Social Media Integration in Games

evilblah

Hey PC Crew,

I am curious what everyone's opinion is on social media elements, like Facebook or Twitter, integrated into games. For instance in Swords and Sworcery you could tweet different things that happened or were said while in game.

Does this kind of thing bother you or do you enjoy sharing stuff like this on twitter and Facebook? I am asking because I am considering adding twitter integration to the game we are currently working on, OutReach. It would allow users to post high scores or random elements to their twitter feed. The option to do this would only pop up after the level though so it wouldn't be part of the immersible experience that SW&SW had.

Thoughts?

TNO

personal Opinion


for the producers its a good thing ;
free advertisement

for the producers its a bad thing ;
possible buyers are annoyed in reading a shit load of the same posts from many people which bought the same game...


for a few players it is cool because ;

competition factor some people really digg that, others well not so much

look I am soo much further in the game...

I play this game look bro its soo awesome...


for a few players its bad because ;

hey the immersion got flushed down the virtual toilet because hey instead of playing there could be a more awesome social life ...

Some people like to enjoy a game and don't feel to shout out that they are enjoying right now a digital masterpiece.

Some don't want everybody to know that they are playing and where they are right now because they want to disable possible Spoilers for the others.


another example similar to social media; advertisement
sometimes it adds to the immersion effect
sometimes it kills it when its way to much or distracts the viewer when its way to real.


if you can make it an option to turn the social stuff off right at start,
without getting it mentioned again and again and again
like all the time I start the game , you would make everyone happy.

but that's all just my two cents


Edit;
when your game is more like doodlejump,(build for highscores) it would make more sense to add it

when it is more like Swords and Sworcery (bigger storytelling than doodlejump)
it would be wise to keep the social media integration a bit down.

Mark Dygert

What little interest I had in whatever game, quickly evaporates when I get achievement spam from other people...
I hate getting "invites" to go play games I have no interest in.
Or being spammed with "Dude found: Toenail Clippers lvl1!" 31 times a day.

I'm also a few weeks or months behind other people when I get around to playing games, so seeing how far everyone else is normally demotivates me into not buying the game.

It also doesn't help when achievement spam includes spoilers, "Oh great 14 of my buddies killed the traitorous Major Buddy", I'm at the point where I save him from the terrorists because we're old friends that go way back...

Or when the game pauses to tell me "good job do you want to tweet about this, post it to your facebook page, pin it or maybe have a giant car decal created for 15% off?"

Fuck off I'm playing games to escape the real world not fuse the real world into my escapism.

Now I'm not saying its a bad thing, with some games its great there are a few that do it right. Social interaction for match making, ok it makes sense automatically plug in your friends that also have the game.

Also games like Battle Nations for iOS have some nice features. You can fight your friends by raiding their lands or challenging them to a battle, or you can go around and help their faculties produce quicker, or fight off NPC's that have invaded their lands. That's cool I like that level of social interaction, but its the other kind that grates on my nerves and happens to be most prevalent.

r_fletch_r

Yep. I cant imagine ever wanting this as part of a game im playing. When I'm gaming i want to chill out and do my own thing.

aesir

As long as it's not in-game and it's optional, I think it's fine. As in, it should be in the menus of the game that you have to navigate to, not a pop up while you play.

Lazerus Reborn

I have rather annoying friends who play crappy facebook games who invite - gift and whatever the hell they can to me and it drives me nuts. I block every game request/status i see. For me its' a massive turnoff.

ZacD

Don't have it be a pop up begging people to share, just have a highscore page that also has a share button or something simple and not in your face.

Autocon

Not a fan of having peoples "I got this many trophies in such and such game" pop up from things like PS3.

But I honestly have only like 3 of 4 friends who use that option and there not playing a shit load of games so its easy to just ignore. I am also pretty sure you can hide that shit but it dosnt bother me enough to look for a way to block it.



What I do hate are those facebook games that people constantly send updates on there feeds about and where they invite you to play the game, or gift you shit. Since those become notifications to me is why I dont like it. Things like "Jack Trenton just got 5 trophies in Uncharted 3" dont bother me as there just like a lot of things on facebook, easily ignored news feed dribble :P

evilblah

Wow, amazing responses guys! It seems like a good rule of thumb is: don't have invasive notifications that are also potential spoilers. Much like Diablo 3 in the sense that their achievements are spoilers and if you haven't switched the option off you have the potential to have the story spoiled for you by a friend.

I really like what ZacD mentioned of having it on the High Score page. That was what we wanted to do and it's nice to see some good feedback about that. Already you guys have given me some great answers!

Kwramm

need no stinkin twatter or mugbook in me games. now get off my lawn!
don't even need 'em in my OS either (thanks Apple!)

Alberto Rdrgz

It's a Gimmick.

Ben Apuna

I'm in agreement with everything that's been said here. I really hate spammy invites and status updates in my social media feeds. I also hate immersion killing ingame prompts asking me to spam my friends those kinds of things.

IMHO, if you really want the "free" marketing and promotion that social media offers then just make your game so damn good that people can't help but talk about it with their friends.

The only way I could see social media being a good addition to a game (meaning valuable to the player and not the developer) is if it had some sort of dynamic multiplayer emergent affect on the actual gameplay itself making social tweets/updates/posts an integral part of the game design somehow. NOT something like invite/spam friends and get more ingame currency, or turns, or powerups, or whatever... The downside to that approach would be that people who shun social media would never play your game.

EDIT:

Oh, and I apologize to all the people I sent Triple Town gifts to in the past... I don't know what I was thinking :poly136: It won't happen again unless I see you're actively playing it.