allisonmckelvey_3.1+INF+rough+draft

=allisonmckelvey_3.1 INF rough draft= Online Gaming as a social Activity College students are addicted to online gaming. This is evident in the amount of time that student spend on online gaming. There are many types of different online games. These include action, action-adventure, adventure, role playing, simulation, strategy, puzzle, casino, and vehicle simulation. To be an online game, it has to be played over a computer network and for it to be social you must be able to interact with other players at the same time. By using online social networks like MySpace and facebook, users can challenge their friends to a game instead of someone they don’t know who happens to be on the internet at the same time as they are. MySpace and facebook games are used to create social networks and catch up with friends form far and wide. I use one social online gaming site, called Club Pogo, at [|www.pogo.com]. I started using it when it was free to AOL users and I got hooked. It is a website that is free for uses playing certain games. If you want to play exclusive games you need to pay the membership fee. Club Pogo has many different games and a very wide variety. It has everything from online casino games where you plan with token you earn instead of actual money, to a yahtzee type racing game. I have played most of the games and some of them are addicting. Each member has an avatar, called a mini. This mini is a representation of you to everyone on club pogo. This mini shows up at the end of games that you won. You can dress it up however you want to. There is a mini mall. In the mini mall you pay for clothes and different backgrounds to show off your mini. There are many different ways you can change your mini. You can have it very plain or very done up. You can change everything about your mini; the pose, the background, the props, the color of hair and eyes and skin. The possibilities are endless. Many of online casino games are just like that of the ones in actual casinos, there is keno, blackjack, slots, and poker. All of these games do not use real money they use tokens you earn by playing other games. You can earn tokens by playing games and winning jackpot spins These games all have an area where you can chat with the other members in the game room. When you select a game you are taken to a page on the site that has a row of different tabs in the middle of the page. These tabs have different types of games or different ages on them. The bingo games have tabs that say ‘blackout,’ ‘speedy,’ ‘three-cards,’ and so on. Most of the other games have tabs that have different ages on them so you can go into a room with members your own age or you can go into a room with people of all ages under the ‘social’ tab. Once you are in these different tabs, you can choose a different topic. The topics you can choose from include just about anything. My experience with the different topics under the tabs is the most people just click on a topic to get into a room to start playing, however I went into a room called “Back Pain” and asked if anyone has back pain. Members in the room responded to me and said yes they did and that started a conversation about what kind of pain people have. After you click onto a topic you are then into the game room. When you are in the game room, there is a list of members on the right and under the list of members is a chat box where you can join in the conversation or start your own. Also on Club Pogo there is a feature that you can use to know where your friends are. You add a friend’s screen name to the list and when they are logged on when you are you know what game they are playing and you can join them if you want to keep in touch. There are also different events you can attend. On the homepage on the left hand side, there is a heading called Pogo Community and under it there is a link to an event calendar. If you click on it is give you a listing of all of the events for the week. There are two types of socials: Amazing Minis and Pogo Socials. In the Amazing Minis social members dress up their avatar and show it off to other members in certain games and game rooms. For example the calendar will tell you what day, time, game, and what room to go into. This week one of the Amazing minis socials is on Thursday at 6pm Eastern Time, in the game Wonderland Memories, which is a memory game, in rooms that start with the letter “O.” The Amazing Minis socials usually happen about twice a week. There are two different events a day and they are different times and sometimes in different games. The second event, a pogo social, gives you different topics to chat about in the rooms they tell you to go into. One Pogo Social this week is called “Arts and Crafts Club.” In this social, members meet and talk about the arts and crafts they have done. They also give advice and hints to other members about their arts and crafts. Members are to meet in rooms that start with the letter “P” under the topics tab. Another way to create a social tie using Club Pogo is to give out free membership trials. I was given one when I first started playing and that is when I decided to pay for a membership. The free trial membership gives the guest access to all of the members’ only games and members’ only game rooms. When you are not a paying member, you have to wait for intermission, which happens every so often, to wait for an ad to finish so you can go back to playing your game. When you get a guest membership you have all the privileges that the members have but you only have them for five days. Once the temporary membership is over you go back to being a free member. You can only receive one temporary membership and each paying member has three to give out to whom ever he or she chooses to give them out to. Online Social gaming is a thing of the present. You can do or play almost any type of game you want where and when you want to play it. You can play in Club Pogo like me. Or you can play on facebook to challenge you friends to see who can get the highest score. There are infinite possibilities to what type of games you can play. You can play action, action-adventure, adventure, strategy, casino, role paying games, puzzles, and many more so you can play almost anything you want. By playing games in a social network like on club pogo or on facebook or even MySpace you create a web of friends with whom you can share details of you life with. It is just another outlet for everything you want to get off of you chest. By being a member of an online social gaming network, I feel like I have another way to chat with people other than using texting and instant messaging or even calling on the phone. I am not a very outgoing person and I feel that when I am online I can talk to people more freely and I don’t feel weird about it. You have to be careful about it, don’t get me wrong, but I feel that online social games are a thing of now and the future and they are just going to get better. Online social gaming is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many other social online sites that give people the opportunity to meet more people and create friends and even meet people to date. By using the internet, we are free to create social networks all over the world and meet new and interesting people.