You know, I really shouldn’t be surprised about this any more, what with us living in the Information Age or whatever it is we’re in, with the Internet an omnipresent, omniscient collective of intelligences (in most circumstances) that, as a whole, never sleeps. But it does.
What, I hear you ask? The fact that someone, somewhere in the world, is probably doing the same thing you are at the exact same time as you.
I don’t often think about this, but it occurs to me when I fire up a multiplayer game that isn’t the current “flavour of the month” or Call of Duty. For example, I downloaded Tetris for my PlayStation 4, as it’s a long time since I seriously played Tetris and I fancied something that I could play together with Andie. The PS4 version of Tetris has an online mode where you can play any of the game modes with up to three other people playing at the same time as you. In the case of the “Battle” modes, you can directly interfere with one another, as is the tradition in Tetris multiplayer, but there are also a number of modes where you’re pretty much just playing alongside other people, perhaps to compare performance or pick up tips.
Now, Tetris is one of the most well-known, loved and respected games in the world, but I still find it surprising that there are people out there who make time to sit down and compete online. I’d ask “why?” but then I’d be forced to ask myself why I had chosen to play it online, too — and their answer would probably be the same as mine: to have some sort of “connection” with another person, even if it’s a non-verbal one that is as simple as a shared interest. (Aside: Online Tetris players are frighteningly good.)
It’s not just Tetris, either; I can sit down and play a mobile game like Brave Frontier, Love Live! School Idol Festival or Drift Girls and jump into one of the online modes in those and still find a live opponent to compete against. Again, in most cases, communication isn’t direct — most of these games don’t have a chat facility due to the impracticality of it in a mobile game — but it’s oddly heartwarming to be sharing an experience with other people, even if it’s only for a few short minutes as you attempt to full-combo Snow Halation or raise your ranking in the Drift Girls world tour mode.
Anyway. It’s kind of cool to occasionally connect with people in passing like this; with gaming often being a relatively solitary pursuit, it is sometimes nice to feel like there are other people out there who are into the same things as you — and perhaps even to share an experience with them.
Now I’ve probably got time for a quick Love Live! score match…
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I find Online games baffling. The game format seems simpler or pared down – eg Hidden Object scenes contain a quarter of their usual content, there are rewards continually(??) for what I don’t know, and there is a list of players you have nothing to do with across the bottom bar. And when you want to Exit there seems no way to do so – I eventually closed the Tab and hopes that the game wouldn’t go on clicking over in my name and (fear & dread) costing me money! Baffling. I much prefer to test a game, then if I like it to buy it. That way I have the whole game (if I’ve bought the Collector’s Edition, but that’s another whole issue) to play whenever I want to.
Also how do I stop purchasing more of them when they keep bringing out sequels and I haven’t completed half the games I own – I’ve a huge Pile of Shame on the Desktop which is rapidly taking over the huge screen. And many of them have been already surpassed technically and innovatively game-play-wise so that they seem a bit passe when I eventually try them. Of course I could close the account for a while – I did that once before and lasted a month – as soon as I’d done it they brought out a long-awaited sequel so that I re-opened the account asap. Pathetic! Sigh ….