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This didn'y get many replies last time round in Prime, so here goes:
Social gaming eh? But isn’t it for nerds who have no friends and nothing better to do than sit in front of a VDU and play games in a dark room? God, those gamers, locked away from reality, never getting out. Social gaming? Pah!
That’s the type of thing you may have heard a few years ago. But in this very short space of time, your typical ’gamer’ has evolved. This is because of many factors;
The movie business. Many films have been turned into games, so people with no previous interest in gaming may be drawn this way. In any case, it has brought us attention from those that would otherwise not be interested.
The size of the industry. With the size of the gaming industry today, it is hard for anyone to ignore it completely. Business-men buy stocks in the gaming companies because of their success on Wall Street.
Microsoft entering the console market. Microsoft is a name that nobody can get away from. Such a big name moving seriously into the gaming arena is something that people cant turn a blind eye on - And thus gaming is seen in a different way by new people.
Also, even people uninitiated in the gaming genre will probably know about online gaming. Far from being ’proper’ social gaming, it still counts to a lot of people. Gamers all over the world laying and communicating - even making online ’communities’? Its enough to make anyone think twice about the previous stereotype.
So nowadays, we have adults and children alike playing games, many of them even obsessed with it. With this much popularity in the market, its very unlikely that you wont find anyone living near you that loves gaming too! Sites like Special Reserve, aimed at gamers bring them together, another form of social ’gaming’. Gaming magazines take up twice as much shelf space than they used to. In fact, its more or less impossible to ignore gaming as a whole.
So what of social gaming? What is it? How big is it?
Well, as I have briefly mentioned before, there are different types.
The first type is multiplayer games played over the internet. Although the capacity for this has been around a long time, it has only quite recently taken off. And when I say taken off, I mean it! Games like Counter Strike have millions of players worldwide. People make online ‘clans’ - like communities that work together to win. People talk to each other in the game - often from different sides of the globe! Heck, its been known for people to cross oceans to come and see the person they’ve been playing against!
The next type of social gaming is the online communities. Though not actually gaming at the time, these are places to go where you can talk about gaming experiences, write your reviews, help other people out when they are stuck on a game, and basically chat with other people like you! In fact, you may even discover other people that live very close to you! When I came to Special Reserve, I got talking to some people. When someone asked me where I was from, and told me where they lived, I was surprised to find he lived about 10 minutes away, AND I knew him! Places like this can really bring you some online ‘friends’.
The third, and final, type of social gaming I want to talk about is ‘in the real world’. Basically, when people come round your house to play games, or you go to theirs. Or even places like the ‘i’ series, where gamers from all over meet up.
Gaming with friends is a completely different aspect of social gaming to what I have talked about before. What most people consider being real social activity is going out with your friends, or playing sports with friends. Playing games with them is no different, and is in a lot of cases the most enjoyable aspect of all social gaming. Offering laughs and fun, multiplayer games are probably some of the biggest selling. Race friends in a game like Mario Kart, or go into serious mode and kill them in something like Perfect Dark. Of course, there’s the hilarious games like worms, that are just ment to be shared with other people. Although a good shoot ‘em up is a great way of relieving stress! Aside from the competitive aspect, working together can be fun as well. And if you are trying to defeat a really hard boss, the friend actually being in the same room can help! It can even help improve your relationship - getting past a hard level can be very rewarding, and doing it together means you both did well! Even single player games can be more fun with other people around - whether they help you solve a puzzle, or give you a new idea to try, two heads are better than one! You can even take turns (unless you’ve a brand new PS2 and they have dirty hands!).
Places like i8 are great because you can meet other people with the same interests as you - a bit like a matchmaker service!- and have fun at the same time. You can even improve your skills when you really need to wipe the smirk off that guys face!
So, if you were to ask about social gaming today, the reply is more likely to be ‘what’s your favourite game?’ or ‘what time can you play?’
On the whole, gaming is accepted far more widely these days, and being social while gaming has never been easier. So when life’s getting you down, load up Counter Strike, or call some mates, and take it out on your PS2!
