Social Media Integration into Games

Wow, 20 consecutive days posting to the blog. I'd be lying if I said there were no doubt in my mind that this would occur.

Today's topic is more of a question than an exposition. While tooling around the various games and other apps now living in my precious iPhone, i couldn't help but be struck by the amount of them which asked me if I'd like to integrate with Twitter, Facebook or both. Most of the time it was for posting updates or scores, but others were asking for access to my friends lists, to 'find others using XYZ service'. While I'm all for the advancement of connectivity and social media, most of what I ignored or opted out of today seemed extraneous. To have Doodle Jump send my scores to Facebook and Twitter, aside from the fact that they are embarrassingly low, just feels like a great way to annoy anyone who's following me on either or both of those platforms. That feels like the incredible amount of posts visible on my profile from friends playing the latest casual Facebook games. While I don't begrudge them their enjoyment, sometimes the sheer volume of useless spam becomes overwhelming.

Don't take this as an attack on social media. I follow Twitter almost obsessively, and I enjoy my Facebook account. I use some basic forms of social media broadcasting to inform people that I've posted to this very blog, so in some ways this post feels a bit hypocritical. This commentary is not aimed at the existence of social media integration, but at the overwhelming use of it at this time.

Is this the future? Will everything we do be broadcast on some platform to keep others up to date? When will our cable boxes post to Twitter what I'm currently watching? Will my cellphone soon send updates to Facebook as to who I'm on the phone with? Will it get to the point that my toaster will tell the world whether I'm defrosting an Eggo or warming up a bagel?

Strange topic, I know, but it's becoming more and more relevant by the day. Console games, PC games, mobile phone games, they're all increasingly being sold with some sort of hook into the social media scene. Is there such a thing as being too connected? Am I just a technological dinosaur who's already been passed by? I'd like to think not. To me, this feels like the industry, and the public as a whole, trying to find some equilibrium with all of this incredible connection ability available to us these days.

Long story short, I want to hear what you think. Since this is going to be posted on my Facebook account, if any of you were linked to this from that portal, what do you think? Are the notifications that I've posted to my blog annoying to see on my profile? Are you as tired as I am about casual game spam? Let's start a conversation about this in the comments. i want to hear from you.