The problem is that as gaming takes on more co-operative multiplayer aspects, it becomes less a discrete or isolated activity and more a part of that player’s social network. Although the underlying technology is different, there’s not much difference between challenging a friend to a game of Scrabble on Facebook or inviting them to play a few rounds with you on Street Fighter 4 on a console.

Uncharted 2: one way Twitter flow.

When you move to MMO or virtual world gaming, a player might build up a list of tens or even hundreds of social contacts based on the various activities that player might take part in. A player might also have a social network on Facebook, Twitter or Bebo that’s completely isolated. Where games do connect with social networks, it’s all one-way.

There are ways around this problem: PC gamers can run their games in a window in order to track their various social networks. Console gamers have it slightly easier – the Xbox 360 for example has integration with Windows Live Messenger but it’s limited to that single service. It’s not an elegant solution, which is why many gamers turn to separate devices to monitor their social networks.

The interesting thing is that this kind of activity, where you’re displaying small snippets of personalised information to a user, has been around for a while in the smartphone and web industries. A widget engine, can create an environment for small applications to run, which can then interface with services running on the internet. All you would need is for the widget engine to be incorporated either into the console or the PC operating system. Developing and publishing widgets is then a fairly simple affair.

There are several challenges that immediately become apparent when trying to encourage widgets as a platform for displaying external information in-game.

• Controlling the user experience: Developers are keen to refine and protect the look and feel of a game. System alerts are acceptable, but others are kept to the background. There’s no reason though why developers couldn’t extend the widget API in order to control look and feel, allowing widgets to blend in with the game interface. There are even imaginative ways this could be used, such as projecting messages onto in-game scenery before fading away, or adding Flickr photostream images as poster backdrops.
• Gaining mindshare: Persuading developers to take this on might be challenging. There is evidence though from the PC gaming platform that gamers are willing to learn the skills needed to customise their own gaming experience. These customisations can be shared with others, and there are already established networks such as Curse.com available for users to upload, rate and share addons.
• Allowing shutoff: Just like when you watch a film at the cinema, sometimes you want to switch off contact from the outside world. Features like whitelisting for important messages or contacts might also be an idea.
• Being extensible: New networks and utilities come online all the time, and it’s important for any framework to be flexible enough to cope with new additions. Likewise, being able to control which networks you interface with is pretty crucial.

Games have already started publishing updates to social networks. If these changes come into play, our social networks can start updating our games as well.