It's All Fun and Games

Gaming is something that I've always enjoyed. I'm not what I would consider a hard core gamer at all since I tend to have game ADD.

Lets see currently I'm in the middle of FFXII, Disgaea 2 and I've been playing City of Heroes. City of Heroes just recently added a crafting/loot-ish system that I'm loving. Being able to improve you character through crafting AND the auction house they setup is a great improvement.

Julie and I are probably going to re-up our WoW subscription sometime soon too. Playing with someone in the same room is awesome. Last time we played, we made a couple of Tauren's; Jules played a Hunter and I made a Shaman. I've played a few Hunters so I was able to help her out. The Shaman was okay but I think this time we are going to pick our Human characters back up if Blackhand isn't crazy queues still. Having a tank and healer allows us to do pretty much any quest we need to do.

That brings me around to something I've thought about lately which is the social aspect of most games. With the release of the next generation consoles, the ability to get online and play with others that have the same game is pretty much a requirement for a really successful game. Even the new hand held systems allow for some online play.

This was an area that was exclusive to the PC market for years and was used to attract the 'hard core' gamers. Now some of the games, especially for the Wii, are attracting all sorts of players based on the ability to play against and with others over the internet.

I wonder how many people buy a game just because someone they know told them that it would allow them to play online together? How many of these gamers don't even play the single player version of the game?