Jimquisition: Friends

[Jimothy Sterling]

Remember, I addressed the "pettiness" of the complaint in the video. This isn't just about friend lists -- the friends thing is merely the baseline example of how formulaic and outdated game companies are allowing themselves to be. Those complaining that this video is "just" about friend lists are kind of missing the clearly stated point.

 

[HalfTangible]

For some reason I immediately thought of the reprise of "Friends on the other side" from Princess and the Frog

 

[Entitled]

It's a fair point on a technical perspective, but I wonder: why are we allowed a hundred "friends" to begin with? I'm lucky to have six ACTUAL friends on my Steam list! Not, you know, "I met you online and you didn't suck at TF2 and you didn't act like a douchebag, so you get friended" material - ACTUAL friends.

People I talk to every single day. People I've worked with. Family members, in some cases, even. SIGNIFICANT people.

So what? You are just pointlessly arguing about termiology here. The "friends list" on a console is exactly for the type of relationships that you described, it's an euphemism for online acquaintances and fans and communities. It isn't just for letting your significant loved ones on it, but for all these vague online connections.

So yeah, technically that might not fit the traditional definition of friendship, maybe calling it "peers list" or "partners list" would be more linguistically accurate, but your comment pointing that out adds nothing to the discussion of why such a list is arbitarily limited.

 

[gardian06]

Remember, I addressed the "pettiness" of the complaint in the video. This isn't just about friend lists -- the friends thing is merely the baseline example of how formulaic and outdated game companies are allowing themselves to be. Those complaining that this video is "just" about friend lists are kind of missing the clearly stated point.

you do realize that by basing the forefront of the argument on a what many would consider to be a non issue then it is more likely to be struck with a massive reducto-ad-absurdum targeting your base pillar, and thereby making the entire point just seem absurd. If you were to have started off by mentioning the part about Hulu, Netflix and used that as the base of your argument, and then moved on to discussing the friends list thing. Then it would have been less likely for such attacks to be as pervasive. but were it felt that the rest/majority of your poinient are argument was more or less in passing, and the limitation of the friends list seemed to be the core it feels like it is the only point being stated.

 

[Shiro No Uma]

Ok I have to ask, if you could have 10,000 friends how many of those would you actually keep up with? I mean really? Like maybe 10. 20 at most. I'm surprised if you keep up with all 100 that you've got. Having more "friends" is mostly for bragging rights, it's not as though you keep in touch with all of them or even most of them.

If you have that many friends, maybe you're popular enough that the 10,000 would like to keep up with YOU. In my case, maybe I won't have a close relationship with everyone on my list, but I still feel bad that I can't add them all. It's not nice having to reject requests, and I think anybody who ends up joining big communities online will feel the same way.

I feel that your not being quite honest about this being a small and trivial issue Jim. For most everyone using these service it's not an issue and for many not having the ability to add more then 100 friends will never matter. However for people like yourself, someone who has a brand and markets themselves by having "friends" it's an issue that you have to feel bad that you can't add them all thus expanding your brand like as if you know and care for these "friends." That might skew your view a bit on this issue as it would me, but the idea that they are not innovating because they have put a cap on something as arbitrary as the number of friends sounds like a stretch. The "Innovation" issue you brought up is interesting, and I agree that some of the apps really suck on Xbox, but I would rather the game industry focus on innovation in gaming. I don't need a set top box that does it all. Like you said your TV does it better with the installed apps. There is all this new technology and peripherals and not one developer really knows how to implement them. Like motion control. More often they take me out of the game while the simple and tradition joystick is easy to use and never once made me think I wasn't Lara Croft while tomb raiding.

 

[Yopaz]

While I don't see a need for more than 100 friends myself I guess I can see how it might be an issue for some of the big names in gaming. We shouldn't let there be a limit to 100, I think Steam got a limit of 300 and I guess that should be the minimum.

Now I fear I will end up having just one friend on Wii U and I think I got 7 on Xbox live so yeah, it's not a big deal for me.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Blah blah!

So what? You are just pointlessly arguing about terminology here. The "friends list" on a console is exactly for the type of relationships that you described, it's an euphemism for online acquaintances and fans and communities. It isn't just for letting your significant loved ones on it, but for all these vague online connections.

So yeah, technically that might not fit the traditional definition of friendship, maybe calling it "peers list" or "partners list" would be more linguistically accurate, but your comment pointing that out adds nothing to the discussion of why such a list is arbitrarily limited.

