Mysteriously, Teenagers Prefer Friends Over Games…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on April 5, 2012

I really have a tough time feeling alarmed about this latest survey. I guess my biggest point of alarm would be seeing publishers panic and rush to the “social gaming” side of thing and abandoning traditional gaming. Like they always do whenever they detect the hint of a breeze in the marketing winds. I guess I couldn’t blame them too much if they do… if my livelihood still depended on it, I’d perhaps be a bit more worried.

But first of all – is this a real Thing? 2.4% more teens are saying they are losing interest in playing video games compared to last year.  I guess that’s just outside the margin of error with the survey size. But considering that in the course of a year, the same survey had High School students go from 25.9% who play social games down to 18.3% in the fall, and now back up to 25.3%.  With those kinds of fluctuations… well, I don’t yet see a reason to raise alarms. A seasonal drop can also be easily explained by a lackluster crop of games as anything else. Can teenagers get sick of the endless parade of clones of games when they’ve never played the original?

But hey, let’s say it’s all real… fewer teenagers playing “traditional,” more solo-oriented video games. Will this trend continue? I’ll tell ya, it’s still a heck of a lot better than it was when I was a teen. While a lot of teenagers played video games, only the geeks admitted to really liking them. Hopefully that social stigma isn’t coming back. Now THAT is something I’d worry about and want to combat.

But I also see this survey suggesting, as my title indicates, that teenagers really prefer socializing with friends over playing (console) games. My two responses would be, “DUH!” and “WHEW!”  I obviously love games and gaming, but they certainly shouldn’t replace social interaction with friends. I don’t know that social networks and games make a good replacement for face-to-face interaction, but it’s a good supplement. Besides, I played “The Sims,” and I remember how great it was to have activities that combined “fun” and “social” stats at the same time… 🙂

I personally think it’s a mistake to break the world of gaming up into ‘social’ games and… well, ‘non-social.’  I mean, as a younger geek, I think I spent about as much time talking about games with friends as actually playing them. A trend I’ve continued with this blog.  While I did my time doing the MMO thing, I find I also love a good game that I can get lost in all by myself, without distractions, and then maybe talk about it later with friends. I think one thing that the social games figured out (which those of us who played BBS “Door” games back in the day already knew) is that sometimes it’s better to play a game in asynchronous mode – by your own schedule – than requiring players get together to enjoy a game.  The important part is broadening the ability of games to serve a social purpose.

(Sadly, most Facebook social games that I have seen have turned this principle inside-out – instead of gaming serving social needs, they use and abuse the social side to sell the game. But as customers become more jaded to this, I expect to see less of it.)

Anyway – the point of my ramblings: Social’s important. Games can and should serve social needs. This is a Good Thing. Based on the trends we’re seeing even in traditional games and gaming services (I guess as ‘traditional’ as these relatively new services can be), I don’t think that’s surprising news to anybody by now. But don’t force it on me, ‘k? ‘Cuz sometimes I really do feel like being a cave-troll.

 

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