As a gamer, I have often found myself frequenting various forums and game websites, loving to spend time talking to people and share my interests – in fact that’s how I first met Garvaos so many years ago. More recently there is one forum in particular I reside, where a fairly small group of kind gamers have come together to talk about their own lives and experiences. Because of this, I find that although having friends you know in person is always important, the Internet has given us a way to communicate with people who really share our interests and care about similar things, rather than needing to adapt to the few people around us. In the best cases, you can meet people who you form genuine friendships with, which will grow over the years to come.
With social networking at an all-time high with various websites – most notably Facebook – I find it interesting to see how we can interact with one another whilst we go about our own lives, while keeping in touch with everyone we want to. Whether it’s to shout about the good things that have happened to you, or share your annoyances with your friends, people always have something to talk about.
However, although I find it interesting to catch up with various people from my past, and have a broad view of the people around me, I do often find myself drawn to those people who share my interests, the other gamers and forum-goers who I have connected with. And as I do so, it makes me think that perhaps I would like to see something that were more tailored to the gamers, whilst keeping the functionality of Facebook – a site for talking about life, whilst keeping track of leaderboards, accomplishments and gaming activities. This would surely be my perfect place to settle down and just talk about my common thoughts and activities with the general gaming community.
I was originally looking for a site that could track various statistics and achievements as some sort of database for games other than Xbox 360 and PS3 – a way of comparing scores and goals with other gamers playing older titles or handheld games. Asking on my frequented forum, I found a couple of sites that sparked some interest in me, whilst still pondering the possibilities of the ultimate gaming social network.
Firstly, we have TrueAchievements.com. Although I find achievements rewarding and challenging, the overall scoring system on Xbox Live is a little unbalanced for any real comparison – achieving 1000G on Street Fighter IV is a lot harder than achieving 1000G’s on Avatar, yet their total achievement scores equal the same. While this is perhaps the fairest way on the production side of things (i.e. stopping different achievement scores per game affecting sales, and also preventing producers from making games difficult solely on making the achievements worthy of such scores), it really doesn’t show much of a skill level on a broad scale. This is where TrueAchievements steps in, and using a formula built from various statistics such as the rarity of the achievements, ratio of game owners to each achievement and other values, it creates a more realistic figure which is slightly more dependant on actual skill and difficulty. It’s not perfect, but it does balance the system a little more.
You may wonder, well what’s that got to do with social networking? Well, the thing is, TrueAchievements does so much more than just that - it’s a great resource for keeping up with what your friends are doing, and also setting goals for yourself. Sure, its majorly focused on achievements; so you need to be into that kind of thing, but it’s very clever on how it does so. It’s possible to isolate the “easiest” achievements available in your library that you can work on, as well as being able to access tips and advice on how to earn achievements you are stuck on.
As interesting as this was, though, it didn’t really satisfy my wishes. With so many other console titles than just Xbox 360, the site seemed to isolate my collection to just that. Upon looking for something more specific, however, I found something that appealed to my gamer side even more.
GamerDNA is a networking site aimed directly at gamers. This clever site has a database of almost any video game you can think of – and so far it hasn’t failed me yet. By telling the site which platforms you own, and by adding any games you play to your “GamerDNA”, the site allows you to create a wide profile about your gaming life, and can pick out various game traits and genres that suit you, showing you various statistics and other gamers with similar interests, as well as being able to add your friends with their own profiles.
Perhaps my favourite feature is the “Game Activity” log, which allows you to keep a record of which games you are playing, along with personal comments and milestones you have met. It’s very easy to write a few comments each day and keep it up to date, sort of like a public gaming journal. Sure, I can update my Facebook status with constant game logs, but the majority of my contacts either have no idea what I’m talking about, or simply aren’t interested.
However, the site is far from perfect, the layout giving you a lot less user-friendly feedback on everyone else’s activities than Facebook or similar sites. However, with a little work and a few more of my friends signed up, it could be one of the best gaming sites I’ve found so far.
With the Internet being a great way to share experiences and accomplishments with other people, it’s always interesting to see what people can come up with. But I still long for the day when a single site can have an interface like Facebook, live links to various accounts such as PSN and Xbox Live, and generally allows gamers to share what’s going on in their game related lives. For now, I’ll stick to my forum, Facebook and these two sites – but something that combined the four would have me hooked to my PC forever.
-Leon
