Is Xbox Live better than golf for digital business networking?

July 14, 2010 By 1 Comment

I’ve never managed to get into golf as a sport, but I’ve often been made aware of it as a useful social gathering for business people to get together. Was I missing out due to my lack of interest, ability and plaid sportswear?

My Lucky Golf Outfit by Jeff The Trojan on Flickr

‘My Lucky Golf Outfit‘ by Jeff the Trojan on Flickr (CC Licence)

Well, if golf was the social context for business networking in the past, I’m rapidly realising that Xbox Live appears to have replaced it. Obviously my network is self-selecting to an extent, but a quick scan of my friends includes:

  • a couple of founders of significant start-ups (i.e. companies you’ll definitely know).
  • a fair number of journalists, including a couple of editors.
  • 5-10 fairly prominent digital marketers.
  • a handful of tech experts in specialist areas.

Theoretically it’s possible I could keep up with all of these friends in the pub, although it’d take a mighty amount of diary juggling and even then, some of them are rarely in the same city with enough free time.

But it’s easy for me to meet up with them online and spend some time gaming (and occasionally chatting about general tech stuff in between). And without wishing to provoke the wrath of Sony/Nintendo fans, the fact that Xbox Live has long been the most seemless and best integrated online networked console experience, means it’s a pretty good time all round…

It interesting how this facet of being social has become integrated into the digital world automatically and subsconsciously alongside keeping in touch with family, friends, colleagues and the looser circle of connections around them both on a personal level, and sharing links, information etc…

And even if the game of choice is pretty much always Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (Xbox 360), I could probably even be tempted into a spot of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 (Xbox 360).

Filed Under: Videogames, xbox 360 Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The best social games on any platform…

February 22, 2010 By 3 Comments

Social Gaming is one of the trends of the moment, and the best examples of the genre are Farmville, which has reached 80 million users via Facebook, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on Xbox, which has topped $1 billion in sales since November 2009.

Despite the fact they are both very different games on different platforms, they both share many similar attributes which have seen two radically different audiences become engrossed, enthralled, and in some cases obsessed and possibly addicted.

1. Shareability: Using Facebook as a platform means Farmville is easily able to spread across 300 million users. Although Call of Duty is in a walled garden by only working with people on the same system (whether Xbox, Playstation or PC), all three options now allow for friends lists and invites into games, allowing me to be invited into a social group as soon as I turn on the games console. When Call of Duty launched I could see 20+ of my friends were playing, meaning the pull to join them was incredibly strong.

2. Grindability: Something that’s been noted in social gaming is the ability to ‘level up’ and progress simply by investing plenty of time (or by paying to skip the time requirement). Both Farmville and Call of Duty reward you simply for spending time with them, even if you don’t do particularly well. Even if you constantly kill your crops, Farmville gives you ways to keep going, and Call of Duty gives you bonuses for finishing a multiplayer match or benefitting from the skill of your teammates.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Image by Flyinace2000 on Flickr, used under CC Licence.

3. Accessibility: Both games allow you to jump in and start playing quickly without barriers. Although you can earn better rewards in both games, in Farmville they are really just enhancing the same game mechanic you already have – and in Call of Duty the weapons you unlock aren’t that much better than the ones you start with. Instead of leaving the all powerful weapons for players who have spent months with the game, this means that as a beginner, you can still do OK in a game to give you a reason to carry on.

Farmville

Farmville image by RustyBoxcars on Flickr, used under CC Licence.

4. Social standing: Whether in Farmville or Call of Duty, you’re rewarded with marks of your progress which give you an element of social standing with your friends – in Farmville it’s buildings, pets and better crops. In Call of Duty, once you’ve finally got through 70 multiplayer ranks, you’re then given the option to reset every reward, but now you get a badge to show you’re ‘prestiged’. And you can do it again, and again, up to 10 times apparently.

I’ve dabbled with Farmville, but the small social group whose respect is probably more relevant to me are on Call of Duty, which is why I’ve spent a seemingly ridiculous amount of time on the game in the last few months.

5. Ways to rank: With Farmville you can rank for experience, levels, and by helping your friends and neighbours – if I help a friend they get a message telling them how lovely I am. By the same token, Call of Duty not only gives you an overall level, but scores you on score, wins, kills and accuracy, meaning that there’s always someone you know that’s just ahead in one of the leaderboards, and you’ll always have one score that’s respectable.

A world of gamers:

I’ve written before about why the time is now right for pervasive social gaming. It’s now backed up by Windows Mobile 7 including Xbox Live. Gamers are not a niche group of teenagers – they’re the 55% of female Farmville players who are 43 years old on average, or the middle-aged guys who have gone from an early 90s console to the latest Xbox or Playstation after work or their kids are in bed.

This doesn’t mean that the current media (TV, radio, print etc), can’t still command huge audiences, but they’re converging more and more (Pop Idol etc using text voting, user-controlled radio (disclosure, I work on dabbl), the use of QR codes and augmented reality to brief new technological life into print, etc. Games have pervaded everything as much as story-telling, even if the critical debate about them is still in the early stages of evolution.

