Hello Folks,
Within the broad scope of online social environments that the Internet has to offer, millions of participants are competing amongst each other to gain the sweet social capital that they yearn to earn. To gain social capital, participants will focus much of their time towards the quality of their content, which will be contributed online to achieve their wanted superiority. Participants contribute art, written literature, open source software and much much more, and gaming content is definitely no exception.
Before you start thinking I’m about to splurge on of online multiplayer games such as World of Warcraft or Runescape, hear me out. I’m actually referring to Handheld Gaming (lightweight portable gaming consoles). That’s right, the sensational Nintendo DS and PSP have spawned many online communities for users to contribute to.
The contributions of gamers in online communities are their achieved scores. A dedicated gamer will spend many hours playing his or her portable device to attain a competitive high score to which thereby it will be listed on a community scoreboard against other player’s scores via the Internet. Cyberscore’s Mario Kart DS Scoreboard is a direct example of this concept; this website publicly showcases a list of the top players of Mario Kart DS (a Nintendo DS game), the top player of the list obviously being the best player with the highest score (Cyberscore 2008).
Bruns (2008a) has discussed that that to be an important and credible participant member of an online social community site, one must commit quality, strength and consistency throughout his or her contributions. That the visibility of one’s contributions will ultimately depend on high they are rated. As you can see from what I have discussed so far, all these theories are correct.
But it doesn’t stop there, rather than heading to the computer to contribute scores, you’re able to do so by creating a social status on the portable device itself, as you play within the online social environment that is provided by Wi-Fi technology. Wi-fi technology enables players of handheld gaming to compete with each other locally or globally around the world. As Bruns (2008, 319) states “The tools for social networking reside no longer in online communities but in mobile devices”.
Referring back to Mario Kart DS, if you play against others via the Wi-fi with your Nintendo DS, you will be able to see the opponent’s victories, losses, play time and their designed avatar as well as allowing the opponent to see your profile. However, every time you compete with other players, they are sought out randomly each time you play, despite their social status.
There is definitely more room for improvement in the area of online social networks based on hand held gaming. Certain limitations such as not being able to freely chat to random players or creating complete online social identities for all to see are definitely some prominent flaws.
What I want to be possible in the near future, is to play a highly social interactive handheld game such as World of Warcraft while sitting on the toilet. Oh the possibilities!
Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and beyond : from production to produsage.
New York: Peter Lang.
Bruns, A. 2008a. KCB203 Consumer Cultures: Week Podcast: Developing Social Environments. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/ (accessed September 26, 2008).
Podcast: Week 9.Cyberscore. 2008. Mario kart ds scoreboard. http://www.cyberscore.net/scoreboard-mkds.php (accessed September 25, 2008).
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