Me And My 60 Friends
A couple of days ago I received an interesting, albeit random, message over Xbox Live asking if I consider everyone on my Friends List a, well, friend. Right now my Friends List is sitting at a figure of between 50-60 gamers, which is actually quite high for me. Only a handful of whom are personal friends of mine, and an even smaller figure of people I actually play video games with. So my reply to him was, of course, ‘no’. Even though I do know of each person on my List, I can’t class the majority of them as friends. The question did, however, make me think about the similarities the Xbox Live Friends List holds to social networking sites, and how content some people are to have 99 gamers clog their Friends List, none of whom they know.
For me personally, a significant chunk of my List is made up of people I do know in one form or another, whether that’s by personally meeting, or simply having struck up a ‘friendship’ via forums, blogs, and Xbox Live itself. Even this very blog has put me in touch with a few people I now play pretty regularly with. On the other hand, I have had my fair share of random tags floating about in the past who have added me and never further elaborated on that. No invite to a game, no message clarifying who they actually are. Nothing.
At the risk of sounding grumpy, and unsociable, can someone tell me what exactly the point in bloating your Friends List with random people is? I fail to see the reasoning behind adding someone to your Friends List if you do not know them and have no intention of ever acknowledging them, adding GamerTags essentially just for the sake of it.
Having said that, I do not for one minute want Xbox Live to be used as a means of social networking; to accept a Friend Request, then to settle down for some ‘escapism’ (that’s what gaming fundamentally is, right?) only to be bombarded with several “hey, howz u today?” messages awaiting my attention. I never want to use Xbox Live as a sole means of communicating with people, personal friends or internet buddies (IM and e-mail is better for that, in my opinion). But I am wondering why some people wish to clog their Friends List with people they don’t even know, and have no intention of getting to know, even slightly.
Just recently I loaded up Xbox.com to see I had a new Friend Request awaiting to be approved. I always check my messages to see if the pending GamerTag has said who they are, and the odd time they do, in which case I usually accept. There was no introduction accompanying the Request though, and so I messaged them asking “Hey, blah blah, Just wondering who you are? Blah Blah” (without the ‘blahs’). The response I received back from him made my mind up quickly regarding whether I was going to accept: “I just like to have a lot of people on my Friends List”. Okay, but… Why?!
Perhaps it’s just me though. Maybe I am being a little anal thinking your Friends List should carry more significance than just a number of Tags you added in a bid to feel popular. I’ll never understand the gamers who boast about having little to no space on their Friends List for new additions, and on my journeys through gaming forums I’ve come across a few who do just that.
What’s your stance on the Friends List, though? Are you one of those gamers I’ve mentioned who adds people for the sake of it? If so please enlighten me on why that is! If not then who is your Friends List made up of? Personal friends, a combination of people you know and gamers you’ve come across on Live, or mainly random GamerTags you don’t even recognise when they pop up online?
Aah, and as I loaded up Xbox.com to take a screenshot of the message I received, I had a Friend Request from a Tag I don’t recognise. No accompanying message though, so I guess they’ll be remaining anonymous…
Tags: Friends List, Social Networking, Xbox Live
April 23rd, 2008 at 11:51 am
Good post Ash. Well, I have some strong feeligns on the old friends list. At first, mine was made up of my actual real life friends who have 360’s, and then friends of friends and so on. Then when I (I should really say we, Ash, given it was our clan) got into clan gaming and posting heavily on a forum I had loads of people on my list, the majority of which I actually played with. Since then things have died down on the online gaming front and I tend to play with only a handful of close friends. Because our clan was featured in a magazine I also received *a lot* (not as many as Ash admittedly) of FR’s from random people. Most I accepted, and I only ever delete people who annoy me or have racist or other derogatary comments in their profiles. One person seemingly added me only to proceed to send me rude comments about how I look, so they were quickly deleted and blocked.
So I do have a lot of tags on my list but I play with perhaps 10% of them; the rest I don’t feel like deleting, there’s no real point.
However, a couple of things annoy me about the FL. People changing tags and not telling you; I have so many tags I don’t recognise now, and I barely knew them before. Some tag I’d never seen on my list before sent me a message the other day that simply said ‘wales’. That was it. WTF?
