It's Not Just About Gaming

Make Friends And Kill People

As much as my poor and beleaguered boss the ever indefectible David Strom has to shake his head and look up at the sky whenever my drunken antics mix in with my work, I’m going to use a pub analogy to kick this part... piece off.

When you go down the pub for a few pints (and do excuse me if I’m sounding awfully British here, but at least we have proper beer, eh ?) do you do it so that you can get drunk and unable to stand ? Or do you do it so that you can meet up with a few friends and have a good time, with the booze being secondary to the experience as a whole ? I would be willing to bet that for the most part we all go out for the latter reason - or at least a variation thereof if you happen to be looking for love (or at least a temporary respite).

I would use much the same analogy to describe modern video gaming. As much as we love to see the latest graphical wizardry and enjoy delving deep into the guts of a game armed only with keyboard and mouse, videogames have become secondary to the overall experience of gaming.

Aided by the mass penetration of broadband Internet, a huge percentage of gamers are now online 24/7. This has enabled developers to design massive multiplayer games, from a buffet of MMORPG’s to more casual, drop-in-drop-out games such as Battlefield 2 . However, the continued successful creation of such games was not inevitable with the growth of broadband.

Instead, what has fuelled the online games market has been the social side of gaming, which in many cases has very little to do with the actual play.

As much as I enjoy playing Battlefield 2 , which is my current lunchtime favorite, when I clock up the amount of time I’ve spent online doing things related to the game as well as playing, I actually spend far more time socializing than I do playing.

I can sit for hours on mIRC chatting with my clan mates who have become as real a social group to me as the lads I go down to the pub with, even though the group is spread as far and wide as Dublin to Stockholm to Tel Aviv.

From chatting about the game to the social and political issues of the day and through to random bouts of banter and random crap thrown in for good measure, we spend hours each night enjoying one another’s company without touching the ever ready launch icon for the game which is the centerpiece of our friendships.

There are also forums dedicated to various gaming pursuits. Yet one of the most active parts of most forums related to a specific game or just the hobby in general tends to be the "Off Topic" discussion areas. Anything and everything is discussed at length from funny news stories to relationship woes and the embarrassing "My, uhh, friend has a bit of a problem..." posts.

People need to have fun, and in the past it has been the videogames that have provided the stimulation. But at the same time we all need to have social interactions and fun with characters that laugh alongside you. Now that we can sit and chat all night long without having to worry about the phone bills, it’s much easier to sit at home on any given night and enjoy the company of friends from the comfort of our own homes.

Going out is still a lot of fun, but logging into a chat server is a lot more convenient, particularly on weekday evenings. But saying all this, videogames are not to be entirely sidelined.

For one they remain the catalyst behind this entire social experience and so won’t be going away any time soon. But increasingly developers will have to account for the social needs of their players and put integrating social tools into their games as high up on the list of priorities as support for the Next Big Graphical Thing.

MMORPG’s are already well placed to do this, as they have always been as much about the social side of things as the game itself. As much as you may find a lone-shark dangling his way around de_dust with no matter to making friends, in an MMORPG such as Everquest II you’ll be lucky to get far without throwing in your lot with another group of players.

This creates social spontaneity. I’ve often simply entered an MMORPG for the first time as a low-level character, banded together with a few players who know the ropes and then became good friends with them.

The next step that MMORPG makers will have to take, and some already are, is integrating all the social tools into their games. As much as the in-game chat box is good for in-game interaction, how about letting me get onto mIRC without having to Alt-Tab and go through all that rigmarole ? In-game Web browsers with more than simply basic functionality wouldn’t go amiss either, opening up horizons in the direction of being able to access email and forums whilst still being able to keep an eye on the in-game world.

Developers behind games such as Battlefield 2 need not worry quite so much, as those games are far too fast-paced to allow for the stuff you can get away with in MMORPG’s. DICE pretty much hit the nail on the head by including the functionality to allow in-game squads to be formed and in-built voice communications.

The only further steps that can be taken to make games like it more socially relevant are to encourage more people to get involved and to play in clans. As much as this social gaming revolution is becoming widespread, there remain many players who view their games as simply something to drop into, shoot something up and then go to bed. If only they knew...

For those of you not involved in any sort of community surrounding your games of choice, then I would recommend with 110% that you head off and actively seek to get in on the hidden action that lurks beneath any thriving videogame.