Social gaming eh? But isn’t it for nerds who have no friends and nothing better to do than sit in front of a VDU and play games in a dark room? God, those gamers, locked away from reality, never getting out. Social gaming? Pah!
That’s the type of thing you may have heard a few years ago. But in this very short space of time, your typical ’gamer’ has evolved. This is because of many factors;
The movie business. Many films have been turned into games, so people with no previous interest in gaming may be drawn this way. In any case, it has brought us attention from those that would otherwise not be interested.
The size of the industry. With the size of the gaming industry today, it is hard for anyone to ignore it completely. Business-men buy stocks in the gaming companies because of their success on Wall Street.
Microsoft entering the console market. Microsoft is a name that nobody can get away from. Such a big name moving seriously into the gaming arena is something that people cant turn a blind eye on - And thus gaming is seen in a different way by new people.
Also, even people uninitiated in the gaming genre will probably know about online gaming. Far from being ’proper’ social gaming, it still counts to a lot of people. Gamers all over the world laying and communicating - even making online ’communities’? Its enough to make anyone think twice about the previous stereotype.
So nowadays, we have adults and children alike playing games, many of them even obsessed with it. With this much popularity in the market, its very unlikely that you wont find anyone living near you that loves gaming too! Sites like Special Reserve, aimed at gamers bring them together, another form of social ’gaming’. Gaming magazines take up twice as much shelf space than they used to. In fact, its more or less impossible to ignore gaming as a whole.
So what of social gaming? What is it? How big is it?
Well, as I have briefly mentioned before, there are different types.
The first type is multiplayer games played over the internet. Although the capacity for this has been around a long time, it has only quite recently taken off. And when I say taken off, I mean it! Games like Counter Strike have millions of players worldwide. People make online ‘clans’ - like communities that work together to win. People talk to each other in the game - often from different sides of the globe! Heck, its been known for people to cross oceans to come and see the person they’ve been playing against!
The next type of social gaming is the online communities. Though not actually gaming at the time, these are places to go where you can talk about gaming experiences, write your reviews, help other people out when they are stuck on a game, and basically chat with other people like you! In fact, you may even discover other people that live very close to you! When I came to Special Reserve, I got talking to some people. When someone asked me where I was from, and told me where they lived, I was surprised to find he lived about 10 minutes away, AND I knew him! Places like this can really bring you some online ‘friends’.
The third, and final, type of social gaming I want to talk about is ‘in the real world’. Basically, when people come round your house to play games, or you go to theirs. Or even places like the ‘i’ series, where gamers from all over meet up.
Gaming with friends is a completely different aspect of social gaming to what I have talked about before. What most people consider being real social activity is going out with your friends, or playing sports with friends. Playing games with them is no different, and is in a lot of cases the most enjoyable aspect of all social gaming. Offering laughs and fun, multiplayer games are probably some of the biggest selling. Race friends in a game like Mario Kart, or go into serious mode and kill them in something like Perfect Dark. Of course, there’s the hilarious games like worms, that are just ment to be shared with other people. Although a good shoot ‘em up is a great way of relieving stress! Aside from the competitive aspect, working together can be fun as well. And if you are trying to defeat a really hard boss, the friend actually being in the same room can help! It can even help improve your relationship - getting past a hard level can be very rewarding, and doing it together means you both did well! Even single player games can be more fun with other people around - whether they help you solve a puzzle, or give you a new idea to try, two heads are better than one! You can even take turns (unless you’ve a brand new PS2 and they have dirty hands!).
Places like i8 are great because you can meet other people with the same interests as you - a bit like a matchmaker service!- and have fun at the same time. You can even improve your skills when you really need to wipe the smirk off that guys face!
So, if you were to ask about social gaming today, the reply is more likely to be ‘what’s your favourite game?’ or ‘what time can you play?’
On the whole, gaming is accepted far more widely these days, and being social while gaming has never been easier. So when life’s getting you down, load up Counter Strike, or call some mates, and take it out on your PS2!
