What Social Capital Means for Gaming

There are really two main options to choose from if you want to play videogames: Consoles and PCs. Both have their respective pros and cons, and both draw from a selected target audience. However, there is one thing that both choices of platform share, that being social gaming. While PCs have a variety of social tools at their disposal (Origin, Xfire, uhh that weird thing that Ubisoft tried to do), but we’re just going to focus on one: Steam; and we’ll use Xbox Live on the console side of things for simplicity’s sake.

Steam, at its core, is a gaming platform for PCs. Some games require its usage, while some don’t.  On Steam, users can purchase games, manage their game libraries, bring up an overlay mid-game, and, most importantly, connect with others. Steam’s social aspect works like every other social media utility out there; the user sends friend requests to other users, can chat with other gamers, join their games, see what they’re playing, interact with the community by joining groups, and even gift games to other users. These aspects of Steam make it a very seductive utility for PC gamers.

First of all, gamers don’t only get to check what games their friends are playing, but are alerted instantly when their friends actually start playing. This may prompt the user to ask his friend how the game is while he’s playing it. The user may find that the game is on sale in the store, and should definitely buy it, or defiantly avoid it.

Secondly, and most importantly, Steam gives users the ability to join their friends’ games at practically any time. This ease of connectivity allows users to play with one another without managing server IP addresses, or any of that other BS. Even if users don’t have any friends in real life to play with, the communities that Steam offers allow even the biggest of hermits to play with one another.

In short, Steam offers a service that takes advantage of gamers’ social capital to create a platform that is both easy and useful.  Everything mentioned above comes at the great price of free.

On to Live:

Xbox live is similar to Steam in a lot of ways, but contains enough contrasting characteristics to make it its own product. First of all, the only way to get Xbox Live is to – you guessed it – buy an Xbox. There is one more hurdle to cross that makes Xbox Live unique from all other online gaming mechanisms: the mighty subscription fee.  While it’s only $60/year, Microsoft doesn’t want you having online adventures with your friends until you cough up the cash. The main issue with this was the $100 price tag for the Wi-Fi adapter that wasn’t included in any Xbox package. While this problem has been solved by Microsoft actually including a Wi-Fi chip in its console, the add-on was basically a big entrance fee for those whose modems were too far from their TVs for an Ethernet cable to reach.  (I could write an entire post about how ludicrous Microsoft’s pricing strategy is. Actually, I could probably do one on just about every major tech company save for Google)

Back on Subject

Since every Xbox comes with a complementary headset, users have the ability to chat with their friends in a VOIP-esque service. Over the years, Microsoft has added the ability for users to join groups that allows people playing different games to chat. Like Steam, players can access a friend list that shows who is online, and who is playing what. Players also have the ability to connect to their friends’ games with just a few presses of a button.  This simplicity is essential for the online community to function and thrive.

Like Facebook, Microsoft has teamed up with Netflix and services like Last FM to bring users a little extra. Gamers can watch movies in between gaming sessions or stream music out of their consoles.

While it is a pretty good service overall, it’s lacking in a lot of ways. Xbox Live features a store, but it isn’t nearly as expansive as Steam’s. Moreover, the hard drive capacity of Xboxes are very small, and upgrading comes a very steep price (the 250GB HDD goes for about $150, which is expensive considering that you can snag a 2TB external HDD for about $100 [Microsoft charges about sixty cents per GB while everyone else charges about 5 cents per GB, a 1200% price increase on Microsoft’s part]. Again, I could write a whole post on this), so downloading a vast library of games is not an option. Microsoft also puts up price barriers (surprise, surprise) on things that are free on most other services, such as a ten dollar fee to change your username, and not letting free members do anything outside of adding friends and sending messages.

In conclusion, social media on consoles have allowed gamers to easily connect with one another without having to leave their chairs or couches. Games have become less of an alone-time activity, and more of a party. Games like Call of Duty and Halo(to a lesser extent) have their success to thank to the accessibility of  Live, while games like Counterstrike and Team Fortress 2 have their lasting longevity to thank to the community that has built around Steam.

Hope you learned something.

P.S. – If it seems like I came down too hard on XBL and Microsoft, it’s because, well, I did. I gave up on Live for a plethora of reasons. Mainly because I don’t really play video games anymore, but that’s not all. My experience with the service was frustrating and pricey to say the least. Plus my friend has my Xbox and still hasn’t given it back. I’m pretty sure he sold it, but whatever.  

