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.