Remember how everyone’s sister/mother/daughter/girlfriend/female friend used to be playing the Sims, and now consider what they are all doing now with that same time, Facebook or MySpace is the answer before you come up with one that I’m not about to talk about.

The next social networking phenomenon is about to emerge, I can almost feel it. Runescape had the right idea a few years ago, Second life is another not far from the mark, but they both lack something important, i.e. gameplay (obvious Runescape quip, sorry, I couldn’t resist).

Actually, to get that coveted teenage/twenty-something female socialite niche market, they need a lot more than that. What do they need?

1. Easy learning curve
2. Fun game play that isn’t repetitive
3. Social networking integration
4. A degree of customisation not as drastic as Second Life, but better than Facebook.

While writing that list in my head, in the shower where all the best ideas magically spray you from the showerhead, I first thought that World of Warcraft probably provides a lot of this, slightly disappointed at the possible roadblock facing this concept; I came up with the third point.

What if there was a Facebook application for World of Warcraft? Would it be used very much? How would it work? (I’m sorry if you’ve never used Facebook or played World of Warcraft, but these are the two I’m familiar enough to construct my point with)

I had some ideas, I first thought that, to your real friends, coming out of the WoW closet is worse than them finding gay porn under your bed. It has negative connotations to those that haven’t played it. Then I also reminded myself of the self justification that a lot of WoW players use (which I probably used once upon a time) about how it’s a social game, one that requires teamwork and coordination in order to succeed, sure, you can play on your own but it isn’t intended to.

This leads on to the social networking aspect. I’ve had this feeling in my stomach for a couple of months now that something big is just around the corner, bigger than Twitter, Facebook, or anything like that. One of those concepts you think “that makes so much sense, I could have thought of that”, well here I am hoping I have. A harmony of MMO and social networking, but there needs to be accessibility.

My mind is immediately drawn to Left 4 Dead despite its lack of ‘MMOness’. Suppose It was browser based and available in workplaces, university campuses and even (in a few years as the technology advances) able to run on mobile phones. Left 4 Dead has a simple formula. You plus three friends plus guns fight through hordes of zombies. With a little refinement to the gameplay, with a distinction between ‘easy’ easy and ‘Complete FPS noob’ easy it would gain popularity very quickly and friends would suggest a quick game of “kill the zombies” at lunchtime, while on a train journey or just because they can.

As Quakelive is proving while you read this, pretty soon the technology will leave behind the old gaming formula and take an entirely new shape. Games themselves don’t always lend themselves perfectly to advertising, but capitalism is a lot less likely to change than the way games are made. Eventually there may be conversations in board rooms along the lines of “This game would offer a solid advertising opportunity, but I don’t think we can fit the advertising into the Elfish atmosphere, however, the newest GTA 5 is expected to break all sale records, and we could definitely feature a billboard ad there”.

Perhaps eventually games will be more often based in believable advertising locations, either that or shamelessly sell out their atmosphere to keep themselves afloat. Ok, that was a little cynical, I don’t see Dalaran opening a KFC any time soon.

I have considered to myself in the past the best and worst case scenarios in the event of massive increase of in-game advertising. Correctly and tastefully done, it could help pay for server fees and fund proper patches and updates up to years after the games release (why this is still so hard for some developers I have no idea). For single-player, story-line based and RPG type games, I can imagine the advertising a lot more difficult to integrate, so I would worry that epics such as Bioshock and Knights of the Old Republic becoming fewer and far between. There is of course the aforementioned awful atmospheric aspect of advertising (sorry, couldn’t resist) that could kill an otherwise good game with bad press, although I’m sure many a game has ‘suffered’ the effects of bad press, i.e. everyone buying it to see what all the fuss is about.

I feel a rant approaching so I’ll make my last tangent brief. It troubles me how little the opinion of games journalists are taken into account when controversial games are discussed in the media. You would expect the view of someone who plays games for a living be more insightful than a politician with a chip on his shoulder on a crusade to save the world from... I don’t know, actually, what are they saving us from? I play plenty of these games, and I think films are a lot worse!

I’m just waiting for some game developer to get creative and ironic with his assignment “bad-action-movie-sequel-game” and put something inspired by the film that will raise a few moral questions. Also, where is Saw: the game? I love those films, and the ironic controversy of being able to torture people in a game but not on film would be very tasty.