Players In Games
After resurrecting my old hotmail account and struggling find an available nickname, I manage to log into MSN Games. I'm greeted with a message box that tells me to switch to Internet Explorer. Okay, fine. After digging for a while, I find MSN's top five multi-player games:
1. Poker
2. Uno
3. Checkers
4. Hearts
5. Backgammon
Wow! Sounds like I'm in for a treat... I decide to go with poker because I have some experience with other poker websites. After installing over five ActiveX Controls, the game finally loads. Six minutes later, MSN finds me enough opponents to start playing. I'm placed in the bottom right corner of the table at an awkward angle, and my cards are only visible when I rollover them. The action buttons (call, fold, etc) are small and scattered.
There is a chat window but no one has said a single word. I decide to break the ice but no one responds. So, I play a few more hands and quit. MSN Games' community is nonexistent and there appears to be no effort to encourage social interaction. Even worse, MSN's games are just poor. It is clear that MSN only created this games section because Yahoo did it first.
On the other hand, Yahoo has twenty multi-player games including some originals. The games are Java applets, so you only need the JRE which most people already have. Initially, when I clicked "Join," nothing happened, so I had to disable my pop-up blockers. While Yahoo's multi-player games aren't flashy, they are consistent and have a thoughtful user interface.
Similar to Sissy Fight, all of Yahoo's multi-player games feature a lobby where you can chat with other players before joining a table. Each of the games I played had a very active lobby with a combination of trash-talking and friendly conversation about the game, or otherwise. I also noticed even more chatting in cooperative games like Spades. Unlike MSN Games, the in-game chat was also lively.