Gaming Communication: When Not Playing Games
Email thisSocial gaming is something I enjoy, and it’s one of the main reasons I game. I like the community aspect of gaming, whether it’s just social, or moves into the competitive realm (which is also social to me). The hard part with this is what The Mighty Viking Hamster (amazing name for a blog amirite?) was talking about:
So, am I the only one who thinks that MMOs should allow players, both current and old ones, to access some chat channels, including guild chat, through a separate IM program, even when they are not subscribed anymore?
Before I break this down, I want to say that I agree completely. Having social systems outside of games that we play is an amazing added benefit to gaming.
Sure, there are other ways that guilds/friends can keep in touch outside of a game, but that’s not really the point here. The point is that keeping touch outside of the game (currently) is dichotomous in nature. If you’re in the game, you’re communicating in game. If you’re out of the game, your’re communicating on forums on an instant messenger or Vent or Mumble or something. What if I want to keep in touch with my friends when they’re playing and I’m unsubscribed from the game? Or at a family get together?
The separation of “in game” and “out of game” communication is what needs to go away.
Because it encourages us to come back to games
Companies may be loathe to say “you can’t communicate in game with your friends when you don’t have the game!” (in a subscription based model), but I think this is incorrect. If I was chatting with guildies and they were doing really cool fun stuff, and I wasn’t playing, it would just want me to play more! A feature like this may not create new revenue, but it sure will bring back old players.
WoW already does this to a certain degree, allowing for mobile armory and chatting in guild chat from a phone, but these are separate services in addition to the game itself. I’ve seen very few people actually using it, but it’s pretty cool when they do. Making it free would only encourage a higher participation rate. It’d be like txting from your phone, but it’d be guild chat instead. Want.
Because it encourages us to stay in the game
A communication system that spans on and offline would also encourage retention of players. Supporting ease of communication between guild members just facilitates keeping a group of people together, which means people play the game longer. This is great for subscription-based business models, but it’s great for any game. Moar players = better.
Imagine a chat room connected to the guild forums, but that chat room is guild chat. Then you can chat in guild on your phone, on a computer that can’t run the game, wherever! Imagine those moments that get quiet when everyone is at work or gone, or just can’t log on… now you can all still talk! Sure, you might be the only person logged into the game, but now you have more people to talk to! I think this would just increase the social abilities of guilds.
Other, similar, programs already exist
Steam does this really well; I just think it’s missing something. Primarily, the ability to do group chat, or a “guild chat” type feature (or maybe I just don’t know about it). 1 to 1 chat/IM on Steam is amazing, but if you added in a group chat feature, it would catapult it from amazing to mind boggling. Steam would turn into a social network (more than it already is).
There are also other programs, such as Raptr, but I know very little about them as I have not really used them. There doesn’t seem to be a huge pick up rate to them (though I see Raptr growing among my friends).
So just build it already!
I’m just kidding. Building something like this would be a monumental programming effort. I’m just spinning some gears over here about the theory of why this could be cool and a good way to implement it. I know it would take a ton of effort. I just hope someone does!
tl-dr
There needs to be a way to communicate with gaming friends both in game, and out of game at the same time. Do not separate the communication into two different spaces.
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I saw the first paragraph, and thought you meant “social games” as in Zynga/Facebook. That scared me for a moment — the concept that there was any community around those other than ‘begging friends to join’.
I’m all for gaming socially. Contributing to the community around a game is one of the best parts! We kind of see the lasting connection of in-game friends through these large guilds that hop from MMO to MMO, generally staying together as a group.
Will we have MMOs with Guild Chat apps? Someday, sure! I’ll bet most guilds would be interested. That kind of good, positive community increases respect for the game, even if it doesn’t increase profitability. Like you said, “A feature like this may not create new revenue, but it sure will bring back old players”.
Yeah, probably a poor word usage of “social games”
Yeah, I think the retention and ability to bring back old players would be the highlight of a system like this for companies. The highlight for the players is that it would be awesome.
Thanks for the comment!
Glad someone else agrees with me here (on the instant messaging part, not the name of the blog). It makes so much sense that I cannot quite understand why it has not been done up till now. Is there something we are missing?
I think it’s a matter of the time and effort it takes to make it happen. Whole companies are dedicated to communication (Skype, Mumble, Vent), and now we’re talking about trying to integrate those kinds of things into an online platform. It’s a very difficult technical task.
Plus, how hard would it be to convince the business people: “ok, we’re going to create something that anyone could use. Yup, even if they aren’t paying for the game, they can use it.” Kind of hard for businesses to do that I think.
I already commented on this over at Liore’s and couldn’t agree more; all I see is upsides for everyone involved. kinda weird that not more have implemented this already, considering it would be such a big lure for player comeback.
Yeah, it’s hard for big business to change thinking like this over night (or over-decade I guess). Change is scary! lol