OPINION: Social Gaming And Eating My Words

This weeks post is not from me as at the moment I'm in the middle of exams (which are going fine by the way thanks for asking) and neck deep in text books. This weeks post comes from a very good friend of mine Elizabeth Danger. She is a freelance journalist who writes for Level 3 and Save Game Online. Enjoy while I go nose deep into my Psychology text book, yay.

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This week, readers, I became everything I have ever hated. I've started playing The Sims Social. I still remember the feeling of almost disgust that ran through me when it was announced at E3. 'How sad,' I thought. 'People are actually going to spend time playing this game instead of actually doing what they're acting out in real life.' I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to watch their two Sims having fun instead of... you know, hanging out with that person and actually having fun with them.

And then this week, with the intent of having sexual relations with all my friends Sims (as a sign of friendly affection, I assure you,) I started playing the game.

And I actually found myself enjoying it.

We recently learned that, according to AppData, The Sims Social has surpassed FarmVille in Daily Active Users (DAUs.) I never really could get into the FarmVille thing, or any social gaming, really, so I'm having a very hard time trying to understand why Sims Social is so different for me. It goes without saying that the Sims formula is addictive enough as it is, I've been wasting my life on the franchise for almost 10 years now, and I don't doubt that the accessibility of the game is a massive pull. Because it's free, it's easy to jump right into. I remember paying about $70 for the first Sims game, which to be honest had less features than Sims Social and has left me feeling a little ripped off that it's available for free.

Once you're hooked in by the concept of a free Sims game, it's a bit of a slippery slope. In my case, I wanted to have my Sim (affectionately named Assbutt,) swapping bodily fluids with everyone I knew playing the game as a bit of a joke. I wanted that 'Whoo Hoo' notification that made me laugh so hard during the E3 keynote littered all over my friends walls. After creating my scarlet woman of a Sim, I discovered this wouldn't be so easy.

First I would, obviously, need a double bed for my Sim to bonk in. On buying the double bed, I discovered that to assemble it, I would need some items that were only attainable by performing quests, making social interactions and fulfilling Assbutt's various needs. Whatever, right? Surely I could just play for a few hours and before I knew it my Sim would be bonking her way into this joke and we'd all have a laugh about it later.

It was about halfway through my bed quest that I realised all my friends had better houses than me. To be completely accurate, Assbutt was living in a one bedroom flat with a single bed in the bathroom to make room for her computer desk while Breanna Sim was living in a mansion with a spa in the living room just because. I couldn't have this. Breanna isn't a gamer in real life, I am. I should be winning at having a nice virtual life!

It was on. I'd started this imaginary contest with Breanna purely to flex my e-muscles. First thing I'd need would be another room to house my yet-to-be-assembled double bed in, which would require 3 friends to help me in building because apparently tradies don't exist in the Sim world. I can pinpoint the exact moment of my downfall, because it was when I did what I promised myself I wouldn't do and actually actively invited friends to play the game. That was it. The minute I clicked that 'send invite' button I became everything I said I wouldn't.

While I'm yet to invest any money in this game (and trust me, I have been very tempted to,) I've invested more time than I should. I actually put off playing Fallout last night to finish a quest in Sims Social. I've legitimately had a conversation at work about the game. Before I wrote this article I was playing it. Not even the shame and embarrassment that I once felt playing social games haunts me like it did during what I have named 'The GagaVille Incident.'

Thinking about it a bit more, though, I suppose the only reason I'm even writing this confession of sorts is the stigma associated with social gaming in the gaming community. We constantly scoff at FarmVille, but Zynga makes an obscene amount of money off those casual gamers. I used to joke that social games were the vampires of gaming, and not the cool ones, either. I mean the stupid sparkly ones. Well, now one of those sparkly vampires is watching me sleep and making me choose between him and my werewolf friend and goddamn if I'm not enjoying it.

The worst thing is, however, I'm already planning how I'm going to ween myself off this game. I know I'm down the rabbit hole and I know I'm going to need to stop myself or I'm just not going to play any other games, which isn't okay because I still need to play Deus Ex and Dead Island already. I can't help but wonder if I've been too hard on those who indulge in FarmVille and Vampire Wars, maybe it's no more embarrassing than being a serious WoW player. Perhaps the stigma attached to social gaming is one we've created because we as gamers fear change, or we fear our world that has been so niche for so long becoming as mainstream as it is.

Stigma or no, spending any amount of time on this game probably isn't healthy, and my original argument still stands: I could actually be hanging out with my friends instead of sitting at a computer and simulating it. That being said, however, in the end, I can't get my freak on with every single one of them in real life (nor would I really want to,) so maybe I've found something that only Sims Social can offer me.

For the record, Assbutt is yet to bed any of her neighbours. Just like real life.


 

CGBC is on (sorry for not saying more)

I was going to write about how we're at the tail end of CGBC 2011 and how awesome it has been so far but it's just because of that I can't. I am absolutely knackered and I've been up late working along with my good friends at Level 3 to make it awesome.

So I'm just going to say sorry for no post or even some back up news but I promise that next weeks post will have the lot. But in the mean time feel free to watch all the action live online here.

