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Games As The New Pub
The Guardian Gamesblog has a column up talking about a panel held at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival last week. A discussion was held with several folks from the online world development business, where they discussed games as new social playgrounds or pubs. From the article: "In Korea, the gamers play online games together. It's a social replacement. It's a way for non-social people to socialise. They've even started developing games for bored girlfriends of the guys who're playing Starcraft with their mates."
Yagu, you say, "games will never be a social replacement for people who really like to socialize," but what exactly are they replacing? I don't know exactly how you go about socializing, but for me and most of the world, socializing is a daily part of life. When you go to the movies, school, and even at home, you socialize with the individuals around you. The fact that games have moved from things such as solitaire, where there is no social interaction, to a small group of friends playing a console together and finally to millions of people playing in the same video game, is something that should not be ignored by any entrepreneur. There is a lot of money to be made from the millions of individuals who interact via video games. Many of them are now seeking a variety of tool such as voice chat programs or material goods such as headsets. They're normal people whose common interests have brought them together, and as human nature goes, social interaction is bound to take place.