I also have a mad Scottish male stalker who sends me messages every day, but I largely ignore him.
Also, about 90% of my messages nowadays are prefixed by the dreaded MTAF. That’s Message To All Friends for those that are happily unaware of this. Usually they are informing me they are going offline for a day/week/however long and are *always* ended with the impassioned plea to ‘plz dont delete me’. I just don’t get it. Why would I? Are there people who sit there and say ‘I haven’t seen MaStaChIeF68434 for a day or so, I better delete him’? Or are some people so popular they always need to make room for another d3stroya69?
Anyway, I think that sums up my feelings on the FL! Good post Ash. Plz dont delete me!
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I’m shy about adding friends, and I’ve only just upgraded to Gold again (had a trial in December, when I bought the 360), so I only have one RL friend on there, plus two I met in forums last week who were open to playing with multiplayer newbies and one I played Rock Band with last night and who I discovered goes to the same school as me. So, I’m at a grand total of four.
I think I’d add or accept requests from people I’ve talked with on forums or played with and found some commonality. I dunno. I’m not sure how I feel about the whole Live friendslist thing. It does make me uncomfortable in general when people friend me on social networks without any contact first — it’s like, at least send a message or something telling me who the heck you are.
Having enjoyed your blog for several few weeks now, I’d probably send you a request if we were playing the same games. I don’t have R6V2 or Army of Two yet, though, on account of I’m cheap and hate buying games new or near-new. Though exception will be made for GTA IV.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Hey Jandy, I know Ash will have no problem adding you to her FL, and feel free to add me too as we’re always on playing something or other together. It’s always nice to meet new gamers. We can get a little ‘Rockers Delight’ community going what with me, you, Scryypy and of course Ashley!
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Like you, I’ve had mixed emotions over the friends list over the 2+ years I’ve owned an Xbox 360. For the longest time, if I didn’t get so much as a “hey, I read your blog”, or if their personal profile was blank, I declined. Then I simply got lazy and started accepting just about everyone who sent me an invite, as long as they had a gold account and had similar taste in games.
I think I’m going to do a big purge, though. I don’t do a lot of multiplayer gaming, and now with a baby in the household, it’s even less likely I’m going to be able to commit time to play online with people. So there’s really no point in having a bunch of randoms that I don’t know and will never play with on my list. I think I’m going to weed it out to friends and online acquaintances.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Loud78, I hear you on the changing tags front. There are a few people on my list who seemingly change their tags several times a month! Difficult to keep up with that.
Jandy, if you’re new to Xbox Live then your Friends List will feel very empty. Send me a message with your GamerTag (privately over Twitter if you don’t want to broadcast your Tag) or add me and I’ll gladly accept
Even if we don’t share any games at the moment it doesn’t mean we won’t in the future.
Matt, dammit… online acquaintances is the perfect word to describe a lot of my Friends List. I wish I had thought of that when writing the post. I’d imagine you get a lot of Friend Requests with your GamerTag being on your blog and having a lot of readers. Like you I’m going to do a Friends List cull soon enough and keep my List free from random people I don’t know.
April 23rd, 2008 at 5:59 pm
here is the answer of the questions of twitter spam
you wrote
“I’m a 21 year old Internet Marketing Manager from the West Coast of Scotland who plays a lot of Xbox.”
and somebody put this in his blog
http://cr1st1an.tumblr.com/post/32559627
and you was a hit!!
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Ashley - Awesome, thanks! I don’t mind broadcasting my tag (my Gamercard’s up on my blog as well); it’s Susurrant Echo, and I’ll go ahead and add you.
Loud78 - Aw, you’re so nice. I appreciate that; I’ve heard so much about mean people on Live that it’s made me a little hesitant to just jump right in.
Matt - I read your blog as well; initially found it looking for design ideas but stayed around because I liked the gaming talk. I love hearing about you and your family gaming together–I think that’s great!
April 23rd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
My friends list is kept pretty short right now and most of them are people I game with often and know online. I have a few friends in real life but we never seem to share the same games so we hardly game. I normally only accept if I know the person online or we share some of the same games. I have you on my friends list and we both play Vegas 2 but due to our time difference we are hardly on at the same time (or maybe it is because I’m afraid of being schooled by you, haha). I have Matt on my friends list as well but as he said he doesn’t do a lot of MP right now so we haven’t played yet.
