Author Biography

Ella Stott is a junior at Utah State University studying English and business. She is the copy editor for the USU student newspaper, The Utah Statesman, and a writing fellow. Ella hopes to work in publishing or TV writing and currently specializes in nonfiction. When she isn’t reading, writing, or working, she is watching sitcoms, building Legos, or eating Aggie ice cream.

This essay was composed in April 2024 and uses MLA documentation.

August 19th, 2023: the day I moved into college. I had been dead-set on going to Utah State University for years, and I felt confident that I would have a good time. However, I was terrified to meet my roommates. I was convinced they would be either weird or mean, with all of us seeking sanctuary outside of our actual room in an effort to leave an unsettling environment. That day, I met two of my roommates, and we immediately clicked. As more of them moved in, the more we came to the general conclusion that we’d all met our best friends. Though this held true, as the year went on, we began having less time to spend together, and when we had time to talk, we found that we’d missed a lot of important events in each others’ lives. My roommate had decided to switch majors? Another one was going to dye her hair brown? Who had kissed? With all of the busy schedules conflicting, we were disappointed that he didn’t have a lot of time to bond. The time we did spend together was often eating, and these interactions were few and far between. As this was happening, I was placed into a book club group in my poetry class. This group and I learned we were going to spend a lot of time together, and although we all got along, we felt like there was something missing in our group dynamic, some team bonding experience we hadn’t had with each other. We wondered if getting to know each other in a different setting would make our work stronger and more fulfilling.

This is when one of my roommates introduced a game to the rest of us roommates: Overcooked. The game requires players to work together to produce different food dishes in a certain amount of time. It can be very stressful, as the levels often present challenges, like environmental shifts, but despite the stress, my roommates and I became addicted. Every night, in the time we all normally took to wind down, we would evacuate our separate rooms and play Overcooked together. This expanded into a nightly ritual of playing any kind of video game: Mario Kart, Mario Party, Family Style, Space Team, etc. The only rule was it had to be a video game that we could play together. This gave us the chance to spend time we normally would have alone, together. As we played, we began to know each other’s updates, as well as deeper memories and thoughts. We had been great friends before, but we became even closer. After this development in the lives of my roommates and me, I began wondering: if I played video games with my poetry book club, would we work better together? Would this time provide the experiences we needed to know more about each other, and would this knowledge strengthen our power as a team? What were the advantages and disadvantages of playing video games as a pre-established team, especially for students at USU? Throughout my time playing video games with my friends and the research I did on the subject, I came to the conclusion that, although there is potential for conflict when done in moderation, cooperative video games can strengthen a pre-established team’s dynamic through increased teamwork, an understanding of an individual’s importance within a team, and knowledge about other team members.

When evaluating sources, I focused on studies conducted with college students. College students are at an age in which they feel more confident with video games, opposing older generations who might not be as comfortable with modern gaming. Furthermore, college students are currently learning how to be the next generation of leaders in the workforce, and learning alternative methods of team-building and valuable teamwork skills right now will affect the workforce when college graduates are in it. The Pew Research Center found that “seventy percent of college students reported playing video, computer, or online games at least once in a while” (Jones). A vast majority of college students could be looking at turning their time playing video games into a productive use of team-building experience or an environment in which to develop teamwork skills. This can be directly applied to USU students. Although video games can be inaccessible to some students due to financial circumstances, USU offers a lot of opportunities for students to rent video game software. Some devices are available for students to check out whenever they want to, and there is even a Virtual Reality room in the USU library that students reserve for free. With advances in the accessibility of video games for college students and their importance in determining the shape of teamwork in the future workforce, this is an important audience to consider when researching the topic.

To begin, teamwork is “the action or fact of working together effectively or cohesively; successful collaboration or cooperation by a team of people” (Teamwork, Oxford English Dictionary). Video games allow for an opportunity for their participants to develop teamwork skills that can aid the team in problem-solving in and out of the game. A key principle in developing effective teamwork is increasing collaboration, which is largely fostered through communication. In England, a multiplayer PC game developed by the company Cyberchaos was issued to students in school groups. They were studied by university professors, who divided the type of communication students had while gaming into positive, negative, and general. The positive communication included collaboration and discussion; the negative communication included conversations that were boastful, derogatory, or disruptive; and the general communication was that of neutral language. The study was conducted for three weeks, and the observers found an average of 57% positive communication, 34% general communication, and only 9% negative communication, with the negative communication decreasing as the weeks went on. The conductors of the study found that “if an objective of the game is to work in teams, this leads to an increase in collaborative communication as the players begin to understand that working as a team will increase the likelihood of success at the game” (Bailey et al.). Another study conducted by professors in the Brigham Young University Information Systems Department gathered participants and split them into randomized teams. All of the teams participated in the real-world activities of geocaching and building towers out of uncooked spaghetti. Following round one of these tasks, half of the teams, the experiment teams, played video games together, while the other half, the control teams, didn’t. Then, all of the teams participated in round two of the real-world activities.

