Social gaming

Star Wars The Old Republic, is a browser MMO game that revolves around the Republic and the Empire at war. It features many forms of social networking, such as having twitter and facebook accounts. They also involves communicating with other players through social chatting online and forums offline. Candy Crush Saga, is an Facebook game which  involves crushing candy together and completing levels and obstacles. It involves allowing people to chat and invite people to help you out with certain levels.


How does each game frame the ‘social’? What do you think the meaning of social is in these two games?

SWTOR or Star wars, frames social by allowing people to communicate with each other. Besides the aspect of being a role-playing game, it also revolves around strategy, which can be shown through instances, that involves several players, and player vs player, which involves team vs team killing, and you must create a strategy to beat the other team. The meaning of social for this game is to get everyone involves and to get people helping you, and you helping them. Candy Crush Saga involves little communicating in the game, majority comes from it on Facebook. There is also inviting people to help you with levels as well.  The meaning of social for this game involves your friends, even less, only to people who play the game, is involves when communicating. 

What kinds of social things are you able to do and not do with your friends? Are there options to play with strangers and make new friends?

What I cannot do while playing SWTOR is to go on social networks, because it involves launching it and it takes you to a different screen. So it takes away from communicating with your friends. Also friends may not be playing the same game that you are and may not be able to talk to them. With Candy Crush Saga,it could be annoying for people to get those invites and do not reply, which takes away the social communicating aspect of it. But everything else I can communicate while I am playing, since it is run on Facebook, and virtually all my friends have it. For SWTOR, you can add them as a friend only on the game, but not through social networking, whereas with Candy Crush, you can because it run on Facebook.

Outline and describe these measures/metrics of social and interaction.

With SWTOR, the measure and metrics of social and interaction is big because it is a public area, but it is limited because there is little to no social networking. I think it is because it is focused more on the role playing of the game itself than actually focus on the communicating itself. Communicating in most MMO compliments the actual game game. With Candy Crush Saga, it involves only your friends and who plays it, especially since it is on Facebook.

What kinds of assumptions are these social measures based on?

I think based on these two games, that the measures are based on how the game is functioned. With SWTOR, as a MMO and including RPG and collaborating with other people in a social environment and playing in a group, where they engage in an imaginative storytelling moment. Candy Crush Saga does not have the features of actually role playing, it instead involves solving puzzles and beating levels. SWTOR measures based on the people in an instance or another way of saying it, how many people are in that public server. Whereas with Candy Crush Saga, it is a global game run on Facebook and it is measured based on the friends who play it.

Consider constraints and affordances for these social aspects – what works – what doesn’t? With what kinds of implications?

Some constraints is the purchasing process for the game, the features that are not included  in the actual game without making a purchase. it does take away the experience of playing it. It does freeze because the connection may not be perfect and it does affect how much time I play on it. Some affordance it what you get from being socially active through instances and pvp, such as achievements and being able to purchase social items with credits you earn in the game. With Candy Crush Saga, there is no achievements for being social, I feel that being able to communicate can be rewarding, but this game does not grant people that. Affordances can be the invites, because people do actually help out, and using social networks to help you in the game.

What kinds of incentives does each game have to be social?

 As mentioned earlier, some incentives for being social in SWTOR including achievements, and the ability to purchase with credits when obtaining social points through out the game. With Candy Crush, it does not really involved actual rewards, but it help communicate with people and getting to know people better.

How are relationships in these games framed? Camaraderie? Competition? Etc

In the relationships framed in SWTOR, there really is not a whole lot of actual relationship building because you are only inviting them to a group to finish a quest, but it doesnt not involve social networking. It does have social networking accounts, but does not include them in the game. If they include social networking sites, it could make the game more popular in my mind. So if they can involve social media more, then it could create stronger ties in creating relationships. With Candy Crush, is it less about competition, and more about trying to get people to communicate. But I think that they should use another way of communicating about the game besides invites. Facebook should incorporate Facebook chat with games, but that is just my opinion.

Why are ‘social’ games so popular? Offer some critical commentary.

I think they are so popular is because of the graphics and how the game is presented to an audience. Every year, games are being presented through fairs such as gaming conventions and launch parties.I think that social games are more about what a person can actually do in a game rather than how they can communicate. Game developers and working to incorporate social networking and communicating with their games, but people still feel that the graphic and design make up the performance of the actual game. People do communicate through other devices such as their cellphone, computer etc. on a game, and people still get in a habit of doing two things at once. The time will come when you can do everything, from social networking, messaging, and playing a game, all on one game.