I started playing 1 vs. 100 on my Xbox 360 tonight. After hearing a review on National Pubic Radio news while driving home from work (just a note, I’ve looked for the transcript or audio, and I can’t find it. NPR News 7/7/09 ~6:00/6:30pm CST). I think it’s a very enticing start to something that could explode in popularity.The game itself is still in beta (until this weekend) and I noticed a few inconsistencies like the order of the stat break group ratings and the random drop-off of team members and audio abilities. However this didn’t seem to take away from the overall addictive experience of playing against thousands of other people playing a massive trivia game.
MMOCG?
If you didn’t quite get the acronym above: Massively Multi-player Online Community Game. It’s definitely not a role-playing game (MMORPG). There’s no character development to go through. No leveling to do. From what I can tell there aren’t any achievements to be had (as of yet). You can choose to play anonymously (setting your privacy to private instead of public). However doing so will take you out of the displayed ratings, which is half the fun. However, it could be just as fun if you happened to get into a round without anyone (not going to happen).
If you ever watched the TV version of the game which was hosted by Bob Saget, you’ll understand the premise. However, the original rules are only followed during the weekly live versions of the game where 100 players are selected to be in the ‘mob’ and one lucky player is selected to be on ‘stage’ with the live host. The players are chosen by skill, but not at random. I’m betting that they’ll have a good range of skill in the mob during the live game-casts.
[smartads]
Advertising
My experience tonight showed that the lobby of the game was sponsored by Sprint. However, the actual game didn’t have any sponsors. Every 10 questions lead to a ‘stat break’ where the stats were explained and could be viewed, also the process of who’s picked to be in the live show is minimally explained. I’m sure that these breaks are sponsored during the live events. During the NPR newscast a first time player was asked about their experience regarding the advertising during the game. “I’m not sure there was any” and “I would be willing to sit through 30 seconds of advertising to get to do something that I enjoy”.
I completely agree. I already deal with short-bursts of pushed advertising during my online experiences. Whether it’s reading news and blogs or watching Hulu or Youtube; I’m presented with the ever-present “sponsorship” of my source of information and entertainment. I don’t mind it (if it’s done right). One factor brought up during the NPR news was the fact that online advertising has a mostly entranced audience. Meaning that online players are less likely to get up and walk away from the action even for a short time. This is true for me. I took a quick break in between gaming sessions tonight, and when I’m watching Hulu I take breaks by pausing the movie/show (and not missing ads). I’m definitely not going to walk away for 30 seconds and chance missing a question (re: 1vs100) or a plot point (re: movie/show).
The big advantage of 1 vs. 100 is that each user is required to sign up with their geographic location, age, and sex. This information is not available to nearly any other medium. You aren’t required to sign-up/in to Hulu to watch video, same with Youtube. And online news/blogs don’t have that luxury either without running surveys or taking the information from visitors being already logged in where a profile exists with that optional data.
Overall
A great experience. You don’t want to walk away if you have any level of need to establish your trivial intellect. You do need a Xbox Live Gold Account (~$50.00/year) in order to play, but I already had that because I watch Netflix Instant and play games online. The games are only available during certain hours of the day/evening. This is actually somewhat welcome, otherwise the gameplay would be diluted and you’d have those ever-present never-sleeping players. It looks like the opportunity to play in the live shows is based off your ability rather than quantity of time playing.
Try it out, it’s fun. Oh, and look for iamdezdotcom (shameless, I know).
–dez
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