Player.me, a Social Network for Gamers

Recently I've come across a new social networking site called "Player.me" which advertises itself as the place "where all things gaming live." I was able to get an account (it's currently in beta) and I have to say, it's a pretty cool place indeed.

The profile page is reminiscent of Google Plus.

Apart from its clean layout – which is a necessity in this day and age – Player.me is striking in that it's relatively simple compared to other social networking sites. Facebook and Google Plus feel absolutely bloated in comparison, and it even has a more spartan interface than Twitter. Some people may even go so far as to consider it bare. The site is in beta, so that may account for some of its lack of features, however I have a feeling that this won't radically change once the service approaches final release.

Player.me seems to want to act more like a hub for, rather than a replacement of, its users' other networks. Upon signing up, one of the first steps I took was to link my profiles from my other social networking sites – Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube, Twitch.TV, and a handful of others. We'll get back to this in a minute.

The main feed, set to display only content shared within Player.me itself. You can post status updates, but it's limited to text only (350 characters) with a bit of Markdown formatting.

After I completed registration, I was instructed to follow other Players. This is quite necessary, as unless you begin adding people to follow, the site will feel like a wasteland. At the moment, it looks like all Players are available for following by browsing through a list (I don't imagine this will be retained in the site's final release; what if I wanted to be unlisted?) currently sorted by number of followers. A quick glance through it shows that there's some big names involved already: YouTube sensation PewDiePie, top gamer girl MelonieMac, and eSports superstar Jaedong are all on the first page of the list.

The Player list sorts by number of followers in descending order. Player.me CEO Sean Fee has informed me that they're working on adding other options to find players.

So I added a few people to stalk, and the purpose of the site made itself clear. Along with submissions written directly within the Player.me network itself, posts and updates from those other networks I mentioned earlier are what comprise the feed which greets every user immediately upon logging in. It's like a Twitter feed which aggregates content from accounts outside of Twitter as well, or a Google Reader but for specific people rather than specific websites. If MelonieMac posts a stream on Twitch.TV, while PewDiePie uploads a video to YouTube, and Jaedong tweets about a where he's headed next, I can see it all in one place.

The main feed again, this time set to display content from all sources.

For those who follow a lot of people over various sites, this is immensely useful solely as an aggregator. But could it be used for more than that? Well, Player.me is still in its infancy and thus their specific feature set may change, but one thing that it could be great at is for indie game developers to show off their creations directly to the people they want to market to. Or, for those like me who don't feel like spamming their friends with game-related posts and would rather separate their personal lives from their gaming hobbies, this provides a great outlet.

The games list. Player.me is working on spicing this up with user-generated content.

In the end, while it isn't perfect and isn't the only option out there, I have to say I am pretty excited for Player.me. It's in a position to do things differently, catered more for people who love games, and I hope they prove to take advantage of that rather than become just another social networking site with no reason to exist at all.

If you're keen on joining, here's some invite codes below. Just copy/paste one into the "Code" field on the registration page. Get them while they're hot! (and maybe leave a comment below informing everyone if you used a code, just out of courtesy)

1. a0d6f365a0979947e734
2. 753d0a64df68cb2fcfa5
3. 30c5f6989c830c068acb
4. 02ca93718c495ae069a5
5. 6ae26984f0bf13997853
6. f217838850eda4e43565
7. 2c22998fa34b4e9b0d09
8. 3f93128b400891237be3
9. 1c44db6153b51ff0be27
10. 582a8b8084b6ac7cd583