Annotations for Chapter 1
Who Plays What on Which
To make it easier to talk about games, we use two different dimensions to divide games into multiple categories. The first dimension runs from Casual Games to Enthusiast Games: Games that most people would consider “pick up and play”, that do not demand great dexterity, and that can be played for short periods of time (but often are played for hours!) we call casual games. The opposite end of the spectrum are those games for the enthusiast, which tend to involve more intricate plotlines, complex gameplay, and may require tens of hours of playtime to complete.
The second dimension in our diagram, stretches from single player to multiplayer. We start with games that are dedicated to solo play, progressing to those that support a couple of people playing together, to those that support teams of dozens of players in contest with one another, and finally, to so-called “massively multiplayer online games” (MMOGs), in which hundreds or thousands of players participate in the same game world at the same time.
Since we can’t describe the thousands of very different games that fall at varying points along the continuum between casual and enthusiast, single player and multiplayer, we have selected five relatively famous and interesting games that nicely illustrate the fundamental attributes of their genre.
We discuss these games in great detail in the book, but in this annotation, we wanted to give people a chance to experience, or at least see, some of the game play for themselves.
Single Player, Enthusiast: Grand Theft Auto Series
Below is a trailer for Grand Theft Auto 4 — all of the (very impressive) graphics are from the game itself.
Single-Player, Enthusiast: The Sims
We discuss The Sims franchise quite a bit in our book, as it is the best-selling PC game franchise of all time. Given that, you might wish to download a playable demo that shows you how character creation works. We also discuss The Sims’ extremely active user community, which has created thousands of downloadable objects, from breakfast cereals to pets.
You might also be interested in watching fan-made movies (also called “machinima”) that were created by players using The Sims 2.
You can watch a bit of game play here:
Single-Player, Casual: Solitaire
Feel free to play a few hands:
Multiplayer, Enthusiast: World of Warcraft
If you were intrigued by our description of flying through World of Warcraft (WoW for short) on the back of a soaring gryphon, here’s a video of what that looks like:
Here’s what group combat looks like in WoW (this video shows a large team of players battling a “boss” monster — a dragon):
And lastly, here is a music video, based on the old pop song “I’m Too Sexy”, created entirely within WoW by players. This, like the fan-made Sims movies we referred to earlier, is also called “machinima.” (The phenomenon of using games to create video content unrelated to the game itself has become very common.)
Multiplayer, Casual: Habbo Hotel
Habbo Hotel can be best experienced by registering for free and playing for a few minutes. We also recommend watching the video below; it’s a nice example of a very popular activity within the world of Habbo — the act of roleplaying. In this case, Habbo users have gotten together to create their own virtual episode of the TV show The Bachelorette
Virtual Worlds: Second Life
Second Life is also free to visitors, so it’s worth visiting SecondLife.com to download the SL application and to register. If you do try out Second Life, be warned that the user interface is relatively clunky (as of the time of this writing) and may be a bit intimidating, but it’s worth getting the hang of. Once you’re comfortable with the interface, you’ll almost certainly want to visit the showcase locations that are highlighted by Second Life’s administrators; these tend to be impressive, and also tend to attract more user traffic. (Otherwise, you’ll find yourself wandering what feels like a ghost world, devoid of people and full of strange abandoned buildings.)
If you’re in a hurry and don’t want to try out Second Life for yourself, here’s an old video that introduces many of the ways that organizations have attempted to capitalize on Second Life. As noted in our book, some of the examples in the video have not worked out in the long run; some of them (such as using Second Life as a virtual meeting space) have.
