Very interesting article, thanks for posting! I've thought about this a lot in the context of online communities (IRC channels, old-style forums and "old-style" games where people can host their own servers, and you get to know "the regulars"). I think the "clan" or "community" idea in some online games really makes them into "third places". I used to play Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory a lot. The key point in the game is that while of course people were better than others, it only took 5 or 6 hours of play to level up to the highest point you could be. Most servers saved xp points between connects, so while it may take a new player on the server 5 or 6 hours to level up to stuff like faster reloading, there is no massive difference between what some players have access to and what others have access to - you don't accumulate weapons or items or skins, nor can you buy them. This means that the game is very heavily (somewhat luck) egalitarian in that some people have more skills than others, but everyone has an equal opportunity to gain those skills.
Newer online games like Overwatch (which I play more now) have distroyed this community spirit. The normal mode of playing is no longer that one joins a server full of regulars, rather, you're matched up with random people. You can play with specific people, but it's weird to randomly friend request someone after the length of a game (20 minutes or less). The mitigating factor is that you can choose to "stay as a team" if you enjoyed your 20 minutes, and it'll group the people who select that together. After playing more games in this group, you might start chatting ("fancy another game?" or "you did great in that!" etc.) and then add each other as friends. But it's not the same as hanging out.
Old games were more like going to your local running club every week. New games are like going to a different fun-run in a different part of town each week, and then maybe someone asks you to to run with them again at one of the fun-runs, but there's a very low chance of that happening and it's kinda weird.
Chat servers/channels/whatever that allow off-topic discussion seem to be the go-to "third place" online now. HN and Reddit are too large to qualify in a meaningful sense for the majority of users.
i have a pet theory that matchmaking in team games, and the destruction of “placefulness“ in-game, has contributed to the widespread experience of increased toxicity in these communities. it’s magnified the online disinhibition effect, as the consequences are now even more diffuse. probably the same percentage of jerks, but you can’t get your friend who runs the server to ban them.
discord servers seem to have filled the niche, to some extent, as each server can develop its own norms. i’m hoping that OW2 takes the opportunity to address this design problem in-game, via guilds, clans, or tournaments, something along those lines.
Good points about familiarity and regularity. There is a lot of scope to improve online spaces by bringing those elements in. And maybe getting rid of/reducing - infinite scroll addictive news streams + upvotes/likes/retweet/counter stuff which I guess distracts everyone from connecting.
If you are interested in Third Place stuff, Howard Shultz talks about how that philosophy is behind the success of Starbucks much more than the coffee :)
Skimming the article, and in particular after reading "Oldenburg's characteristics", I feel it misses what I'd guess would be the core characteristic of a third place: choice. Home and work are places where you have to be[0]. The "third place" is somewhere you choose to be.
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[0] - Not technically, but the costs of not being there are generally too high to give one any realistic choice in the matter.