Plausible Piracy Solutions

Now that I’ve discussed the several bad ways to go about fixing piracy (Crippling your own software, ludacris lawsuits, etc.) i’m going to take a minute to talk about effective solutions to the ever-growing problem. The most effective means to go about combating piracy is to make your software available.

First, let’s talk about Netflix. Netflix’ model has done more to combat piracy than really any other service on the internet. For a relatively cheap monthly fee, the user can access a plethora of movies, television shows, and documentaries without any restrictions.Since there’s a monthly fee, and the user isn’t charged per view, he doesn’t see a price tag pop up every time he wants to watch an episode of, let’s say, Breaking Bad (Something that iTunes could learn from). This causes people to want to watch more and more and more; they’ll never want to unsubscribe.  Moreover, the picture quality ranges from very good to excellent, and can be streamed to people with slow internet connections. This cheap, widely available service is a way to get people to watch their favorite shows without any sort of downloading, making it easier to get to than piracy.

Netflix is also using social capital to promote its service. At Facebook’s F8 last fall, Zuckerberg went on stage and announced his new model for Facebook. These changes including connecting your friends’ musical tastes to you through Spotify. He went on to state that the same service will be brought to browsers through Netflix’ new Facebook app. Now you can see what your friends are watching, and be inadvertently introduced to new television shows. This also encourages people to sign up to Netflix- the best possible way to stop the piracy of movies and television shows.

The videogame industry is also seriously hurt by piracy. The usual response by developers is to attach DRM to their games. As discussed in my last post, this does very little to curb piracy. Instead, developers use Valve’s Steam as a way to stop piracy. Steam acts a virtual marketplace for video games. They frequently have sales and deals, allowing users to purchase what would be otherwise expensive games for relatively cheap. Once you buy the game, you can download it an unlimited amount of times across an unlimited number of platforms. Steam also acts as an interface where users can connect with the community and their friends. The entire service comes at the awesome price of free. This cheap, and easily accessible service does wonder to stop the pirating of PC games.

Businesses need to learn that piracy isn’t going to go away by putting obstacles in the way of pirates. The people who distribute software and media are much more skilled and can work much faster than many of the top programmers in the industry. If business really want to stop piracy, they should drop their lawsuits, and invest that money in services that allow the user to easily access their products for a cheap price. They should be focusing on changing their business models, not the law.

Cheers.

Why DRM Doesn’t Work

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is an extremely ineffective way to combat piracy. DRM is added on to software in various ways to prevent people from using pirated software. While this works in theory, it completely fails in practice. Not only that, it hurts the legitimate consumer much, much more than the pirate.

Let me explain:

DRM is added on to software by the developer. This comes in many different forms: Key Codes, Limited Downloads, Always Online, etc. These measures make it impossible for anyone who illegally obtained the software from using it. This “improved functionality” may seem like a good way to deter people from illegally downloading software, but it completely fails.

Here’s why

There are online groups that dedicate their existence to not only leaking software before it’s released, but also uploading online for people to download. Another function of these groups is to modify these pieces of software so that DRM doesn’t work. Most of these groups are extremely good at what they do, and even better at eluding law enforcement. Pirates download exclusively from these groups because they’re: fast, reliable, efficient, and, most importantly, free.

Because of the existence of these groups, DRM does absolutely nothing to stop the pirates. The only person who will ever get to experience the wonderful pleasure of always having to connect to the internet, or having to manage and keep track of key-codes is the consumer. The person who has paid for the product is the only person who gets to deal with the restrictions on the software that were designed for pirates.

Ironically, the only way to escape the clutches of DRM is to - get ready for this - pirate the software. DRM essentially causes people to not want to buy the product, but rather, illegally download the software so that they don’t have to deal with DRM.

The entire idea of DRM is completely flawed as it not only punishes the customer, but also gives him a want to pirate the software.

My next post will talk about how to successfully combat piracy without hurting the consumer.

Hope you learned something!

Cheers.

Piracy - The issue and solutions

Since the dawn of the internet, users began utilizing their upload/download capacities to exchange files. Illegal or not, people would upload music, movies, software, and videogames for people to download for free. What used to be restricted to shoplifting has now expanded into an international epidemic; well, it’s not not bad. Really.

Let’s focus on music for now. Music is the highest illegally downloaded media in existence. This is not to say that movies, games and software companies aren’t suffering, but music seems to be the hardest hit out of the four. Who does this really affect? The answer may shock you, but it probably won’t. The hardest hit in the industry is, of course, the record labels; they take the biggest cut of the pie, along with intellectual rights, in exchange for making the artist’s music more well known. Artists make a lot more money on tours than they do on albums. This is why your favorite artists will delay their album, but will rarely, if ever, cancel their tours. The money really at stake here is that going to the labels. This has caused the music industry to mobilize to fight piracy.

