Ringing Your Bell -- Taking Credit for your Gaming Prowess

The Xbox 360 and Xbox Live (XBL)

Your profile that is part of your identity (Gamertag) when you play games on your Xbox 360 includes the Gamertag, your current Gamer Score -- which is the sum total of the point value for all of the Achievements you have unlocked across all of the games you have played -- your location and gaming motto (two pieces of information that you voluntarily entered when you set up your account).

In addition to the above information, your Gamer Card also includes a representation of your online reputation -- which is indicated by a five-star rating system -- the Gaming Zone you play in (Family, Recreation, Pro, or Underground) that you selected when you set up the account, and additional information like the people on your Friend List, and a complete list of all of the games you have played, the total Gamer Score for each, and a list of all of the Achievements on each that you have unlocked.

By default this information is public, which means that anyone who knows your Gamertag (or who you play an online game with) can look at it. In the options and configuration settings on your Xbox you can change the privacy level of most of that information if you want to, making things like your Gamer Score and Achievements for each individual game, and your Friends List private, so that all anyone will see when they try to access it is a blank line. Note that while you can make your individual game Gamer Scores private, your over-all Gamer Score cannot be concealed on the service, so while anyone on Live or the Web can see that you have 5,611 GS, they will not be able to tell where it came from, or even what games you have played.

The PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Network (PSN)

Your profile that is part of your identity (PSN ID) when you play games on your PlayStation 3 includes your name (pseudonym) and a display summary of all of the Trophies you have unlocked -- basically that is the number of Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze Trophies. In addition to that there is the motto you voluntarily added that can include where you are in the world, and a complete list of all of the games that you played and a complete list of all of the achievements for which a Trophy is unlocked on a game-by-game basis.

Sharing this information on PSN is especially important for gamers due to certain unfortunate realities within the gaming community on PSN. Partly due to the competitive nature that exists in the PSN gaming community, and partly due to the more restrictive communications habits of PSN gamers, much higher value and weight is placed upon the number of Trophies that a gamer has unlocked with less emphasis upon what the different Achievements are that the each of the Trophies represent individually. Because PSN gamers tend to judge other gamers on the service more harshly when they lack a certain number of Platinum and Gold Trophies it is a good idea to try to unlock as many of those two types as you can, as early as you can.

The Steam Profile

Steam is a Windows PC based digital gaming service through which you can purchase games, but like PSN and XBL it is also a community in which you are known. When you create your Steam Profile you can add a photo, motto, short biographical description, and other information like links to your home page. In addition to that, your Steam Profile includes the date you last logged in, a complete list of your games, and a list of all of the people on Steam who you are friends with.

Your games played list includes the name of each game, the amount of time you have spent playing it, and your achievements for each game in the form of a list of each, with the ones you have unlocked displayed at the top along with the date and time you unlocked it, and the ones you have not listed below them.

Steam also allows you to view the "Global Achievements" for that game to see what percentage of the community has also unlocked those achievements, which can help you learn which are rarer or the more difficult to unlock.

The Nintendo Wii and Your Friend Code

When Nintendo rolled out the Wii, from the start it was intended to be -- and was positioned as -- a family gaming console. Because of that, the community environment was designed to be closer and more intimate, which translates to a social system that more closely resembles PC networking than it does the communities on the PlayStation, Xbox, or Steam.

Roughly translated that means that social activities on the Wii are more Peer-to-Peer than they are group. Each Nintendo Wii has a Numerical ID -- called a Friend Code -- that represents the console itself rather than the individual user who happens to be logged into it, so when you share that number it is the same number whether it is Mom, Dad, Junior, or Sissy that is doing the sharing. There is no lobby or waiting room unless the individual game you are playing online happens to support that feature, and the bulk of the communication that takes place via the people on your Friend List happens through Wii Mail.

Because the Wii does not include a system of Achievements or Trophies, the rare Game Cards that do include a place for your Wii gaming tend to only include your Friend Code and a summary of the games that you play that you must edit by hand on the Game Card site. If you are a Wii gamer though, it is a very good idea to keep that short list current, as it can help you find new friends and people to play your new games with!