Culture

Culture

by Mike Masnick




Networking Features Score Hit With Gamers

from the until-the-backlash-comes... dept

With every other article about online games these days trashing things like the Sims Online, it's interesting to read of an online gaming "success story" (even if it happens to be from Microsoft). Apparently, the Xbox Live service has been beating all sorts of expectations. More people than expected have signed up, and they're playing for longer than expected. Best yet, it seems they're playing during "primetime hours" - meaning they're taking away viewers from popular TV shows. Of course, I imagine it won't be long until there's some crazy backlash against these things with storis coming out about how addictive these online console games are, with an example or two of kids who lock themselves in their rooms for days and days. The thing that's more interesting, though, is how players seem to build a real community amongst themselves when they play each other online. Since this is still a very early version, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft and the other console makers expand the community aspect of online console gaming.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
 

Reader Comments

(Flattened / Threaded)

    Feb 17th, 2003 @ 1:48am
  • Success wil be failure

    by dorpus

    When the communities grow larger, there will be more clueless newbies, cheats, and spammers, so the religious techies will move elsewhere.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

    • Feb 17th, 2003 @ 1:58am
    • Re: Success wil be failure

      Dorpus, of course, forgets that there are ways to create technology-based solutions to such problems. Not all communities need to be destroyed by growing popularity.

      (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

      • Feb 17th, 2003 @ 2:02pm
      • Re: Success wil be failure

        by dorpus

        How would technology magically cure stupidity or malice? Every game site I've seen was full of newbies, cheats, and hackers.

        (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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