@Jandy; You live in Texas? I also live in Texas (Wichita Falls). I don’t know what games you play but you could send me a request as well (I’m normally between RS Vegas 2, Burnout Paradise, and Halo 3. Soon GTA IV). Gamertag; twofivethreetwo
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:26 pm
I don’t really add people who I find whilst playing Live, and I don’t really have that many random requests (although I did have two voice messages which made no sense the other day from people who aren’t on my list). Despite this I’ve managed to get 59 people on my friends list of which 25 I actually know or have at least met in real life. Most of the others are people I’ve met on forums but that I rarely actually play with.
I guess I’ve never really had a problem with the friends list but I can see how it could get annoying if you get a lot of random requests from people. Especially if they don’t give any info on who they are or why they’ve added you.
I did actually end up joining a game with someone who’d randomly added me the other day and it turns out that they were a major wanker, so I deleted him pretty fast. I’m obviously not popular enough to have this problem, lol
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:41 pm
James - Yeah, I live in Waco, at least for another month or so! Added you on both Live and Twitter. I can see getting into Live is going to put great pressure on me to get R6V2! I loved the first one, so I’m already inclined to splurge. And GTA IV is already pre-ordered.
I don’t have Burnout Paradise, but it intrigues me. I’m trying to hold out for Midnight Club LA for my street racing fix, but that’s a looong time away still.
April 23rd, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Vegas 2 is great to have. I didn’t pre-order GTA IV as I hadn’t planned to get it but others talked me into it, so I’m going to try to pick it up within a week or two after it is released (when I find it in stock). Burnout for me has been a great game and they are releasing some new online modes and a new island (expanding the freeroaming map) which is great.
Ash; All your talk of Viva Pinata made me check out the demo and it was a little addicting. I’m going to have to buy it real soon.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Quetza, thanks for stopping by. While I don’t understand why anyone would want to post a picture of me on their Tumblr, that explains why I had a ton of new followers from foreign countries. Sorry for thinking it was spam!
Jandy, FR accepted
I think if you do pick up Vegas we should find a time to set up a game and anyone who’s interested can join in. Would be fun. But, like James said, that time difference is a bitch.
Andy, that’s quite a big chunk of people on your FL that you actually know! I feel honoured to have made it on there
James, you should pick up Viva Pinata. You’ll have no regrets. You can make it as complex as you desire, or just play it from a ‘kiddy game’ perspective and find it fun luring in the different Pinatas. Your kids, if they’re old enough to play video games, should enjoy it too. There’s so much more to it than making your garden look pretty and colourful, but it took a while for it all to click for me. Now it has I’m 100% addicted
Plus, we can trade Pinatas!
April 24th, 2008 at 12:50 am
My son is old enough to play games (he does mostly on the Wii right now). After playing the demo I think he would like it. I got addicted to the demo and there wasn’t even much to it. I look forward to the full game.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:03 am
Well, I did my big purge tonight and rid myself of the anonymous strangers. And my friends list now sits at… 72! Damn, I was close to 100 and was hoping to cut it in half. Believe it or not, I can look at any name on my list now and know who that person is. Most are online acquaintances, a couple dozen are “real life” friends. That’s still pretty ridiculous, though.
April 24th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Has anyone here realised they’ve been deleted by someone and wondered why? With XBL becoming more and more like a social networking site in its own right you’re risking hurt feelings when deleting people.
April 24th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
James, seeing as it’s quite an old game you’ll be able to pick it up for next to nothing, too!
Matt, 72 may still be a big list, but considering you now know who everyone on it is it’s all good, right?
Loud78, I’ve been called a bitch by someone I had never spoken to in my life for doing that. There are some very strange people out there!
April 26th, 2008 at 1:24 am
I actually got rid of at least 20 people off my XBL Friends list, simply because It was becoming a “social networking” thing for people who added me. Sorta like Myspace? lol… I just keep it to a list of people who actually do gaming, and don’t add for the sake of having a list. If you know what I mean.