RMM

This is the second part of my study into online gaming and whether it can be considered a social medium. The first part began by exploring the question of whether or not playing games online is social or anti-social and now this post will attempt to better understand what social media really is…

Before embarking upon my internship with Ryan*MacMillan, I was asked to do some general reading around social media, which involved reading the extract from R*M’s contagious report, checking out Wikipedia and making full use of Google. It soon became obvious to me why websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm and YouTube are considered to be forms of social media, but they are certainly not media in the sense that television, radio or newspapers are; and so I could never quite understand why they were called social media.

This I believe is what internships are for, because no sooner than my second week in the office I stumbled upon an interesting article by Bryan Eisenberg on Understanding and Aligning the value of Social Media that addressed my own misgivings:

“The biggest problem I have with the term “social media” is that it isn’t media in the traditional sense. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and all the others I don’t have the word count to mention aren’t media; they are platforms for interaction and networking. All the traditional media — print, broadcast, search, and so on — provide platforms for delivery of ads near and around relevant content. Social media are platforms for interaction and relationships, not content and ads.”

I realise now that perhaps the powers that be were a little hasty in labeling this new internet craze as social media, but its caught on; and so for now at least, its here to stay. I would say however, that Bryan has been a little hasty in saying that social media does not contain content and ads, because there is certainly a lot of content on websites such as Digg and with the exception of Twitter, and ads are never far away from the public’s favorite websites.

Now if I take Bryan’s definition and apply it to online gaming, there is little doubt that it can be considered a social medium. Microsoft’s Xbox Live for example not only allows you to play your favourite games with people from around the world; but also download new content, keep track of friends, record high scores, enjoy voice and video chat, or even download the latest movie trailers. World of Warcraft is another unique gaming platform, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMORPG), a game where people are able to take on the role of a fantasy character living in the fictional world of Azeroth. With your character you are able to interact and trade with other gamers characters, explore Azeroth’s relatively vast landscape, embark on quests and take on monsters. Although online gaming does not enjoy the same widespread popularity of social networks such as Facebook or Myspace, it is growing at an exceptional rate. Xbox Live now has over 12million subscribers, and World of Warcraft has set new heights for online games with over 11 million people subscribed to the game world-wide; and it is impossible to foresee when this growth of online gaming will slow down.

When you consider online gaming as a platform where people are able to interact and forge relationships without the material real-world getting in their way, it is easy to understand why it is such a popular platform. If we refer back to Bryan’s definition, online gaming certainly offers enough interaction and forging of relationships to be considered a social medium. The majority of online gaming however, takes place in the comfort of our own homes, more often that not behind closed doors, in a room, on our own. Now how is that social? Something I will explore in my third and final post.