The performance of the control teams went up by 20% for the geocaching activity and 50% for the tower-building activity for the second round, whereas the performance of the experiment teams went up by 50% for the geocaching activity and 72% for the tower-building activity. The researchers concluded the difference between these teams was because “existing features in the games used… supported cooperation and competition through enjoyable and challenging game scenarios, thereby effectively accomplishing the team-building process” (Keith et al.).

This figure shows that the experiment backed up the hypothesis that team video gaming would increase a team’s performance after the game and would also lead them to believe in the usefulness of the task more than the groups who did not play the games. Although this experiment was conducted on newly established teams, the researchers determined that video games helped develop teamwork in teams with a variety of different dynamics and personalities. These same principles of teamwork fostered in video games are not unique to a certain type of team and can be established in pre-existing teams as well. Between these two studies, it can be determined that playing video games as a team can increase teamwork in the game, as teams understand they need to work together to accomplish their tasks, and outside of the game, as the skills developed in playing video games translate directly into real-world teamwork skills. Shortly after beginning our Overcooked journey together, my roommates and I set up a Valentine’s Day event, in which we had to decorate a room with lights, banners, balloons, and food. In the past, we’ve had a difficult time getting everything together for birthday parties, our Christmas event, and movie nights, but we were able to successfully set up the Valentine’s event without a hitch, knowing how each person functions in a team and understanding the best way to communicate with each other.

Furthermore, playing cooperative team video games often encourages teams to divide work in order to accomplish a common goal. This division can increase an individual’s feeling of worth on their team. A study in Finland took groups in an undergraduate human resource management course and had them learn teamwork, leadership, and management training through a team video game, Novicraft. After playing the game, the students were asked to give feedback on their experience. In addition to many students saying the experience elevated their teamwork as a group, many students also reflected that they felt more aware of their own and others’ individual roles in the team. This gave the students a sense of their own and others’ belonging as they “learned to evaluate their own contribution as team members, emphasizing their ability both to resolve problems and respect others’ viewpoints” (Riivari et al.). At the beginning of my time playing Overcooked with my roommates, we would often all be trying to make our own dishes to serve, and we didn’t score very highly. Once we started dividing into roles, such as dishwasher, chopper, cooker, and plater, we found much more success and much more fulfillment, as we all felt like we were invaluable to the team’s success. We opt to switch roles at each level to play to everyone’s strengths and have found massive success in doing so. One group of people who may commonly feel out of place in the video gaming environment is women, as video games are still a male-dominated field both in the media and in real life. In a study conducted at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, men and women students were given a questionnaire to ask questions about how they viewed women who played video games and women who were characters in video games. This study found that “when viewing the experiences of a typical selection of the gaming community, it has been agreed upon that sexism is prevalent when playing video games, whether it be from other players or from characters within certain games” (Brown, 36). The sexism and lack of varied female representation in video games can be a key factor in women deciding not to play video games. However, in a study conducted by the Department of Sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder, it was found by studying women players in an online team-based game, Overwatch, that although there were still negative experiences of women in the gaming world, many women were able to find enjoyment in the game as they, “view(ed) the role as challenging and fulfilling… (with) satisfaction at playing a role critical to the team’s success” (Austin). Both of these studies agreed there were serious strides to be made in making video games a more inclusive environment for women, and a key step in this direction is to have more varied female representation in video game characters and more female players.

Arguably, one of the most important benefits of playing video games as a team is that it enables players to participate in an environment in which they learn more about each other. Through the time spent playing video games and the social skills it helps develop, players have been shown to talk not just about the game, but about their own lives. This is especially evident in the study in Finland that observed undergraduate students in the human resource management class. These pre-established teams were shown to start talking about their own lives while gaming, increasing the group spirit, an idea that “centered on the idea of group morale, which helped group members maintain their patience even when they had to struggle to find solutions” (Riivari et al.). As teams talked about their own lives and felt closer as a group, their patience for each other and overall enjoyment of the game increased. The groups that reported these instances also reported they were more likely to enjoy working with the group in future situations. When looking at this idea, it is important to consider that not everyone has the same experience when gaming, especially those with disabilities that make gaming harder. In a study looking at people with disabilities and gaming, it was found that “2 percent of the (US) population cannot play computer games because of a disability, and 9 percent can play only at a reduced level” (Garber). This is a significant portion of the population that may be unable to have the same team bonding experience as others while playing cooperative video games. While there are still many games that are inaccessible to the disabled population, massive strides in this area, specifically in the US, are being made to ensure more inclusivity with gaming, with solutions such as different sets of controls and communication styles. It was found that “94 percent of disabled casual gamers said that playing provides physical or mental-health benefits” (Garber), with those mental-health benefits largely coming from interacting with other players and learning more about them. These studies show massive implications for video games and social benefits, with teams growing in valuable skills such as patience and perseverance as they learn more about each other. This has been a key area of improvement in the relationship between my roommates and me; we have found out much more about each other playing video games than we have in other aspects of our lives. As we share experiences, the game has reminded us of as well as thoughts and fears that we feel like sharing. This experience has brought me so much closer to my roommates and has given us valuable moments that would likely not have been replicated in another environment.

