Social games, one of my favorite HATE subjects, and why is this? Because the definition of being social is so different from person to person, that the more I hear about it the more confused I get. Today social gaming is very normal to talk about, partially because publishers want social and multiplayer games to take over the gaming industry, and many think this is a good thing, to be able to connect to other people across the globe, to a point where distance no longer matters, with online communication being at an all time high, it is easy to have a chat with anyone from anywhere.

So why do I hate the subject? I know that most who read this article will hate me for this, but I'm going to speak my mind here and vent a little.

To be social means to interact with other people, to have contact with them and to communicate with them, but please be honest, how many of the people you crush in League of Legends or whose brains have been splattered on walls by your 45' calibre in Call of Duty, how many of these people are we actually conversing with, how many of them are we interacting with other than those who get to feel the anger after being blown to pieces by our grenades??? Many people play some sort of MMO, whether it is an RTS, FPS or RPG and many also join a guild of like minded gamers in order to raid a dungeon with a chance of success, but there are just as many gamers who play an MMO-RPG without ever joining a guild, people who just want some casual fun, and previously MMO games would not make this easy for the casual gamer, but this year we saw the launch of a very successful MMO-RPG by the name of GUILD WARS 2, the first MMO to ever appeal to the casual and single-player gamer. So if "social" gaming is so popular, then why launch a game that appeals to those that have no wish to game for the sake of being social?

Dont get me wrong, I know that many people play competitively or cooperatively over great distances, and for this sake I agree that online gaming is a good way to connect people, but I also know that many of these people will never have a meaningful conversation with one another, but all they talk about is how good this game is and how bad that game is, and the results of their last dungeon raid. What today qualifies as being social is mostly superficial and shallow, I may never know something valuable about a person even after having played games with this person for several years, and this superficial relationship has for many people completely replaced any TRUE sense of a social life and connection with other people.

In the good old days(yes, I suffer from that syndrome as well) social gaming was done by 2 or more people in the same room while having actual conversations with each other, but this has been replaced with many gamers not being willing to get their ass of the couch and going over to their friends house to play games while still being face-to-face, and this is the very aspect that I believe modern interpretations of social gaming is lacking.

I hear so many people talking about E-sports and MMO dungeon raiding, and none of these aspects of gaming wake the slightest interest in me, because I come from a family where gaming is not a huge issue, when I was a child my mother would not allow a console, like the Commodore 64 or NES inside the house, so I was forced to go visit my friends and play with them, and already here I learned about the enormous amounts of fun you can have with just you, a couple friends and a console with multiple controlers, and I really miss those days.

The true reason for publishers wanting to take everything Online, is not because they care about changing the gaming industry, but rather the same factor that made Blizzard incorporate an always-online feature in Diablo III, this is their way of controling who has a valid copy and code, and who does not. EA has an Online-Passport ffeature that they want to impliment into all of their games, and for this reason ONLY, they will probably force all of their developers to make a multiplayer component in all of their games, so EA can combat the treat of PIRACY and used-game sales. :twisted:

I respect the fact that games as a medium has to change like everything else, but that does not mean that we as humans have to change, or compromise with our ideals just because the majority of Core Gamers want everything to become multi-player, when games like TES: Skyrim and Batman: Arkham City have proven that there is still a HUGE market for single-player gaming, and lots of people who realize that the best Social Gaming is done the old fashioned way, with face-to-face communication and people also being able to talk about other things than their latest raids and deathmatches.

If however, you feel differently about this subject, please feel free to leave a comment, I would love to hear what fascinates you about E-sports or other forms of Social Gaming. :D