The App

As a follow up to my previous post about what makes for a game, I’ll answer a question I’ve been asked before about ROCKETON, which is whether or not it’s really a game. The answer I usually give is “if you think of it is as a game, you’re not wrong, and if you don’t think of it as a game, you’re still not wrong.” I hope I can offer a slightly more interesting response here.

First, what is ROCKETON? It describes itself as a “Parallel Virtual World,” meaning that the virtual space that application takes place on exists simultaneously in many places (in this case, on various sites). The application itself is an avatar-based app, where you can create, customize, and socialize with a flash-based avatar. The virtual space also includes other activities and objects for you to interact with, including games. That’s an interesting point for this question – one of the buttons on the toolbar is labeled “Games,” which seems to imply that the other aspects of the application aren’t games. I also find that on a regular basis I refer to it as “the app” to avoid any confusion. I’ve also called the game a “social networking tool” before. Of course, sites like MySpace and instant messaging programs also qualify as “social networking tools, and I wouldn’t call those games.

That might make the question seem decisive, but there are a couple of other considerations that complicate it. First of all, the app is a virtual world, with its own resources and rules. A social networking tool that doesn’t count as a game might offer purchasable tools or features that make it a more effective tool, but they don’t have resource systems used to acquire virtual possessions for possession’s sake. The existence of virtual resources creates a boundary between the avatar and the person it represents – when I use a chat program, I’m using a tool to communicate information about myself. I can do this with ROCKETON, but I can also meaningfully talk about my avatar independently from myself. I don’t have a pet turtle, but my avatar might. I don’t know how to play the guitar, but my avatar can really wail on his virtual guitar. The fact that items exist in the virtual space for their own sake makes the virtual space game-like.

But there’s an even more important reason why the application makes social interaction game-like. If we look specifically at the chat feature of the game, we might be tempted at first to think of it as functioning exactly like an IM program such as AIM or MSN. However, when I type a sentence for my character to speak in ROCKETON, everyone in the same virtual room can hear me, and everyone in a different virtual room cannot. This means that my avatar has a location within the virtual world. This limitation actually creates a new concept that structures the way I interact with websites, and there’s nothing more game-like than utilizing limitations to create new kinds of experiences.

In short, though it’s accurate to call the application a social networking tool, I also think it clearly counts as a game, and I would even go so far as to say that it provides a uniquely game-like social experience by providing a structured way to socialize with other users through your avatar without being your avatar. The status of the application as a game might be more clear in the future as we release more features that allow users to participate in large-scale goal-oriented activities with their avatars.

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