It can be said, however, that video games can lead to conflict rather than bonding within relationships. Family Life, Psychology, and Communications professors from Brigham Young University, Ohio State University, and Iowa State University conducted a study on the effects of gaming on romantic relationships. They sampled 1,333 heterosexual couples and had them report their habits regarding video games and the conflict they believed this caused. It was found that “video games can increase the risk of aggressive behavior if violent content primes aggressive thoughts or feelings, if the game is physiologically arousing, or if the player becomes frustrated.” (Coyne et al). They found that among these multiple facets, a player becoming frustrated happened the most often; this could be due to the competitive nature of the game, especially if the player becoming frustrated was losing. The adverse effects don’t just correlate to romantic relationships; a study done by the Behavioral Science Institute at Radboud University examined adolescents and the results team video games had on their friendships. The conclusion was that the “results showed that playing a game competitively lowered friendship quality” (Verheijen et al.). Results in the two studies varied depending on the type of video game being played, but there were clear adverse effects on relationships in which the members played video games together. This was especially the case with violent and competitive video games; these specific types were shown to increase aggressive behavior in their players and pit them against each other, leading to conflict. Cooperative video games have not been shown to have the same extent of negative effects, with more participants fostering team spirit and patience with their teammates, but there were some who would become frustrated by the lack of “technical aptitude… and participation in the joining group effort” (Riivari et al.). A huge player in counteracting these negative effects is video game moderation. In an article by university professors in Ireland, a literature review was conducted to determine when video games were positive for the players. It was found that “a higher level of positive interaction… is the case if cooperative games are played in moderation and the motivation is socially driven” (Halbrook et al.). This indicates that when cooperative video games are played in order to have social interaction and development, rather than to fuel an addiction or escape reality, they largely have a positive effect in moderation. There are days when my roommates and I spend too long playing video games, like Overcooked, and it is clear that the tension can get high, especially when we have spent a long time on a level, and we’re not able to pass it. We have found that our sweet spot for playing the game is in thirty-minute intervals to ensure that we have enough time to talk and enjoy ourselves, but we aren’t spending too much time and becoming frustrated. During busy days, we often split our time between an hour of homework and thirty minutes playing Overcooked, and we have found that moderation has been a great gift to our lives of cooperative gaming.

Video games can be very expensive, which is another concern of college students who are paying for their education and many other expenses. As mentioned, USU students have access to video games in a couple of different ways. Many of the on-campus area offices have items students can check out, including Nintendo Switches, Xboxes, Jackbox party packs, and many others. The Merrill-Cazier library has a VR students can reserve, and it rents out iPads and computers for students. USU also has an eSports team designed to give students the opportunity to game with other people, and this club often hosts events open to all students to use video game software and devices.

Although my poetry book club did not end up playing Overcooked together, we all played the Google game Snake while in one of our meetings to refresh before we started our book discussion. The game wasn’t a cooperative game, but we were still able to tell stories, learn more about each other, and enjoy the work we were doing together more because we were playing together. If we could do it again, I would suggest playing a team video game in order to increase teamwork capacity and enforce positive sentiments on everyone’s individual worth because I have seen how dramatically playing video games together has improved the lives of my roommates and me.

These positive effects can impact the lives of many other students at USU. The university is becoming a campus filled with video games, and it is also filled with students who will be future leaders and significant contributors to the workforce. Learning to combine these two ideas to excel in team-building strategies will greatly benefit the participants and will increase teamwork, knowledge of individual worth, and enjoyment in teams across the workforce.

Works Cited

Austin, J. (2022). “I suppose I’ll be patching you up, as usual”: Women’s roles and normative femininity in a team-based video game. New Media & Society, 24(5), 1116-1132. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444820972396

Bailey, C., Pearson, E., Gkatzidou, S., Green, S. (2006). Using Video Games to Develop Social, Collaborative and Communication Skills. In E. Pearson &amp; P. Bohman (Eds.), <cite>Proceedings of ED-MEDIA 2006–World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications</cite> (pp. 1154-1161). Orlando, FL USA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Brown, Michelle. “Women and video games: representation, experiences, identity, and acceptance.” Montfort University, Leicester (2014).

Garber, Lee. “Game Accessibility: Enabling Everyone to Play,” in Computer, vol. 46, no. 6, pp. 14-18, June 2013, doi: 10.1109/MC.2013.206.

Halbrook, Y. J., O’Donnell, A. T., & Msetfi, R. M. (2019). When and How Video Games Can Be Good: A Review of the Positive Effects of Video Games on Well-Being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(6), 1096-1104. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619863807

Jones, Steve. “Gaming Comes of Age.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 6 July 2003, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2003/07/06/gaming-comes-of-age/.

Keith, Mark & Dean, Douglas & Gaskin, James & Anderson, Greg. (2021). Team Building through Team Video Games: A Controlled Experiment (Preprint). JMIR Serious Games. 9. 10.2196/28896.

Riivari, E., Kivijärvi, M. & Lämsä, AM. Learning teamwork through a computer game: for the sake of performance or collaborative learning?. Education Tech Research Dev 69, 1753–1771 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10009-4.

“Teamwork, N., Sense 3.b.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, September 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1188552048.