Casual Conversation

I honestly don't understand how people socialise and make friends though gaming

yet I've never interacted with anyone, I don't have a headset and I don't wanna hear voice or chat while playing though

To be blunt, you need to interact and talk with people to form a lasting relationship. If you aren't socialising while gaming then, well, you aren't socialising while gaming.

That's fine, a perfectly valid way to play, but if you really envy them and you want to start socialising and making friends while gaming you're gonna have to get a headset and talk with people.

I will say, you're complaining about community while only playing 1v1 versus games. I don't think anyone would call WWE 2k14 or the Tekken games really "community focused," and certainly not to the same level as games like World of Warcraft or Warframe. I'd even argue other PvP focused titles would offer better communities, as team-focused titles like Deadlock and Marvel Rivals incentivize players to seek out other players they enjoy playing with. Solo 1v1s just don't incentivize community in the same way.

is like the game is very secondary there and just post cringe stuff instead

Part of being friends with people is talking about stuff that isn't a singular video game.

I would say to give discord a try but it might be hard to find people your age. It also depends on the game, Tekken might not be the best for socializing. A game with a clan system might be your best bet but you're going to have to be actively trying to meet people wherever you go

Making friends is not something that happens to you, making friends is something you do. Keeping friends also continues to take effort and intent.

The discord groups for those games would suck. Discord is about community, those games are not. Playing more socially oriented games and joining the discords for those games would show you a completely different side of discord. But discord isn't an important part of making friends. Just one option.

The most important part is if you want to make friends by playing games, they need to be games that would actually lead to that.

The Discord experience very much depends on the people on the server that you're on. Any medium is just enabling connections, though. The connections themselves are what matter.

From my experience, you need to find a relatively small/niche group for deep connections to form. I've found several communities like that. Although, I think my experience is heavily influenced by me being neurodivergent, and finding groups of other neurodivergent people that I get along with. Like, finding groups of nerds who share the same special interests.

Two necessary components for friendship are extended presence and shared struggle.

That is, you need to be around the same set of people for a non-trivial amount of time. Relationships need time to form.

But that is not enough. Just being around people doesn't tell you much about them, or tells them much about you. There's no basis to bond over. You need to experience the same hardship as someone else.

In 1v1 games, that's surely harder but not impossible, if you're e.g. struggling to improve yourself, or trying to succeed in spite of the game being a bit shitty. Try thinking of a shared objective. Only ever wanting to defeat others is ultimately alienating.

All the friends I made gaming were on private owned servers where I was a regular. Never through matchmaking or random games.

Well your experience will depend on a lot of factors. First of all, I think the XBox community isn't a particularly nice place. If that's what you tried, I can see how you didn't like it.

And it will depend on the game. Pick something that caters to your age group. If you're playing Minecraft or Roblox on a random server, you'll talk to a bunch of 8 year olds. They'll talk differently to a grown-up. And if you're 40, that might not be what you're looking for.

Plus the game will need some complexity and multiplayer elements. A simple racing game or a smash-em-up will have people talking about random shit. Because there isn't really anything of substance (game-wise) to discuss.

I'd say your best bet would be something like a MMORPG where you have to complete quests in a group, so you'll meet the same people again and there is some group identity. Because again, if it's just random anonymous people who will probably never see each other again... They won't be particularly nice to each other. That's kind of the fundamental law of the internet. And even then, it really depends on the server. You need to put in some effort to find a good one.

I made a friend in Garry's Mod back in like, 2006.

We still keep in touch! I have never seen the guy, but we basically grew up together.

As other people said, games where you play as a team are probably more efficient at creating friendships. I met people online, met some of them irl afterwards, and some of my friends met their best friends online, mostly on LoL, Valorant, MMOs and in my case Sea of Thieves. I read on forums that tactical game like Civ, Northguard, etc., are a common place for this too.

I don't make friends gaming personally, but I'm pretty sure its literally as easy as "hey, wanna stay as a group" -> "yo I'm getting off, lemme add you guys lets play again sometime" -> "yo wanna queue?" -> repeat until someone says "hey wanna just add me on discord' -> appropriately determine further shared interests or determine you dont wanna go any further.

But you do have to be friendly and yourself during gameplay.

I don't socialize while gaming, but my sibling found his online friend by joining public Discord servers for specific games. I think they even found some on dedicated subreddits.

People shit all over parasocial relationships, but gaming communities, especially online ones, are types of parasocial relationships.

Getting involved is different and more aloof than getting involved in an in-person community.

Unlike being the guy standing in the corner visibly not involved so someone can see you and say "hey come join the fun" that doesn't happen so often online because you can have 15 people all idling nowhere near their computers only to come back to a message 16 hours later "come and join the fun" when the fun is all said and done.

IMO competitive multiplayer games aren’t great for socialization.

I mostly play games to keep up with friends who live far away, and the best games for this IMO are things like Minecraft, but casually playing an MMO or a shooter works too. Getting too into it means you have to focus too much on the game and can be worse for socializing.

Also idk about meeting people this way. I know people who have met online over gaming, but for me I’m mostly playing with people I already met. I will say the closest I’ve come to making online friends was on a public Minecraft server with about 30 regular players over the course of several years.

If you envy them, you can take proactive steps like therapy. Again, if you share the region in which you live, I can look for free resources for you.