Filed Under: Social Gaming, Videogames, xbox 360 Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The time is right for pervasive social gaming

December 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I remember a quote from a Microsoft exec around the time of the Xbox 360 launch, in which he outlined his dream of console gamers being able to play a title like Halo on a console, but also contribute to the game via mobile devices. (I think it was J.Allard, but trying to find the right issue of adult-orientated games mag Edge from two years ago proved fruitless).

The response on forums and the letters page the following month were full of dismissive replies from ‘hardcore’ gamers.

But rather than being a bad idea, it was simply a case of bad timing. The conditions are now perfect for a cohesive game universe to reach people 24/7, wherever they are, and whatever they are doing.

Obviously for starters we have convergent devices as games consoles which have a prime spot in the lives and living rooms of a lot of people, and achieve acceptance by also playing DVDs, streaming movies etc.

Then we have mobile devices, most notably the iPhone, which opens up a gaming app world previously inaccessible to those embarrassed to be seen in public with a Nintendo DSi or Sony PSP. And bearing in mind the ever-increasing average age of gamers, the shame factor is a key point.

Thirdly we have the world of Farmville and Fishville on Facebook, and the myriad of other social games created by the likes of Playfish and Zynga. The largest of these games has more members than Twitter, and taps into both the viral distribution mechanisms available on social networks, and the most insightful game theory to ensure return visit.

The tipping point will simply come when a console manufacturer who runs a gaming network e.g. Microsoft, enables their user database to feed mobile devices and social network games in addition to the Xbox Live network. You’re already using your MSN Live Passport (or whatever it’s called now) to sign into every MSN service from hotmail, to MSN Messenger, to Xbox Live. And various third-party services allow you to share your gaming interactions with automatic feeds to Facebook, Twitter etc.

The next stage will be a 24/7, multi-medium, pervasive gaming experience which has the potential to completely overtake the likes of Second Life and World of Warcraft, which are still tied into one specific universe.

My money would be on Microsoft to be the brand to make it happen. They’ve got more experience of providing a live online gaming platform, they’ve obviously got experience in unifying the logins across products, and they’ve led the way in a converged device which allows for gaming, traditional entertainment, online game shows, integration with Twitter, Faceook, Last.fm (which got 1 million new users in the first few days of integration), and an investment in Facebook.

Plus they’ve also got a handful of selected titles which could make the leap. Halo is the flagship title which could justify revitalisation after this long leading the way and a few initial forays into spin-offs (Halo Wars for example). Grand Theft Auto is something I already tipped as a potential sure-fire win as a virtual world, and would also lend itself to pervasive gaming (Look at the success of Mob Wars on social networks). And then there’s a title like Call of Duty, which now boasts the world’s largest army (thankfully it’s only virtual), and a military management/resupply function would tie in to the overall themes.

I’m just amazed it hasn’t happened in 2009, and definitely predict it’ll occur in 2010. We’re already not far away with many people using online communities to check out videos, images, tips etc during the day to fuel their evening of gaming. Now it won’t just be our friends and contacts who we can carry around with us 24/7 – it will be those entire virtual worlds in which so many of us enjoy our leisure time which will be with us all the time. There are times when the tasks in those games can feel like a second job, but when they become all pervasive, perhaps that’s the point where a virtual world or gaming occupation actually becomes widely accepted as a primary job?

Filed Under: Digital Culture, Videogames, xbox 360 Tagged With: , , , ,

Videogames, morality, the media, and Modern Warfare

November 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The mainstream media interest in videogames has generally only been sparked by the regular doses of outrage at whichever game is currently corrupting our children. Which is why I’ve been so absorbed by the coverage of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, in which you go undercover and become part of a terrorist act – and also the media coverage which seems to be a more balanced and mature look at video game morality than we’ve previously had (Probably because most people in their 30s have grown up with videogames and are reasonably likely to have a current generation console in their house).

Two thoughts initially sprang to mind:

1. The morality questions comes round every 6 months, and has done since the days of the Spectrum and Commodore 64. Aside from the comical notion of the media outcry over Night Trap, for example, in which the most offensive thing was the acting, there have also been dilemmas put in front of gamers for a while now – if not quite as explicit as this choice.

In one edition of the World War 2 series Medal of Honour, for example, you encountered a group of unarmed German soldiers sat around the campfire, and could either sneak past, or shoot them in the back – and either option resulted in the game continuing as before – the only result was to have the player consider the moral implications. (Possibly more for me than most, as I’d been reading Michael Walzer’s ‘Just and Unjust Wars’ for a history class at university around the same time!)

2. Even in games where there is no explicit moral dilemma or mechanic players have used their own imagination for years to fill in such gaps. And with online gaming, our encounters with other humans is leading to questions of etiquette and morals in a way which is entirely compatible with the physical world, even if it’s played out differently. For instance, have a read of ‘Bow, Nigger’, an article often referenced as spearheading games journalism away from simply rating graphics on a score of 1-10, and instead starting to look at the feelings and emotions players encounter, for example.

And that’s before we even start mentioning Second Life and World of Warcraft.

Filed Under: Videogames, xbox 360 Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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