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FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
Never thought I'd ever spoke to you, but hey - I guess my reputation preceeds me.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
Never thought I'd ever spoke to you, but hey - I guess my reputation preceeds me.
You cheating chimp! I won for this ages ago!
--------------------------------------------
Yesterday I spent the night at my Ninty friend’s house to celebrate the arrival of GT3 (well, really it was so we could play on it until 5 in the morning). However, that night I experienced the phenomena of sociable gaming.
Now, many people see gaming as a very involved activity, where everyone who can join in should. Say, if you’re back from the pub on a Friday night for a blast of TimeSplitters, you don’t just do the one-player while your 3 mates sit and watch, do you. Anyway, there we were blasting across the finish line of Trial Mountain when my mate suggested, “Do you want to do an endurance race”. I was a bit sceptical of this because only one person can do an endurance race at a time, but after a quick flick through the options we decided to race the Super Speedway 100 laps in the Chevrolet Camaro Race Car, doing 10 laps each. After a few sessions of qualifying to get the gears set up right and get a lap time, we calculated the race would take 54 minutes (although it was closer to 56). It being my PS2, Jonathan (my friend) said I should do the first 10 laps and I grudgingly accepted. “God, this is going to be so boring” I thought, but I was wrong. The hour of racing that followed, on the second most boring track in the game, was the best race I’d ever had on a GT game.
The first few laps were rather uninteresting, our car being vastly more powerful than any of the others, and we started talking about stuff. I can’t remember what exactly, but suffice to say that “left, forwards, left, forward” left me more than enough concentration to have a decent conversation. I think we mainly talked about cars, TV, what we should win next and so on. Anyway, we talked. 4 minutes later I pitted in to hand over the controller to Jonathan, and then came the birth of the challenges. “See how many laps we can go without pitting,” I said. “OK then” he replied/ Just as we were coming out of the pits, I noticed the cones. “Try and hit those cones,” I said. He swerved as soon as he got control of the car and managed to know 2 cones into the track. We had a great laugh trying to keep the cones on the front of our bonnet and knocking the other cars trying to get them to spin out. On we went, and 23 laps and a couple of near misses later, we decided that our tyres had taken enough punishment. During one of Jon’s 10 laps I went to get some milk and biscuits. It was about midnight by now and we were halfway through, and snacks were definitely required. I challenged Jon to eat a bourbon in the time it takes to get from one corner to another, and much swerving, crumbs and fits of laughter ensued. About lap 70 we also had a game of I Spy. As uninspiring as the Super Speedway is, it was still a lot of fun especially when we were naming cars parts like variable differential. It’s a shame we could only do it for 30 laps.
Anyway, we came to the last lap and we held the controller together as we crossed the finish line. We were awarded with a measly 200,000 credits and a fantastic Chevrolet Corvette C5R. We were a bit miffed we didn’t get the F090/S, but we’d had a great time.
So, that was the story of a great hour with a friend, united by possibly the most boring race in all the Gran Turismo games. I think multiplayer gaming is becoming too competitive these days. Hardly ever are you encouraged to work together, and I you should. Ironically, the best co-operative game I know of is Quake 3 capture the flag. You really have to work together, and the games can get a bit frantic with shouts of “I’ve got their flag, where the hell’s ours?” I think developers should take a leaf out of Id’s book and include co-operative multiplayers in their games. With the power of today’s consoles, surely this can be easily done.
--------------------------------------------
Yesterday I spent the night at my Ninty friend’s house to celebrate the arrival of GT3 (well, really it was so we could play on it until 5 in the morning). However, that night I experienced the phenomena of sociable gaming.
