The world of online gaming is a vast and growing industry. Technology allows us to sit in our capes and communicate with people from all over the world. While this type of technology is not new, the social aspects of gamers are changing

I have very fond and nostalgic memories of playing games like Halo 2 and Call of Duty and having discussions, making friends and sharing jokes with random strangers on Xbox Live. But what happens when your teammates stop responding? In the last couple of years, it seems that console gamers have been limited to group chats and the lines of communication between players have been drastically reduced.

Team chat has become so quiet that I find myself aroused (nothing below the waist) when I hear the vaguely familiar sound of someone else’s voice while playing an online game. So why has everyone stopped talking? It’s simple, they haven’t.

Most console gamers today are familiar with ways to communicate in a more restrictive way. Options like party chat allow players to chat only with friends, “clannies”, without having to suffer the annoyance of small children, trolls, or the demonic sound of someone playing music through their microphone. While features like party chat may seem like a godsend, they can diminish gaming cooperation.

Games like Assassin’s Creed Unity, Call of Duty, or the Halo Master Chief Collection (sigh…) require the right amount of teamwork and cooperation from players to achieve victory. So if you’re spending a Saturday night on the couch ready to spill some graphic blood, and your groups of friends are in the real world (very overrated), you have no choice but to play with “random.” This is where party chat bites your ass. Those other players can be in their own party chats with their friends and you are left alone to make sarcastic comments, commands, and even compliments (very rare) to players who probably won’t respond.

How can this be fixed? Honestly, I’m not sure it can be. This new renounced silence seems to be a trend that has been around for the last four or five years. Despite the annoyance of his team not speaking up, it may be something we gamers have to deal with until game developers find a way to bring back the need for cooperation in games.