Recently there have been bills in Congress (such as SOPA and PIPA) that go to greater lengths to protect the intellectual property of the record labels. This legislation, if passed, would completely censor parts of the internet in favor of the Music Industry and Hollywood. The bills could completely shut down or block websites that host any sort of illegal content. Unfortunately for the music industry, the bills have been shelved as there was a huge resistance among internet browsers. Do these extreme measures really protect media? Or do they just hurt the consumer?

The biggest dent in piracy has been the act of legitimately acquiring music online through services such as iTunes and Spotify. People pirate because it’s easy, not because it’s free (well, okay, a lot of people do, but that isn’t the point). Instead of driving to a record store to buy an album, people could just download it at home for free. Since iTunes launched a couple of years ago, people can still download music, but they can have a clear conscience since it was purchased legally. Moreover, the music was ready to be synced to the popular iPod, where it can be listened to on-the-go. While this simplicity carries a price, it’s much more appealing to the average person than figuring out how to get uTorrent working.

Labels are taking the wrong approach. Instead of suing Limewire for 74 Trillion dollars, they should be focusing on how to make money off of music that is even more convenient to access than piracy facilitates. Competing with free isn’t so hard when you have less effort and the law on your side.

In my next post, I will be focusing on how Facebook is actually using social capital to prevent piracy in terms of Music and Movies. I may also write a short post on how Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a completely ineffective way of preventing the piracy of software.

Movies: Building Capital

Movies: Building Capital

In my ‘hook’ post, I mention people going to see a movie because of a director, or group of actors. Directors and actors utilize this by building capital. This is very similar to building social capital, except on a much grander scale. Directors, writers and actors can use this capital to make and do things they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise.

When starting off, an actor has to prove himself in the movie industry. This can be done in a variety of ways. What an actor will usually do is get a leading role in a small, or poorly written movie, or a small role in a bigger or better movie. This will get the attention of not only the viewers, but also major directors who may want to cast them in future productions.

In 2010, David Fincher released his “Social Network.” The movie opens with a scene between Mark Zukerberg and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, Erica Albright, played by an actress by the name of Rooney Mara. Mara's character plays a small role in the film, and only appears on screen three times. One year later, Fincher released his adaption of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara. What’s the connection between these two films other than the director? They both have Rooney Mara play roles of a very different caliber. While there is no empirical evidence to suggest that Fincher had planned to Guinea Pig Mara in “The Social Network,” it’s clear that her performance earned a leading role the next year.

Not only did Mara build capital by preforming in two films by the same director, but she also went up for an Academy Award for best leading actress for her 2011 performance. This made her well known not only among the cinema-going demographic, but also in Hollywood. Actors who star in block busters and consistently give award-winning performances are known as A-list actors. 

Directors and actors will build relationships with one another to make better, higher grossing films. A director can use his social capital to make his movies better than they would have been otherwise. For example, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” is stoner comedy with low brow humor. The movie is a spin-off of “Clerks,” which is also directed by Kevin Smith. The movie, while funny, wouldn’t have attracted many actors if it weren’t for Smith’s capital. He was able to get Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Mark Hamill, Chris Rock, George Carlin, Will Ferrell, Wes Craven and many other Hollywood stars to appear in the film. This cast attracted a huge audience, and allowed it to gross higher than it would have otherwise.  
As actors and directors build capital by making good movies, giving good performances and winning awards, they build capital. By making and appearing in a movie, they transfer that capital into the movie. So despite how good the movie actually is, people will go see it for its cast and director.

While it may be possible to create these bonds in the music and television industry, the connections that are built in Hollywood are extremely absolutely essential for building a good film career.

The Hook

The term ‘hook’ in popular media means something that pulls people into what they’re reading, watching, or listening to. The term is more specifically used in music; describing a a riff, or a musical phrase that’s used to lure the listener in. It’s something that the listener identifies the song with. While the specifics change once you enter the realm of Movies, Television and Technology, the concept remains the same.

Let’s start with Music. A hook in music is usually a repeated riff or repeated vocals. This is usually what starts the song as something to make the listener interested right away. The hook is then repeated over the course of the song to make the listener feel connected with the song. He’ll also remember the song if there’s an easily identifiable hook.

