Why do Gamers Want to Appear Offline?


More and more people are playing games now than ever before. This is not surprising since games as an industry has grown in revenue by 10.7% since last year. However this also means that more and more gamers are playing games on services such as Steam, Battle.net, Uplay, Playstation, etc.


There has been a rise in interest for gamers to not show that they're online to their friends. Take the above screenshot from Battle.net. The Appear Offline functionality of the app wasn't introduced until late last year due to popular demand from gamers, though it still doesn't hide you from your guild members.

Why do people not want to show their friends that they're online and playing a video game? They might want to hide from their friends that they're playing a game when they are supposed to be doing work. They might want to hide the fact that they're playing the game with other people and don't want to play with another friend of theirs. Or maybe they want to play the game by themselves and not want to deal with their friends asking if they want to play together.



Personally I don't like to use the appear offline functionality but I can sort of understand why people would want to utilise it. I like to use the 'Do not disturb' or the 'Busy' status' in most services to show that I want to be left alone from my friends and that I can't or don't want to play with them. It shows them that I'm currently playing the game but want to play by myself for a little while without the smoke and mirrors that I'm pretending to be offline.


Written by: Stevie Alexander

References:
http://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2017/11/28/ps4-appear-offline-function-not-working/
https://venturebeat.com/2017/11/28/newzoo-game-industry-growing-faster-than-expected-up-10-7-to-116-billion-2017/

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