Social Gaming (Off-Topic)

by Doooskey, Kansas City, MO, Wednesday, February 12, 2014, 12:34 (3936 days ago) @ Schooly D

"Imagine you've got a mountain near your house. You and a friend decide to climb it one day. You make it to the top, and it's pretty cool looking out over your town from high up. The climb was challenging, and you had fun doing it. What now?"

"So now what? Well, you say, I'm going to climb it faster. Your friend instead decides to travel and try climbing another mountain. You work out the fastest way up, and end up getting pretty good climbing. Over and over, you shave time off your ascent. You're not even enjoying the view or taking it in, instead your climb plan is your focus. Step, jump here. Eventually, you climb that mountain so fast, nobody else can beat you.

But was it worth it? Not only have you reduced climbing the mountain to a series of steps, cold and mechanical, but in doing so you race past not even taking in the view anymore. Yeah you're the fastest, but does that matter when your friend comes back having climbed ten mountains in different places, with tons of new views, paths, techniques, and stories to share?"

"I'm trying to help you. Multiplayer is what you want. You've become burned out on playing single-player in the manner you used to, and you trace the cause to be the fault of "games.""

I think the key is people. People make games fun, either as the people making games who create worlds that are immersive and awesome or as the people we play games with. I think there is a third category of gaming: social gaming. People are the dynamic part of multiplayer - the challenge of facing other humans, and the joy of working with good friends to overcome the creative and fresh challenges. Also, people are what make speedrunning any fun at all. If you don't have someone to show, or a community to share with, than it really is for nothing (or is that too extreme?).

I think a good game is made great with friends. A good single player campaign is always more fun when you have a friend to compete with as you try to beat harder difficulties before each other. I think Co-op games create some of the best experiences in video games. Multiplayer is amazing, and is maybe the most pure social experience you can have in video games right now.

The interesting thing about Destiny, the highest hope I have for this game is that it will be an amazing new gameplay experience that also forges a new form of social gaming that blends the best of single-player, co-op, and multiplayer into one seamless world.

Awesome people make things awesome. (and the inverse of this statement is true as well)