You will be forgive for thinking, "What has a video game got to do with Social Media?" Well as it happens rather a lot, you see Champions Online the follow up to the hit MMOG City of Heroes/Villains is the first AAA game title I'm aware of to integrate Social Media features directly into the game.

What is Champions Online?

CO as it's known to the players is a Superhero themed, Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) where users create their own Superhero and battle evil villains, as players gain skills and defeat the bad guys they level up and earn perks and other in game items to help their super hero progress and take on bigger villains. The games setting comes from a Pen & Paper role playing game from the 1980's that has  proven to be very popular over time.

Setting up Champions Online Social Features

To get started you will need to use the /Slashcommand in your chat box type in /socialmedia and hit enter, a new window will appear with four social sites in columns the first two are Twitter and Facebook the ones we all care about. Click on the COG symbol above each column will start the setup process for that Social Network. Follow the on screen instructions you will usually need to use your Alt + Tab keyboard short cuts to minimise the game and load a web browser.

The Social Features use Twitter Oauth and Facebook Connect which both require a browser to authorise, Twitter is quick and easy Facebook will require you to Alt+Tab back into the game to continue each stage of the setup in total it takes just a couple of minutes to setup both Twitter and Facebook.

Being a Social Media Hero

The world of Social Media has opened up a lot of very cool possibilities and Champions Online takes advantage of Social Media in a very unique way, any major action or reward your character receives in game can be automatically pushed to Twitter or Facebook (or both) as a status update. So when I defeat FoxBat (An in game villain) a Status update will be sent to Facebook that looks like this:

"ForceKitty has completed the perk Vanquished Foxbat! - in Champions Online"

Sorry should introduce ForceKitty my crime fighting Super Hero, here is a picture of him taken using another of the Champions Online social features.

Social Screen Shots

If you use the /Slash command and enter /socialscreenshot into your chat box and hit enter the game will take a picture of that moment and upload it to Facebook and Twitter. It's not just your achievements in game but also the story you would like to tell your friends as you play.Over time and as ForceKitty levels up these features provide an almost comic book story of my own that I'm sharing with friends along the way.

Here is a shot of FoxBat face planted thanks to my awesome crime fighting powers :-) You can also use /socialstatus to push a status update to your social network just type in /socialstatus Your status update and hit enter.

The future

I believe Champions Online will be the first of many to integrate social media into their games to help the game experience to continue out of the game, of course its a great way to advertise a game to friends and friends of friends. I hear that both World of WarCraft and StartCraft 2 will feature Social Media integration in the future as well.

Thinking ahead

It's clear that over the next 12 months Social Media is going to continue to be integrated into anything and everything that moves, from Video Games to TV Remotes if your currently in the development stages with a new product or service you could do worse than look to social media as a way to extend the reach of your service and create new ways for users to interact and discover the work you are doing.