Now, many people see gaming as a very involved activity, where everyone who can join in should. Say, if you’re back from the pub on a Friday night for a blast of TimeSplitters, you don’t just do the one-player while your 3 mates sit and watch, do you. Anyway, there we were blasting across the finish line of Trial Mountain when my mate suggested, “Do you want to do an endurance race”. I was a bit sceptical of this because only one person can do an endurance race at a time, but after a quick flick through the options we decided to race the Super Speedway 100 laps in the Chevrolet Camaro Race Car, doing 10 laps each. After a few sessions of qualifying to get the gears set up right and get a lap time, we calculated the race would take 54 minutes (although it was closer to 56). It being my PS2, Jonathan (my friend) said I should do the first 10 laps and I grudgingly accepted. “God, this is going to be so boring” I thought, but I was wrong. The hour of racing that followed, on the second most boring track in the game, was the best race I’d ever had on a GT game.
The first few laps were rather uninteresting, our car being vastly more powerful than any of the others, and we started talking about stuff. I can’t remember what exactly, but suffice to say that “left, forwards, left, forward” left me more than enough concentration to have a decent conversation. I think we mainly talked about cars, TV, what we should win next and so on. Anyway, we talked. 4 minutes later I pitted in to hand over the controller to Jonathan, and then came the birth of the challenges. “See how many laps we can go without pitting,” I said. “OK then” he replied/ Just as we were coming out of the pits, I noticed the cones. “Try and hit those cones,” I said. He swerved as soon as he got control of the car and managed to know 2 cones into the track. We had a great laugh trying to keep the cones on the front of our bonnet and knocking the other cars trying to get them to spin out. On we went, and 23 laps and a couple of near misses later, we decided that our tyres had taken enough punishment. During one of Jon’s 10 laps I went to get some milk and biscuits. It was about midnight by now and we were halfway through, and snacks were definitely required. I challenged Jon to eat a bourbon in the time it takes to get from one corner to another, and much swerving, crumbs and fits of laughter ensued. About lap 70 we also had a game of I Spy. As uninspiring as the Super Speedway is, it was still a lot of fun especially when we were naming cars parts like variable differential. It’s a shame we could only do it for 30 laps.
Anyway, we came to the last lap and we held the controller together as we crossed the finish line. We were awarded with a measly 200,000 credits and a fantastic Chevrolet Corvette C5R. We were a bit miffed we didn’t get the F090/S, but we’d had a great time.
So, that was the story of a great hour with a friend, united by possibly the most boring race in all the Gran Turismo games. I think multiplayer gaming is becoming too competitive these days. Hardly ever are you encouraged to work together, and I you should. Ironically, the best co-operative game I know of is Quake 3 capture the flag. You really have to work together, and the games can get a bit frantic with shouts of “I’ve got their flag, where the hell’s ours?” I think developers should take a leaf out of Id’s book and include co-operative multiplayers in their games. With the power of today’s consoles, surely this can be easily done.
HEY, I ONLY LIKE CHEDDER
Darkness_2K wrote:
> FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> and in the space underneath the bottom line
> it's written in scruffy childish
> scrawl.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
What?
HEY, I DETEST CHESSE.
> FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> and in the space underneath the bottom line
> it's written in scruffy childish
> scrawl.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
What?
HEY, I DETEST CHESSE.
Darkness_2K wrote:
> FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> and in the space underneath the bottom line
> it's written in scruffy childish
> scrawl.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
What?
WHAT?
> FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> and in the space underneath the bottom line
> it's written in scruffy childish
> scrawl.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
What?
WHAT?
FinalFantasyFanatic wrote:
> and in the space underneath the bottom line it's written in scruffy childish
> scrawl.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
What?
> and in the space underneath the bottom line it's written in scruffy childish
> scrawl.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
What?
and in the space underneath the bottom line it's written in scruffy childish scrawl.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
HEY, I LIKE CHEESE.
BECAUSE:
I've heard its been done before (not only by me) and some good discussions cam of it.
I didn't get many replies to mine before, and I obviously was not here when it was dicussed before, so i thought I'd discuss it now.
I want sometihng to discuss is the bottom line.
I've heard its been done before (not only by me) and some good discussions cam of it.
I didn't get many replies to mine before, and I obviously was not here when it was dicussed before, so i thought I'd discuss it now.
I want sometihng to discuss is the bottom line.
Still a great topic nonetheless.
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