There are Achievements, Entitlements, eventually trophies, and now there are Honors, courtesy of Disney’s upcoming DGamer social network for the Nintendo DS.
DGamer comes first attached to “The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.” As the first title coming out of Disney’s newly formed Fall Line Studios, a group focused exclusively on Wii and DS development, there’s quite a bit riding on the reaction to this initial outing.
Disney’s hopes are pinned to the younger crowd flocking towards DGamer, Disney’s gaming take on the Facebook/Xbox Live/MySpace phenomenon, an extension of what the company has already been toying with on Disney.com.
I decided to give it a whirl yesterday. Unfortunately, Disney rejected my screen name!
When you sign up for DGamer, it takes 24 hours for your proposed screen name to be approved, as a human monitor needs to double check it. I didn’t read the fine print, as the name can’t reveal any personal information. I’d proposed “patrickMTV.” No dice. For now, people can only find me on DGamer as Guest333518537. We’ll see if “MTVgamer” flies any better.
I don’t have kids, but it’s comforting to know there’s such a level of personalized security in DGamer. During a demo last week, I was told DGamer even monitors chat room comments. If certain sentences are uttered (i.e. “what’s your address?”) they are automatically, invisibly flagged to DGamer security and screened by a human.
The Honors system isn’t much different from any other Achievements-like system that we’ve seen, just under a new name. As players complete certain objectives in “Prince Caspian,” they’re given a message an Honor in their DGamer profile has been unlocked. These Honors are reflected in the in-game DGamer service and online at DGamer.com.
Alongside Honors, every profile comes with a unique avatar. Whereas Nintendo has not issued any new improvements to the Mii service on Wii since its launch, Disney intends to provide new customization options alongside the launch of new games, new movies and new television shows to incite friendly jealousy amongst gamers. Just by signing up for DGamer in “Prince Caspian,” for example, you can strap on a Buzz Lightyear suit.
I even decided to try and re-create myself in DGamer. How do I look?
Disney intends to have DGamer in every Nintendo DS title they produce in the future. They stopped short of saying DGamer is coming to Wii, but they didn’t rule it out, either.