Swords-N-Sandals online games as we know it has matured into a six-foot tall sword-fighting frenzy of frenzied costume-clad faces. You can literally join an online game as a fully equipped ninja.
And yes, online game mechanics require you to engage with social media, too, with simple games like Hearthstone encouraging its players to tweet about their gameplay sessions, or Destiny welcoming new arrivals to an online game with a drop-in chat feature.
But some games, such as SingStar and Puzzles & Dragons, encourage players to log into a chat room for an interactive party experience. Games such as Adventure Quest and Swords-N-Sandals online games like Warframe also utilise online chat rooms. Online games like Dungeons & Dragons encourage online chat chat online games even reward you with in-game items or currency.
I can imagine, in a game as popular as Minecraft, many players will eventually venture into a room to talk to a friend about which build they should build. But it wouldn’t be a surprise if Minecraft made all of its chat rooms unavailable in the future, as it has done so with some smaller online games, effectively silencing online chat during quieter times for online games.
Some games give you the option to chat in a separate room. But in the vast majority of online games, you have to log in to chat to someone. Online games encourage players to engage with the community as an online friend or as an online community. In an online game, you might not meet your friend face-to-face, but a new friend could be your online neighbour.
The problem is that this would cause players to disconnect themselves from each other, to avoid sharing an online community with complete strangers. As an online friend would never know the struggle a new player might be going through, and wouldn’t give the player their opinion and potentially reach out to help, they wouldn’t interact with each other online, and would have no idea what challenges a new player could be going through.
And if they did stay connected to each other as online friends, these friends would feel as if their needs weren’t being listened to or that they were only being spoken to because they were new to the game.
But in online games, players don’t have to be strangers to the game. Their online characters can become a friend and you could still chat to a player face-to-face. In online games, a player can message their online friends on a daily basis, whether you talk in person or not, to chat about the game and what you’re doing.
Similarly, in online games, players will engage in in-game chats with complete strangers, while socialising with players they know and potentially going out of their way to be friendly and friendly with strangers.
Online games encourage players to log in as strangers and to help others, while in real life players will stay in their safe zone by only chatting to their friends, online or offline, and never stepping outside their social comfort zone.
But online games also encourage players to create their online characters as a full digital avatar. Online characters are created with a complete vision for who they are, including what their character looks like, and how they dress. So, players might be willing to share photos of their character to the community and a player could still be a complete stranger to another player’s online character.
And online games also encourage players to create online characters and then share those characters online. In some games, players make an avatar and then choose a character name from a list, after which players must post a photo of their avatar to Facebook or Twitter.
Just as social media has become part of everyday life, it is likely that virtual social networking is going to become a huge part of online games. Players who have been playing online games for years will be talking to players they have never met in person, but created online with a complete picture of their character.
It’s not surprising, in this era of social media, that games are the new social networks.
Don’t leave it to chance
Social networking has become the backbone of many websites. Online games are a new way to connect with a community. Instead of choosing a gaming community, players will connect online through social networking sites and build a community with friends and virtual friends.
But social networking websites could make it harder to share your gaming community with complete strangers. Social networking sites could make it harder for a complete stranger to join a game and play with complete strangers.
Unlike an online game, social networking sites allow users to connect with complete strangers. Social networking sites make it easy to connect with someone you just met through a game and you could join that person’s gaming community without having to meet them in real life.
Social networking sites would make it harder to create online communities. But this won’t stop games from using social networking sites and other online platforms to connect with players. Games don’t just create online communities through social networking sites and online games, they could use these social networking sites to create communities through online games.
Social networking sites would allow players to easily create communities around online games, and make it easier for players to create and maintain communities around games. Players would start to share their gaming communities with complete strangers online, online games could encourage online players to share the gaming community with complete strangers online.
In a world where social networking sites are becoming common, more players could make online games into real communities.
But players could choose to create their online characters online and take the social benefits of online games into real life. Online games allow players to create a full digital avatar with everything from the username and avatar, to the name, the social profiles and even a link to online games. Players can share photos of their complete virtual character online and create a virtual community around the full character and the virtual world they created online. Players could even set up games to be able to share their online characters with a friend playing in real life.
Social networking sites could make it easy for players to create a digital identity online and become a virtual identity, living in a virtual world.
What games can teach us about social networking
Games provide players with the opportunity to explore online communities with complete strangers. Online games allow players to create a complete virtual identity with complete strangers, and take that virtual identity into real life.