Social Gaming and Community

In tutorial this week I was triggered into thinking about social gaming again when Mark showed us the 1980s clip from ‘Wired In’. It brought up the idea of gaming as an evolving congregation activity, primarily for teenagers, meeting in arcades or around the pinball machine in diners. I feel that gaming is definitely about community and that in response to the recent slew of comments on social gaming I would like to suggest that no matter how ‘terrible’ or ‘undeveloped’ the games in question are its social context is what is important. To some extent my most enjoyable gaming experiences have been in social situations, whether playing games against my brothers or with various friends. Even the most simple games such as ‘snap’ or ‘monopoly’ can turn crazy competitive, even violent, while entertaining with the right people. So despite their stigma I can understand the attraction with social games, as you can compete with people you know over extended periods of time, with relativity little effort. I for example admit to playing the Sims social (initially out of curiosity since I played most of the other incarnations of the game growing up, but then generally when there are assignments due...terrible procrastination device) with various cousins and friends that I generally wouldn’t have that much contact with, it becomes a curious bonding experience, spread out as it is over a lengthy period of time with all contact mediated by the game. While many social games are somewhat trite and perhaps tedious, set up to suction money out their players (true farmvillary) their social function/position is an interesting one that I don’t believe can be dismissed from the gaming world, though perhaps shouldn’t be compared to heavier MMORGs since they are different creatures. Just as someone else mentioned last week, there are books and then there is Twilight, and as much as it may hurt to hear it Farmville and its ilk are games with interesting aspects and social consequences that I believe we can learn from. Many I believe would rather gauge their eyes out than study social games (as evidenced by in class reactions) just as I would if inflicted with a serious discussion of the literary prowess of Twilight, and while the ingame features may be unimpressive to most I don't believe that they should be dissmissed outright from a discussion on context in the current world of gaming.