There is no question that Halo is very strong in multiplayer. When Halo: Combat Evolved first came out, it was first in its field of multiplayer. Back then the technology was not as good as it is now, so the multiplayer was only possible in the same room. But still, ask any gamer between 20-30 and ask him/her where they played Halo. While not everyone may like(d) Halo, for various reasons, people in this age group probably had a friend who had Halo and invited him/her to play. I am among this last group and still have very fond memories of just gaming side-by-side.
Nowadays, people do multiplayer separate from each other, via the internet. While this is easier for everyone, gaming from home, it makes it a lot less fun if you can't talk to each other. Then came the headsets... This made the experience very similar to sitting next to each other, talking to each other while fighting against/with each other. This is pretty much the situation today, now it is uncommon for people to travel to their friends to go gaming. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it still doesn't feel the same to me, while I do enjoy it very much! I have made a couple of good friends via Xbox LIVE, people who I didn't physically meet after several years. I knew/know a lot of these people, but I've only physically met them a couple of times now, some even less than that.
While friendships can develop via multiplayer, this is rarely the case. Of the thousands of online games I played myself, I have only earned a handful of friends out of it. My friendlist used to be pretty long, about 30-40 people. Of these 30-40 people, I've played with most of them, but some are friends-of-friends. I've cut a lot of these people away now, and my list is now down to 13, each one I know by first name. But still, of these 13 people, I have only physically met 6 of them. While this may seem trivial, it just goes to show how much 'making friends' has changed over the last decade.
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