Because God forbid we touch on a tangential subject, right? *sighs*

I've already said I understand what the actual aim of the video is. I know what's really being addressed is the industry's inability to see past items that have been part of the design culture for the last six years or so, now. I don't see how my stepping aside a bit while acknowledging the actual issue is a bad thing. Let's get back on track, though, before the apparent uselessness of my comment is brought up again...

This is the gaming industry we're talking about. It's a landscape where things calcify and become dogma because if you so much as remove the archetypal User from its comfort zone - shit, son, you're compromising our ability to make money! You can't touch a single thing or approach innovation seriously, because that runs the risk of upsetting the entire house of cards.

It's a case of Design Culture getting upstaged by Corporate Culture. The moment we'll get that fixed, we'll see bigger Friends lists and other fun things. Unfortunately, this requires a software engineer from somewhere in the Big Three's Console Dev department to realize that, hey, that limitation's actually pretty arbitrary! We could fix that, couldn't we?

Unfortunately, I think every console dev has more pressing matters to think about. I think this is kind of why we're not seeing a whole lot of innovation: iteration and perfecting existing concepts seems to be the rule of thumb. I'm pretty sure that in the wide and long list of design checklist items to be revised, there's about three dozen things more pressing than the Friends issue. New stuff tends to pop in once the current formula's been cornered or when the market feels pressured. Remember how Sony and Microsoft reacted to the Wii's motion control scheme? Initial dismissal, sure, but give it a few years and whoops! Move and Kinect. Gee, I wonder why that is...

I figure there's progress being made and Corporate Culture can't ever *completely* upstage inventive design - but it's bound to be a slow process.

 

[Jimothy Sterling]

Remember, I addressed the "pettiness" of the complaint in the video. This isn't just about friend lists -- the friends thing is merely the baseline example of how formulaic and outdated game companies are allowing themselves to be. Those complaining that this video is "just" about friend lists are kind of missing the clearly stated point.

you do realize that by basing the forefront of the argument on a what many would consider to be a non issue then it is more likely to be struck with a massive reducto-ad-absurdum targeting your base pillar, and thereby making the entire point just seem absurd. If you were to have started off by mentioning the part about Hulu, Netflix and used that as the base of your argument, and then moved on to discussing the friends list thing. Then it would have been less likely for such attacks to be as pervasive. but were it felt that the rest/majority of your poinient are argument was more or less in passing, and the limitation of the friends list seemed to be the core it feels like it is the only point being stated.

I like to think I have a greater respect for the reasoning capabilities of most of my viewers than that.

 

[Wolf Hagen]

O___o

This is defenatly one of the weakest topics discussed yet on this otherwise excelent show. Thanks god for Jim!

But honestly?!? I can't see the appeal in having over 100 Freinds. Exept for, when you use it as a kind of "Follower" thingie, like Twitter (Steam plus Community is kinda like that) but other then that....

I have round about 126 People in my damn Skype list, 1/3 of them are absolute strangers by now and even writing with 8 at a time is painfull.

Now try to imagine a number way over 100 people, trying to socialize with you. The hell no! Thats one mess that's harder to clean, then a train wreck.


I doub't this episode may also be about technical limitations. but then I gotto say, you picked a daaaaaaamn off interest topic for most people concerned.

Nontheless: Thank god for Jim!

 

[Uber Waddles]

Why is the limit 100?

Because thats the way most systems have it standardized. Its a nice, clean number that MOST people won't get anywhere near hitting.

From a psychological standpoint, humans can only process, at most, about 150 meaningful relationships. Most harbor about 120. There isn't a demand for it outside of celebrities or people who add friends after they have a good match then never talk to them again. You know who you are.

Its not necessary. Its a strain for them to develop and maintain. So why bother? Only a fraction of players will be effected by this limit

 

[shrekfan246]

However I actually can see why this is a problem for Jim. Imagine if Groups on here only had a 100 member limit. Groups like mine (Hot Topic Escapists), the Badge Hunter Group, the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Group, and so forth would not have room for the 500-600 members trying to fill in. They would feel left out thus despite having ways of being subscribed .. it's just not the same as being a full on member. Why is the limit 100? It could extend, and no charge required just rank up the numbers.

That's a good point, actually. Imagine if user groups did have a 100 member limit. There would likely be outrage on this website, even though I'm relatively sure that there aren't an overabundance of groups that surpass 100 members (for instance, The Brovengers are currently only at 87 and many of them haven't even visited the actual chat in months).

