Halo 3 and the “Networking” it causes….
October 1st, 2007, JRoyLike many people across the country, my house was infiltrated by Halo 3 last week. The popular XBox game series (Halo 3 is only available for the XBox 360 system) has a cult-like following and numerous retailers opened their doors at 12 a.m. last Tuesday to offer gamers the newest installation at the first moment possible, also the pre-sale stats of the game were 1.5 million copies. What is it about this game that would cause that kind of a stir?
The other thing that seems to make this game so special is its “Networking.” The online capabilities of this game are similar to those of World of Warcraft, the online fantasy based multi-player game. Halo 3 players that are online (A capability that the system offers) can play against people from all over the world or be on teams with them. It also has a headset that allows players to talk to one another while they play.
The social attributes to this game are very similar to that of social networks online. They allow people to interact without direct contact. It also allows people to interact with there current friend base and people they do not actually know.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Are we giving ourselves more and more reasons to simply stay at home and not actually interact with people or is this just broadening our reach to one another?
October 10th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Personal belief… anything that has you interacting with your environment in an active fashion is better than not interacting at all. So I think the question for me is “what is this time replaceing”?
If they are now sitting on a couch and ordering in pizza instead of working out at the gym with friends, it is a bad thing. If it is replacing watching mindless network television than I think it is a good thing. I also think it allows people who are shy in “live” social situations to be more extroverted without so much fear of ridicule.
There have been multiple research studies created to study the social interactions (or lack of) of World of Warcraft players. Check out the PlayOn Blog. Then check out the Alone Together string. Look at the number of comments it generated over time!
Another interesting thing regarding Halo 3. Check out the Google Trends on people searching for Halo 3. Notice how all the press around the launch of the game caused the volume of people searching for the term to increase by x9 in about 15 days!
October 11th, 2007 at 8:20 am
Those search numbers are staggering, that goes to show what
some good press can do to create a strong buzz.