Stranger Danger?

As I've stated multiple times, I grew up in a time when gaming was vastly different. It was a way to disconnect from the world around you and unless you had someone else in the same room with you and the game had multiplayer settings, it was a solitary adventure. Defender, Centipede, Asteroids, Space Invaders, the only competition I had were the game enemies and myself. Sure you could go to an arcade and set a high score and enter your initials, but this was really the only way to compete with other players unless you entered a tournament and those weren't as prevalent back then either.

Super Mario Bros. is one of the first games I remember playing with my boyfriend where player 2 got their own distinct character, I was Mario and he Luigi. Hey, it was my console so I got to be Mario. Though even then I wished I could play as Princess Peach. There's a lot of talk about sexism in games these days and it does still exist, but a female protagonist back in the 80s or 90s was even rarer. Lara Croft being the badass exception back then that she is today.

But I digress. I'm talking about the odd experience (at least odd for me) of playing with random strangers from around the world. The whole stranger-danger campaign was introduced in the 1960s so it was alive and well in the 80s and 90s. Despite the fact that a child is much more likely to be kidnapped or assaulted by a relative or family friend, we were taught to fear unknown people so a few decades later that mentality still informs my social habits, including gaming. It's the main reason I prefer story to online games. And that I cringe inside whenever I order and Uber, but that's a whole other story.

I watch in awe as Rin and KM tackle missions with people they met via PlayStation two minutes prior to launching said mission. It's behavior so far outside my comfort level that if I don't have enough friends online, I actively avoid tasks that require a team to accomplish. And though most games, even online ones, provide solutions for solo players, I can't help but wonder if I'm hindering my progress?

Then again, you hear all these stories about trolling, griefing, and hacking. So maybe it's smart not to play with unknowns. I'm still on the fence about online gaming but given that story games may become a thing of the past as tech marches on, I may not have a choice in the near future.