What Do We Play?
As with just about any type of social site, there are tons of gaming communities in existence. So what makes weplaythis any different from the rest? Well, according to the weplaythis team, “gaming sites are dark, geeky, and cramped with porn, popups and poker ads. We just don’t like that.” So they just don’t have it. Unlike the forum-based gaming communities that probably come to mind for most people, weplaythis this avoids the dark color scheme, typical ads, and forum-based approach, presenting itself as a truly friendly social network for gamers.
The primary feature of weplaythis is the Game Shelf, where users store a virtual collection of their game library. Each user is able to fill up their shelf with all the games they’ve played, define whether they loved it or hated it, and give them a rating of one to five stars. You can also mark which games you are currently playing. Publicly, users can display their six favorites or six least favorites, 3 of each, six recent additions, or six random games on their shelf. The over 37000 games are searchable by platform, keyword, or title, and everything from arcade games to PS3 titles are in the database, which the team constantly checks against the MobyGames database in order to keep it as up to date as possible.
Another feature that I really like is the Playground, where users can upload photos of where they do their gaming and tag the image with sticky notes to point out their favorite details. It’s a great way to get an inside look on not only where and how the people you meet game, but also on how they live. The rest of the weplaythis features are fairly standard of most social networks—friends, groups, and your own personal blog. weplaythis allows you to invite or search for friends and, of course, encourages making new friends through the site. In your profile you can define and group your interests, so when joining interest-specific groups you can find people who love Second Life, Nintendo Wii, or whatever else just as much as you do. Your blog is perfect for leaving your own game reviews, keeping track of progress, and ranting about anything game-related in general. You can grab widgets to place on your own personal site or blog, allowing you to take your weplaythis space with you and weplaythis always greets you with the latest that’s been going on with you, your friends, and the site’s progress when you log in.
In addition to what they’ve already got developed and available to beta testers, weplaythis is still working on a PC/Mac compatible application that showcases what you’re currently playing and shows what others are playing. weplaythis also encourages people to share their own creations via blog or group while they work on getting the object and theme contribution features working. If your work is good enough weplaythis will feature it on the front page. Other areas to explore that are still under development include the section for games and eighty-two platforms. weplaythis is currently in private beta, but you can request an invite here or learn more about it here.