The fact that the friends list thing is limited to "only 100" people isn't the problem Jim is getting at, it's the fact that it's still only 100 now, ten years later and on two more platforms. That level of not changing with the times is endemic of larger issues in the industry. Yes, the average person will probably never reach that 100 person limit and therefore not be affected by it, but that's not the point. The people who are supposed to be pushing this industry forward are afraid of even the smallest changes.

 

[aceman67]

To all the people who complain that you can't add more then 100 people to your friends list, I gotta ask:

Do you play with even half of them regularly? A third of them?

Baring any far extreme examples, I'm going to say, most decidedly no. You do not. So weed out the ones who haven't been online in a few weeks/months, because really, its quite an idiotic thing to complain about.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

There's actually two social features for keeping track of someone. One is Friend and the other is Follow. The difference between these two is that you can follow 1,000 users, can only communicate to them through the Miiverse forum, and see their pubic activity.

I have no idea if the limit works the other way around. Still, that's probably what you would look for if you were to manage between close friends and fans so you're not constantly bothered.

 

[Rad Party God]

Trying to not sound like an hypocritical prick, I seriously didn't know that consoles had a limit for their friends list, I've been adding a shitton of people in Xfire, Steam, Raptr, Messenger (yes, some of us still use it), heck, even in MMOs, I've been having some sort of luck for League of Legends with after almost every match, at least one person adds me to their friends list (I definitely did something right if someone wants to befriend me instead of yelling at me "w tf voli u suck omg gtfo").

So yeah, I definitely can see how this can get annoying for consoles users, especially at this day and age.

 

[Fenix7]

I swear the average intelligence on Dtoid comments is about 1500% higher than here. Coincidentally, the Jimquisition was also funnier when it was made there.

Spoiler

dont worry sterling we know you have to make a living so we dont judge you

 

[chozo_hybrid]

I only have a couple dozen friends online for my xbox etc. Why would you have more than 100 friends? If you do have around 100 friends, do you play with them all?

To all the people who complain that you can't add more then 100 people to your friends list, I gotta ask:

Do you play with even half of them regularly? A third of them?

Baring any far extreme examples, I'm going to say, most decidedly no. You do not. So weed out the ones who haven't been online in a few weeks/months, because really, its quite an idiotic thing to complain about.

My thoughts exactly. I have no issue with it allowing more, but how often would people interact with even half of them.

 

[Katya Topolkaraeva]

or... as the latest incarnation of the Doctor would say "Red gloves are cool".

 

[dragongit]

On my PSN I currently have NO friends on my friend list because I didn't give a shit about adding more people that I didn't know, and probably wouldnt' even bother playing with a second time. Even on Steam I have about 20 people, where 5 of them I even keep regular contact with.

Raising the limit on the average joe, does nothing, since most of us probably won't fill it out. I get Celebs having this issue but for the rest of us it's a toss up.

 

[Kross]

I swear the average intelligence on Dtoid comments is about 1500% higher than here. Coincidentally, the Jimquisition was also funnier when it was made there.

Spoiler

dont worry sterling we know you have to make a living so we dont judge you

Well, at least you're here to raise the bar.

The primary use of a gaming service's friends list is multiplayer matchmaking. It's nice to be able to add many friends, including "that guy who wasn't terrible on my team that one time" for actually having more reasons to use the console and play games online with friends. It would be nicer if you could categorize your friends list to aid in matchmaking.

I imagine this is what "following" is trying to enable on the Wii 2?

Also, for online gaming, there can easily be several hundred people that you've played with across multiple games. Especially if you've messed around in Guilds or online communities like this one. You may not talk to them regularly, but often there's "large groups" of people who game together.


With a 100 person friend limit, you have to restrict your friends list to some kind of awkward contact list full of mostly real life friends who may not even play games that much but still want to be your Xbox friend.

Gamers who want to play something regularly end up doing silly things like meta contacts that just add other people who play a specific game (and you look at friends of friends to find people). But then once you have more then 100, you have to start a second meta contact. And none of the people on the first contact are allowed to be on the second, so you still only have a pool of 100 people who might be online when you want to play.

There definitely has to be a max limit to prevent abuse (there's always people who just want the highest number possible, which generally causes a non linear amount of extra server load), but it should be closer to 1000 then 100.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Remember, I addressed the "pettiness" of the complaint in the video. This isn't just about friend lists -- the friends thing is merely the baseline example of how formulaic and outdated game companies are allowing themselves to be. Those complaining that this video is "just" about friend lists are kind of missing the clearly stated point.

I got to admit, I did miss the point... So I re-watched the video, I get what you mean now.