After discussions with friends and reading the latest on the "The Conduit" (a Wii game), here is a follow up of my original article: The response that I've generally received is, "it is unacceptable for Nintendo to only allow friends to chat with each other. Microsoft allows personal networking and talking to strangers, Nintendo should use this model as well." I would disagree.
One of the main strengths to the Microsoft model is that it allows users to make friends more easily. Why should people go out of their way to try to meet people who play the same game (be it via online forum or actual real life social situations), when the game itself could easily facilitate those relationships? If your paying for internet access and using a computer, your already risking at least some form of interaction through the internet by one of your family members.
Given this, why should Nintendo maintain a layer of separation between social networking and your home console? One valid point is the fact that it removes risk of unwanted harassment through the gaming system. But it also stands that a profitable corporation could hire administrators to monitor and control activity over an online network. However it's expensive to pay for administrators and you have to consider were that budget comes from. If there is no subscription fee to the service, money would need to be taken from game sales. It becomes a hazy argument to make from the financing side.
Nintendo could institute a pay only system. But consumers will get a better deal, if they institute the system I proposed in my last article. A pay based online option could be added to their service at a later date. Nintendo has stated that it will investigate fee based online games at a later date.
Ultimately I don't think it's fare to the consumer to pay for a service that (outside of it's great messaging service) simply organizes the shaking of hands between systems (basically this means that most games don't run from centralized servers but rather one of the consoles selected by a Microsoft system takes up the server responsibility for the gamers). Not only is online gaming via PC already free, but so is messenger and many of the services Microsoft offers.
Some may see my idea of a friends only system as a cop out (in comparison to a open social network). But Nintendo has to contend with the family/nontechnical market they're bringing in. It all boils down to the children. While parents should have a better technical understanding of how systems work and how their children socialize, they generally do not. While I often side with those that argue it is the parents problem, I cannot deny that companies do have at least some responsibility to make life easier for parents. Nintendo is a family company and family means playing it safe. I also believe that a conservative stance (if executed the way I described in my previous article), is one that will allow for better experience to the non-technical group that the Wii attracts.
Uninitiated gamers are not likely to enjoy a game if their first interactions with it are generally negative. In fact most people wouldn't enjoy a situation were they not only perform poorly, but also receive verbal abuse. It's better marketing if the situation is positive and encouraging. Granted some will hold up online Role Playing Games such as World of Warcraft as examples were politeness is encouraged. However most online Roll Playing Games have the benefit of not being directly competitive but rather communal in their design (I hope to cover this subject further in later blogs).
It simply works better to make the option for playing friends online easy and intuitive. Keeping it simple for the average user should be Nintendo's first priority and I believe my suggestions would work best for the time being. With more experience and development time, I can see Nintendo easily forward and providing further service options for both casual and hardcore (most likely at additional cost). But I stand by my initial five recommendations, when it comes to out of the box online connectivity.
Moving on to the subject of the game, "The Conduit." High Voltage designed The Conduit as a game which will fill a lot of the needs other developers have ignored on the Wii. Its main press coverage has regarded it's impressive graphics. However The Conduit is also progressive in the way of online features.
Reading up on some of the latest features for this game; I felt the need to comment on one of the ideas the developers had, that I did not include in my five recommendations. Namely the ability to talk to friends of friends. While it's a novel idea allows for more freedom, it takes away from the control a player would have in who they can/can't talk to on the system. Granted there could be a place for a friends code forwarding system were you can recommend friends to each other (like what Facebook allows). But simply extending communication in a game, to friends of friends, is a shaky move depending on how family friendly you want to appear.
High Voltage is clearly going for the hardcore group with this game. I believe that it works to their benefit, in this case, and encourage other companies with similar aspirations to do the same. But I don't believe it needs to be a general guideline for online in general. Family games (and by extension mainstream Nintendo games) should avoid such a feature, in favor of relying on more direct control by the user.
That does it for now. I may add more of these online coverage updates as things change. The next update to my series "Nintendo Wii - Going forward" should be posted later this week.
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