This story is about how video games are becoming less "hardcore"and more of a social activity. The article cites Nintendo, whose casual games have created a "living room Renaissance of social gaming" by lowering the learning curve and creating games that require less time of the players to get in to, and less effort to enjoy. This makes the games more accessible, easier to pick up and play when you have less time, or more friends, on your hands. For example, instead of beating bosses or solving complex puzzles, you simply have to swing your arms to hit a baseball (or pitch a baseball to your friend) in Wii Sports. These games focus more on beating your opponents at simple tasks rather than at using complex button sequences, making them more fun to play as a group.
The article also cites social interaction through games online. If you don't have any friends around one day, you can always sign into these games online (more so on the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 than Nintendo's Wii), where you can compete against other human players anywhere in the world. You can even communicate over headsets to talk in real time to your opponents and team mates.
Reading similar articles provides even more information on the topic. Article 1 looks at how the industry is currently shifting from creating games that appeal to a "small cadre of tech-savvy youngsters" to the broad public, similar to the style of the Nintendo Wii. Through creating games for families, adults, and women rather than only for young males, almost all people can find something they like, creating a much larger social network for gaming in general. As more of these social games are created, there will be more temptation to play these games in groups rather than solo.
Article 2 discusses how Massively Multiplayer Online games promote "sociability" and the adaptation to "new world views." By creating a social bridge between different peoples around the world, each individual is exposed to a diversity of world views. With an MMO network 9 million people strong, and the average user spending 20 hours a week playing an MMO, players are able to meet, interact, and learn the views of countless other players. And, unlike the real world, geographic locations in MMOs don't de facto contain individuals of mostly the same views. D.C. is overwhelmingly democratic, Texas is overwhelming republican, but "Freeport" in Everquest contains people with diverse views becuase it can be accessed from any real world geographical location over the net.
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Similar articles:
Article 1) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/arts/television/28game.html
Article 2) http://news.illinois.edu/NEWS/06/0816videogames.html
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This is an interesting idea. One of the things we'll be talking about in coming weeks is whether games can ever be "serious" or if they inevitably end up being either fun OR entertaining--and what implications that question has for the medium.
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