Jimquisition: Friends

[gyroc1]

Been said a few times, but I don't agree with Jim here. I think the PR will say that people need to friend only people they personally know. And I doubt many can name 100+ people, by name, along with what they're known for, birthdays, etc.

And I don't see why raising the friend limit would be such an innovation. I do agree that companies shouldn't stick too much with old tradition, but I think Jim also used once the phrase "If it's not broken, don't fix it" in another context. I guess the solution would be to do something like re-evaluate whether a certain practice still makes sense in this age and what changing the practice would do. (Laziness trumps philosophy)

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I wasn't even aware this was a thing. I had anywhere between 250-300 friends on xfire back in the day and my GW friend's list was almost always more or less full. So if the limit is 100 it needs to be higher.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Well apparently the friends limit on Steam is about 300 or so, not including facebook. Not unlimited but still three times more.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I'd think with more twitter and facebook integration that companies would take the hint that we will add anyone we can.

 

[omicron1]

Friendships are precious things that allow us to get through this horrific maelstrom we bitterly call life.

Fair warning, Mr. Sterling: You may have a reasonable point somewhere in there, but every time you go off on a Christophobic rant I stop watching your video.



On topic: This seems to be another area where consoles deviate from PCs for no other reason than because they can - along with things like proprietary 200%-markup hard disks and ads-on-the-dashboard. The Wii U sort of puts a cap on the whole affair - Nintendo had six years to learn from its predecessors' mistakes, and what did it do? The same thing all over again. Bad N. Bad. Being a generation behind graphically doesn't mean you have to be a generation behind functionally, too.

 

[juyunseen]

You like your two dollar gloves don't you Squidward?

 

[uguito-93]

who the hell has 100 friends on a console? The most I ever had on xbox live was 5. Honestly, the only people who I think are affected by this are the same kind of facebook friendwhores with over a thousand friends who just get off on showing other people how many friends they have.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I think the friend limit should be 10 so that people might stop abusing the term "friend" to mean "people I've not exchanged ten words with and don't give a shit about". Not only would increasing the friend limit hardly qualify as innovative, it wouldn't even affect 99% of the player base. While I would agree that the industry is stagnating in a lot of ways, I don't think this is an example of that stagnation. A bad example on which to base your argument, although I have a feeling this was more of an apology video explaining why you haven't added your fans as friends.

 

[orangeapples]

This friends number thing seems to be a famous people problem. I have 10 friends that I play games with regularly. I see no reason to add random people I come across.

 

[theultimateend]

Your outfit is nice, probably the third best thing about the show.

I think the first is the topics.

Second being you?

I think that works.

 

[Sheo_Dagana]

This is an interesting point that I've never thought of... that doesn't affect me. =(

I wish I could be like Jim at the end, showing my massive friends list to my mother.

*obligatory Forever Alone*

 

[Nikolaz72]

Snip

I heard that PS3 has steam, couldnt that possible work as a temporary work-around? Youknow, extra friendlist and group-making tools.

If you have a PS3... And have the same problem on the PS3.

 

[Madman123456]

I should be able to use the Friends system to add many many people for different games; some of my friends don't like this game so they wont play it with me and others don't like that game. I should be able to have a System that allows me to play with random People and follow those with which i had a good Experience. Not everyone of which would be necessarily my Friend as it where and why would anyone assume to be able to assess who and why i would declare a "Friend".

In Reality, i have a lot of Aquaintances and few good Friends. I couldn't even keep up with all of them if i had 100 Friends. But i'd like to use the Friends system to get together with the People that play this game and then the other Game.

About the intro bit, People who laugh at you for buying new shit: I am one of those People.
We have quite a fast technology cycle already and if throw many at a Company with questionable Business politics despite not really needing their Product, you deserve to be laughed at.

Bought new Iphone5? Why? Is the old one broken? If that's the Case, why not buy any other Phone instead that thing which is apparently far too flimsy for a device that you should be able to carry around whereever you go. And if the old one is perfectly fine, do you really need the new Functions bad enough to warrant the Money you throw at the company?

That goes for every Phone and pretty much everything. I'm constantly annoyed at the buildquality of many modern devices and People who are ready to buy replacements whenever the Company says so aren't really helping the Case.

So, Mr. Quisition, Jim, you're welcome to try and slit my throat. But be warned that a human throat might be too sturdy for modern cheapo knives to slit.

 

[Urh]

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.

Let's be honest. When it comes to gaming platforms, "friend" basically means "somebody who I enjoy playing games with." It doesn't necessarily mean you want to get to know each and every one of them personally. And that's more or less how I treat my gaming friends lists - much the same way a philanderer keeps a little black book of booty calls. Sometimes I just want to somebody to play Left 4 Dead with at 2am and have some fun. I'm not much of a multiplayer gamer, and I don't even know exactly how many friends I have on my Steam account, although I'd be surprised if it wasn't over 100 (and that was a mere statement of fact, not a boast). Yes, there are only a few people on that list I have actually gotten to know, but mostly I just use my friends list as a jumping off point - I can see who's online, and I can jump straight into a game safe in the knowledge that at least one or two people in that game are people I'm going to have fun playing with (or against).

 

[CAPTCHA]

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.

So you want live services to act like another twitter or facebook? Aren't these already on consoles? Your request seems very journalism-centric. The live services were designed to replace the sitting in a room and playing together and they are rounded enough to support larger events like tournments and simulate LAN parties. The common man's needs are already being fulfilled, and as there plenty of platforms from bloggers and their fanbases already available, I don't see the need to appropriate another system that was never designed for it in the first place.

 

[Milanezi]

Sterling is right on the subject but... This episode was sort of a letdown, that didn't feel like a strong subject to tackle...

 

[Milanezi]

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.

So you want live services to act like another twitter or facebook? Aren't these already on consoles? Your request seems very journalism-centric. The live services were designed to replace the sitting in a room and playing together and they are rounded enough to support larger events like tournments and simulate LAN parties. The common man's needs are already being fulfilled, and as there plenty of platforms from bloggers and their fanbases already available, I don't see the need to appropriate another system that was never designed for it in the first place.

I agree with Captcha, the idea of PSN, Xbox Live, etc is to simulate the LIVING ROOM, the arcade feeling is already fulfilled by simply playing with a complete stranger for the duration of a game; and even in social networks I feel most of us add a lot of people we aren't really friends with.
I deleted my Facebook account over a year ago, for instance, because suddenly I saw myself in a sea of "happy birthday Marcello" people whom i barely knew and wouldn't even say hello to me in a common day, but somehow felt the urge to congratulate me (and each other) all the time over Facebook, I realized I didn't know most of those people enough to call them COLLEAGUES, let alone FRIENDS: the other day (last Saturday in fact) I was having dinner with my girlfriend and this guy who frequented the same college I did shows up, we didn't say hello, we didn't nod to each other, nothing, I don't even know his fucking name, but I remember having him added on my Facebook account, how WRONG is that?! I currently have Twitter and Instagram, and I deny people from following me like a fucktard, I don't want another tangled mess, I know very well the people I like and the really like me, and I will follow them ONLY. In XBox/PSN I tend to extend that only as far as to include the handful of people I usually play with.