News Photo by Julie Riddle An online gamer plays a shooting game in Alpena on Friday.

ALPENA — Comradery and friendships developed in the gaming community can raise spirits, but too much gaming in the wrong direction can lead to problems.

A lot of people know online gaming from personal experience or from a friend or family member.

The medium allows players to interact with people that could be thousands of miles away.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, interest in video gaming increased in a big way. According to statista.com, a site that specializes in market and consumer data, the 2022 gaming market value is more than 50% higher compared to before the pandemic.

Games forge “friendships that would have never been forged in any other world except through online gaming,” said Joe Markowiak, a gamer from Alpena.

Markowiak is friends with others he met in online games who come from areas that stretch across the U.S. One of Markowiak’s online friends was diagnosed with cancer, so he and his gaming team became the support system.

“Somebody like Sean, the guy from Colorado, had all our support,” he said. “And, you know, he didn’t have too much family and we were over there helping him through some of his mental problems going through cancer.”

Markowiak said his friend recovered and still plays online games with the group.

Gaming can be good not just for people looking for support, but for those seeking competition, gamers say.

Another Alpena gamer, Kameron Williams, said online games allow him and his friends to have competition without physical limitations.

“I can talk crap to my friends, and I can compete against somebody,” he said. “Because I grew up playing every sport in the book. I was on the football team. I was on the golf team. I played soccer for eight years. And now that I’m older, I can’t do that. You can but you can’t, you know what I mean?

“And, so, it just gives me a way to, like, kind of keep that competitive fire going against all my buds that I would normally have in high school.”

Williams says his wife will see he is having a bad day and suggests playing on his home console to relieve stress.

Markowiak and Williams were interviewed after responding to an online survey created for this story. The survey asked gamers how their favorite pastime affects their mental health.

Sixty-three percent of respondents said they have experienced harassment or bullying from other players. But even more, 73%, said that, overall, online gaming has been a positive experience.

Varun Singireddy, an associate professor of digital animation and game design at Ferris State University, said video games “are like medicine.” He said that, under the right conditions and with the right games, players can refresh their minds.

“You also need to know what games you could play, what kind of company you can engage in, and what kind of friends group you need,” Singireddy said. “You know whether you have to play a casual kind of a game to alleviate any kind of mental health concerns or you have to play a professional game.”

Singireddy says online gaming can help relieve stress, but, he says, it should be treated like any other medicine.

“Anything in overdose is — could be — poisonous — could be fatal,” he said. “There’s also some toxicity in online gaming that comes into play, here, that could, instead of alleviating pain, that could cause some more pain, especially mental pressure, because of some of the language that they use and the frustrations and the anger and rage in a few situations that these games create that could have a negative impact on mental health, as well.”

Singireddy said he plays online games with his students, and he said those students talk to him about problems they are facing in and out of the classroom. He said it is because his students see him more as a person they can talk to because of their increased communication through games.

Around 58% of respondents to the survey said they would recommend online gaming to help alleviate symptoms of stress or mental illness — whether a person had been professionally diagnosed or not.