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Video games are social, whether you’re playing alone, online, or with friends. From the moment a game is conceived to the moment it slides into your PC or console, a game is the result of multitudes. So is its lifespan.
A game like World of Warcraft is obviously social, relying on millions of players to go online into the same fantasy world and play alongside one another. But virtually every game is antithetical to solitude, even if you play alone.
The trajectory of new media has been toward social interaction and away from podiums and pedestals. A blogger like yours truly actively engages not only in the comments, but all across social media. I may only write one post, but that one post might get comments on Facebook, re-Tweets on Twitter, a Google+ discussion, as well as comments here at Forbes.
Maybe another blogger will link to my arguments, toss in a new twist to the conversation. I have wiggle room to adjust my arguments accordingly. I may spend ten posts on one subject, slowly changing my arguments as new evidence arises, or refining my thoughts.
Games have always been social.
Before video games there were sports games, card games, and so forth, all of which relied on social interaction (with only a few exceptions.) In all these forms, a game is more than its pieces, more than its designers or players. Maybe you have a dealer or referees. Maybe you have an audience or fans. Or maybe you have an Xbox 360 and a bunch of data whirling about on a disc. Whatever the dynamic, a game has always relied on participation. Other media, not so much.
Until recently.
One thing I really enjoy about new media and the blogosphere and the social web more broadly is how it’s changed the relationship between writers and readers or bands and listeners – between creators and consumers. In a weird way, blogging has made journalism more like video games. Readers are a lot more like gamers these days. They can help shape the news.
By interacting with readers, writers and journalists can participate in new ways with their audiences. I don’t mean this to be analogous in any way; I mean that the social nature of gaming is similar to the social nature of blogging. Maybe this is simply a flattening of all media.
For instance, somebody scrounged this up and sent it my way. They found it on the BioWare social forums.
This is funny and flattering all at once, but it also underscores how new media has changed old media, and how the emerging social web is changing the once-autonomous search-based internet.
Whatever walls exist between media and media consumers, or game developers and gamers, these walls are falling, however slowly.
Perhaps a long-ingrained preference for permanence is being replaced by a desire for the perpetually changing. DLC allows game developers to write new stories or change old ones; craft new endings or new beginnings.
Anyways, this is largely musings put to paper. Variations on a theme. A bloggy free jam of sorts, as we push toward clarity.