SMS in Games

The other day, while I was in the middle of losing too much sleep to play a game I had no intention of buying, GW:EN, I was running through an Explorable Zone when a thought struck me. Trying to switch between steering my characters in game and tabbing out to jot down a few thoughts to stoke the furnace I like to think of as my blog and contemplating whether it would be worth it to play with a laptop for writing balanced on my lap, it occurred to me that it would be so much easier if I could just text message my writings from ingame to myself. I know that I can blog, say, from my phone if need be. Although my verbose style does make that a rather daunting prospect. Though, with devices like the iPhone making it cheaper and easier to do so, it will become an ever more enticing prospect. As these videogame makers are often on the cutting edge of technology, I don't see why they couldn't provide me with a similar mechanism. After all, I'm already online, already connected to a network, I'm already using a program that can handle the sending and receiving of text messages...why not? Why can't I send text messages from within a game? To IM, to IRC, and beyond. Sending SMS messages in a video game seems like it should be a natural outgrowth of the technologies we're already using.

But, in my scant researching into the matter, I haven't found anyone who's done so. It's bound to, sooner or later, as wireless communications and virtual worlds become ever more closely woven into our societies. At some point, I imagine we'll all have tiny devices we can carry on our persons – I think I'll go for the wrist model myself, or maybe a pair of glasses – combined the functions of all the devices we take for granted today. The cellphones, the messengers, the players, even the laptop, the browser, the feed aggregator, and more as our circuitry gets smaller and our programs smarter. We'll be able to hold in our palms what I keep on my desktop today. As our lives become ever more integrated, ever more concentrated into these devices descended from the bluetooth marvels we posses today, then our various methods of communication will become ever more connected. There won't be a difference between sending someone a text and an e-mail or a picture or anything else. Just different ways of passing along data, suited to the task at hand, and accessed from one convenient device.

We're not at that point yet, of course, even though we're rushing headlong to this informational singularity. But, surely there's some design company, some telecom enterprise, willing to work together to make this gaming texting happen and reap untold streams of revenue along the way? Imagine, you could send messages not just to yourself but to other people. If you were playing a tournament and you were running late, stuck on the freeway on your way home, you could pop open your cell and text your teammates letting them know to stall and avoid the forfeit. You could do that right now, of course, but only by knowing their phone numbers and other, out of game information. I'm talking about sending them a tell in the game itself. From your character, from your account, paid for by the same credit card which pays for the wireless service you're using. Bundled, marketed together. Causing people who'd bought the one to be interested in the other. Every call made, every time the feature is used in game, making those companies involved just a little bit richer. You could text people from inside the game, too, without having to leave the keyboard, without having to leave the program. Send them a message that they should hurry up before your match is canceled. Or that you've just found that rare item they wanted and to ask if they're interested in trading for it. Even just to post a message to a place like Flicker that you're looking for a few more people to begin your raid.

Dozens of uses, boundless possibilities, and it shouldn't be too hard to put together. I mean, you used to be able to order a pizza from certain games. Surely sending out a few bits of encoded text onto a wireless network can't be that much more complex? Or VoIP? the technology to make it happen is just lying there waiting to be put together. I mean, I have no idea how these things work or even how to put it together. Much less come up with anything detailed enough to submit to the patent office. But there have to be people out there who could make this happen. The technology to make it happen is just lying there waiting to be put together. And when they do, then I could sit back in my gaming chair and blog while happily playing my game. Just imagine.