My view to Nolan’s comment on Online gaming

Today I stumble upon an interview of an industry legend: Nolan Bushnell. The interview is about him claiming online gaming is not a social. The article can be found here. To save everyone time here is a part of his interview:

“Social is buying someone a drink,” he said. “Sitting in a dark room in your underpants talking to thousands of people might seem social, but it’s not cool. The public space is always going to be here.”

Responding to a question about the potential of network gaming, Bushnell described the internet experience as “stilted and flat” and argued that real social gaming involved people playing together in person.

Bushnell backed up his view by drawing a comparison with alcohol. He said that the main reason a Martini is more expensive in a bar than making one at home is because “the bar has people around”.

OK… so everyone gets the picture Nolan is trying to draw here? Basically if you are not OUT interacting with another human being, instead interacting virtually is NOT CONSIDER COOL. Matter of fact anyone that is not talking to your face to face but through any sort of virtual way is NOT COOL. Thats mean anyone that lives at the modern society is NOT COOL. So is Nolan cool? I doubt… he will only be cool if he: don’t use his mobile phone, doesn’t use any sort of IM service, email nor social community service.

So what is his way of improving it?

uWink is Bushnell’s latest gaming concept, described as an “entertainment dining experience” where people are able to play games via interactive video terminals at tables. He claimed that uWink was preparing for the future of home entertainment, around 20 years away, in which touch-screen coffee tables in the home would be the norm.

That is basically… a CYBER CAFE… A Cyber Cafe that provides food or better food… so at it’s core is a “High Priced Cyber Cafe” woohoo… That is not the future… that is the PAST, I ran a cafe like that back at 2000 in Hong Kong at prime district… we even have massage chairs, big screen TV and so forth… and at the end what happen? it FLOP!

Now I am not just going to whine and criticize without saying what I think is the future… No doubt his concept will eventually appears, but that are fundamental flaws.

• Imagine having a Baby Back Rip with your friend and you both are touch the big touch screen table…
• Imagine having a steak and your knife scratch on the table
• Imagine playing games like warcraft and your tea cup is blocking it, due to nature reflects you push the tea cup away and it spill…
• At the end, a restaurant or cafe depends on turnover rate, if you manage to do a good job your customer will likely stay for hours and hours just order a drink or so…

This is basically what happen with my cafe…and also a friend of mines that opened a CAFE 2 years ago and flopped in 6 months.

I think what is going to happen which in some way has already began – Mobile gaming. You now see people in Asia going to a normal cafe bringing their PSP or NDS for a game together. With iPhone I think it will be matter of time people will be gathering to play games in the public. This dining idea will not be main stream in the future… but mobile P2P or Online gaming will be.

Yet that doesn’t means sitting at home gaming will be replaced.The reason why online games are created are NOT EVERYONE have the time or luxury to meet up, even more in most cases are impossible as the player live far far apart. That is what make it very addictive as there is NO way that you can play a game with a friend that live in a different country can meet you up just for a game (unless we have the star track beam thing invented). Moreover is impossible to stay at a outside place for hours and hours playing… at least not in a normal daily life… people do not party every single day for 3 straight hours… at least not the mass majority can.

The idea Nolan suggested is a “De-evolution” of gaming…