A very simple example of a hook would be the riff in Blink-182’s “Dammit.” The riff starts the song off, and repeats twice before the drums and bass kick in. After the first verse and the first chorus, the riff repeats. The song also features an example of a vocal hook which is “I guess this is growing up.” The vocal and instrumental hooks are played at the same time, throughout the song. At the end, both hooks are repeated several times to end the song. This accomplishes two things. The listener, before he even knows the words or how the song goes, is easily able to identify the song by it’s opening hook and the vocal hook after the choruses. This is designed to keep the listener interested and for him to keep coming back to listen to the song, as well as to give the song some structure.

While it differs, this can be applied to almost every type of media. Television shows’ hooks are just the interest behind the plot. While they aren’t relied on, they certainly draw in an audience. Take the show “Dexter,” for example. While the show is well written and acted (Well, the first, second and fourth seasons are), the show’s major draw is the premise. The show is basically about a serial killer who takes his urge to kill out on bad people. While this is what draws in an audience, the show doesn’t just rely on the premise to keep the viewers interested. It then uses good writing, plot structure, and interesting characters to keep the show interesting. Almost every popular show does this.

The same could be said for movies, but to a lesser extent. The hook for movies may be the cast, or the director for some people. People will go to see a movie directed by David Fincher just because he directed it. Usually movies that have good directors and casts don’t rely on gimmicks or premises to bring the viewers in, the notoriety of the billing list does that. For example, look at the movie trailer for Inception. You really don’t have much of an idea what’s going on, but it’s directed by Christopher Nolan, and stars Leonardo Decaprio and Ellen Page, so people will see it regardless.

Movies that don’t have a good cast or director, on the other hand, usually rely on special effects and other gimmicks to draw the viewer in. Recent examples of this are The Last Airbender and 2012, both awful movies that didn’t do as bad at the box office than they should’ve. While there is more that draws in an audience, I can cover that in a different post.


In terms of technology, manufacturers will often rely on some sort of gimmick to sell their product. Sometimes this improves functionality (like the slide-out keyboard on the Droid), other times it’s just a gimmick (3D Phones and Televisions).The Motorolla Razr was the thinnest phone on the market at one time. Even though it wasn’t a great device, people bought it because it was slim, and was well known for being so slim. Motorolla Built off of this by releasing the Droid Razr, the slimmest smartphone on the market. It’s hook was the Razr name and the fact that it was so slim.



In the end, each medium uses their own variation of the hook to accomplish two things: build interest and make their products more recognizable. Products with a good hook will do well even if they are bad products. People will easily recognize that product and it’s popularity will rise, selling more.

Music: The Rise of Auto-Tune

So, I wanted my first post to be about music. Since discussing the entire medium as a whole would take hours upon hours of research and writing, I decided to narrow this week’s topic down to something more specific: Auto-Tune

Here’s some background info:

A software designer at Exxon created a program that could monitor seismic waves. Sound waves would be shot into the ground, and the program would read the sound file, and could detect oil. The program’s creator, Andy Hildebrand, found that it could be used to alter pitch. Having taken music courses, he directed his software more appropriately for musical use.

The original intent of the software was to make quick, last minute corrections to the pitch of a singer, without having to record the verse a second time. It’s still used that way today in many genres, and is almost completely unnoticeable in most cases. This was very helpful, as albums began to sound ‘cleaner’ with respect to the vocal tracks. Many argued that although it was more pleasing to the ears, the vocals began to lose authenticity with the induction of post production.

Artists and studio producers discovered that if they ‘turned up’ auto-tune, they could create an electronic-sounding filter on the singer’s voice. Cher’s “Believe” was the first popular song that used this effect. However, Cher was not the one to popularize it. T-Pain is notorious for his over use of auto-tune. It made him stand out among other rappers, and gave his songs a different feel. Since then, its use (and overuse) has been prevalent in popular music.

So why do artists turn up auto-tune today? Well, there are a couple of reasons. Some artists believe that the use of auto-tune gives their music more flavor. It helps the lyrics and music flow better, which is good for catchy-popular music. Auto-Tune also sounds better on an electronic or synthesized track. Rappers can get away with not using auto-tune, as they usually don’t actually sing. R&B artists, on the other hand, use auto-tune to make their lyrics mix better with the music.

The most obvious reason that an artist would choose to use auto-tune is simply because that artist may not be able to sing in pitch or key. Instead of using other methods of tone correction, an artist will just use the distortion to mask his or her inadequate singing.

That’s auto-tune in a nutshell. Its use has exploded over the past decade, and many of the songs on  the Billboard Top 10 use the effect over the entire vocal track. While it may be considered overused, auto-tune is something popular musicians are utilizing universally, and isn’t going away any time soon.

-Mike