Till next week I'm gonna get some sleep,

zzzzzzzzz

CGBC is back

The Computer Games Boot Camp is on again. I'm really looking forward to attending this epic event. Those who don't know about it CGBC is a week long event running July 9-15 for high-school students over 15. It's held at Monash universities Clayton campus in Melbourne. The space is huge and has had to expand every year because of how popular it is. Not quite as big as E3 but almost. Close to 2000 people are booked to be there this year. I personally have attended this event since the first one back in 2009 and it has grown and really become the biggest gaming event in Australia.

The week consists of speeches from some of Australia's big biggest names in gaming, tournaments for a wide variety of games, workshops, competitions and more prizes get given away then there are people to accept them. Thermaltake, IAH Games, Autodesk, Sony and Adobe just to name a few will be there to give talks and give away some prizes.

Exclusive to CGBC will be the Australian leg of the Call of Duty tournament. The winning team will qualify to go on to LA to play in the finals for a chance at one million dollars USD. The tournament is open to any team of four with all its members over the age of 18. Details are still being announced regarding the tournament so stay tuned for more information as it comes to hand.

Registrations are still open so feel free to register your interest now Here but the event starts this Friday so do it fast. Keep up with all of the latest news from the event you can join the conversation on facebook. If you can't attend but you still want to see whats going on Level 3 are doing an all day live stream of the event from start to finish. So you wont miss a thing. Read more about the live stream here.

I hope to see you there and if you see me (which wont be hard my face is the logo for this site) feel free to come up and say hello.

Till next week, peace.

Borderlands interuption (Warning: Rant below)

Yes I did say that this week I would be posting a review. I was going to talk about Beaterator for the psp. However I have been interupted by Borderlands GOTY Edition. I won it on Saturday (big thanks to Level 3 for the game check them out here) and have not stopped playing it (except to well you know tell all you about it) since. My first thoughts are that it feels like a total conversion mod for Fallout 3 (Review here) but with the exception of an overarching storyline.

My relationship with Borderlands until recently was that I hated it but this may have been because of how I was introduced to the game. I first saw the game way back in 2009 before it was released at the 2K booth of the International Digital Lifestyle Show (or IDEF for short) here in Melbourne. They had Borderlands along with whatever the latest basketball game was at the time. I saw it and thought 'cool cartoon FPS' looked a bit like the xbox game XIII and gave it a go. I had a sniper rifle and a bunch of bandits in the distance. Awesome I'll take some pot shots. I lined up the cross-hairs on a bandits head and fired with the expectation that he would drop. NO! The game tells me I scored a critical hit and he returns fire along with all of his now pissed off mates. I raged so hard. I PUT A BULLET THROUGH YOUR SKULL AND YOU ARE NOT DEAD! WHAT THE FUCK! A brief firefight ensued before I died. I put the controller down, collected my free Borderlands T-shirt (I didn't care that I hated the game, a free shirt is a free shirt) and left. I thought it was Final fantasy FPS style with the whole DPS and critical hit stuff.

About a year later I'm in a net cafe with my mates playing COD 4 when we decided to take a break, eat, crap and update our facebook statuses at 2AM. What an age we live in. I was getting a bit bored of getting my but kicked in COD so I decided not to join the next round and play something else. On the list of available games to play under the RPG folder was Borderlands. Having remembered the last time I played it I decided to give it a second chance. By this time it was a hugely successful game, people were raving about it, talks of new DLC coming out had people excited, everyone was jealous of my Borderlands shirt and it was 2AM. I fired it up. Created a character and started the campaign. Everything was going well. I was killing bandits with my big machine gun and collecting heaps of loot. Once I'm in firestone Claptrap asks me to open up Dr.Zeds door (no I'm not giving anything away all this happens in the first 5 minutes of the game) so getting over the fact that I hate the little cowardly bastard telling me what to do I go to open the door. It must have been the only glitched copy of Borderlands and it happened to be on my computer. The switch did not work. I thought I was in the wrong place (I now know I wasn't) and searched the whole town for the switch. Aside getting heaps of money and ammo I was no better than I was 20 minutes ago. I restated the fact that I hate Borderlands, quit the game and got my but kicked again and again in COD 4 for the rest of the night.

To top it all off about 4 months later my mate lent me a copy on Xbox 360 and told me to try it again. I put it in it loads up to the point where it informs me that Gearbox software helped make the game then freezes. I had to hard reset my xbox. Tried again, loaded again, told me that Gearbox software helped make the game again and froze...again. By now I had the impression that 2K and Gearbox software hated me and just made Borderlands to piss me off.

So as you can imagine I was a little scared when I won a copy of Borderlands GOTY Edition. Not only was there the game there to screw me over but four DLC codes as well to get in on the fun. Still it comes with a download code for the Duke Nukem Forever beta which was really cool. Yes I promise to review the Duke Nukem beta. Right after I kick ass and chew bubblegum.

However it seems that it is fourth time lucky for me. The game works fine I've downloaded all the DLC and I'm really liking the game thus far. Check out next week when I actually review the game.

Till then Peace.