The ShenBot

I am SO tempted to write about the possible emergence of MicroHoo! … or GooHoo! … But … I feel like fighting the Man and not giving in. Instead, there were several bits of news on the social aspect of gaming, specifically online gaming, and in conjunction with our class readings really got me thinking about how gaming is in the process of evolving.

The New York Times ran an article on the current “sea change” happening in the gaming world. The change in question is the shift away from a single person spending hours by himself in front of a computer geeking out to Alpha Centauri and moving toward a family playing tennis together on their newly purchased Nintendo Wii. Apparently, some of the highest rated games released in 2007 didn’t even come close to cracking the top ten of most purchased games – whereas some of the lowest rated games did. These of course were all social games – Wii Play, Rock Star, Guitar Hero to name a few. (Kotaku ran a story about how an east coast radio station planned a stunt to play Rock Band live on-air via LIVE. That, by the way, is right next to “cross platform” in the dictionary.) And this doesn’t even take the online social gaming world into account. It’s as if the gaming world – online and console – is going through a similar transformation into the nebulous concept of 2.0 that we saw with the Web.

One day after the Times article ran, Kotaku put up a post about a recent entry on Henry Jenkins’ blog. Henry Jenkins is the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and his blog was about the concept of social responsibility in gaming in China. I thought to myself, “Self, this is kind of random.” Nevertheless, I found it intriguing and oddly relevant. Jenkins explained how the general concern about gaming in China isn’t violence in games or how it will affect its players. The main concern was about how online gaming can be made to help transform societies. The reality that online gaming is such an outlet for Chinese youth can’t be ignored, so officials are saying that the games themselves should contribute to bring about a renewed sense of pride and understanding about Chinese culture and history. What was particularly interesting to me was that in a society where most families only have one child, those children will retreat into their social lives online more than connecting with their “real life” families and contacts – essentially, the games should be responsible for making sure the games allow for social interaction, particularly within a family. Yes, that sounds like Wii to me, too.

I read both of these articles/posts before this week’s reading about Virtual World Business Brands. Although the article does not specifically address this issue as a whole, it absolutely ties in to the overall picture. Part of the reason those four members brands became as successful as they did in world was because of the community associated with their particular brands. And although Second Life and There don’t have the same “gaming” focus that other MMOGs like World of Warcraft do, there is a very evident tie here for me. Plain and simple: People enjoy participating in activities together whether it’s offline, online, shopping, game play or even watching television (as we’re seeing in the rise of the online viewing party). I know I’m starting to sound like a spokesperson for Scrabulous, but it’s a perfectly pedestrian example of this change – why would I play solitaire when I can participate in a little vocabulary whoop-a*& on Facebook?