With lockdown woes throwing a spanner into the world of socialising, gamers and young adults are finding a new way of making friends, scoping out the virtual realm for potential friendships.
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Dubbo's Amy Alexander met her now best friend through a video game, and decided to share her experience with others while highlighting International Friendship Day on July 30.
Amy, who has been playing Final Fantasy XIV for more than six years, met her now best friend Clayton two-and-a-half years ago through the video game.
"He was very, very friendly. I was new to the free company I had joined and yeah, he was just lovely," Amy said.
"He sent me a lot of messages and the free company had held a lot of events.
"Every Friday the company invited teams of people to come together and basically, collect treasure, I guess.
"Clayton seemed to think that every time I was in his party we got lucky, so he ended up wanting to be on my party every time and so, that's how our friendship kind of begun."
Final Fantasy XIV is a multiplayer online role-playing video game for Playstation.
Clayton lives in South Australia, while Amy is in Dubbo, and although the pair talk to each other face-to-face using Discord, they are yet to meet in person.
"We've joked about meeting in real life, but it's really hard, he lives in South Australia and I guess we're going to have to wait for things to get better with COVID-19," Amy said.
"We have spoken about maybe meeting at a gaming convention, so we will see."
The friendship may be correspondent, but Amy says Clayton's friendship is more than just a regular, everyday friendship.
"He's definitely my best friend," she said.
"We talk on Discord almost every night and speak every day and we've been friends now for a little over two-years.
"We have very different personalities but we do a lot of the same kind of things.
"He really likes Dungeons and Dragons, which I haven't tried it yet.
"But yeah, I guess it's a love for characters and imagination and that sort of thing that we have in common."
Amy said Final Fantasy XIV is definitely up there with her favourite games.
"It's a really good story," she said.
Amy says for adults, video gaming is definitely a good way to meet new people.
"I'd definitely recommend people put themselves out there and be friendly," she said.
"I'd say Final Fantasy is a pretty welcoming and friendly community."
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