Raptr, the social network that revolves around gaming, has launched in public beta. The robust site allows users to keep tabs on what their friends are doing throughout the gaming world, and also offers gaming recommendations, accomplishment updates, and a host of other features.
The site is designed to appeal to casual and hardcore gamers alike. In fact, Raptr avoids using the term “gamer” entirely, instead choosing to describe itself as a “social platform for people who like to play and discover games” - founder (and former competitive gamer) Dennis Fong says that many people associate the word “gamer” with a hardcore audience, but Raptr is for everyone.
Gamer Buddy List
The feature that will likely see the most use on Raptr is its buddy list, which allows users to see what games their friends are playing across a variety of platforms. While this can already be accomplished on a number of gaming networks, including Xbox Live and Steam, there isn’t a comprehensive service that keeps track of this information across multiple networks. The site offers downloadable clients for both Mac and Windows, which will track what games are being played and update the server accordingly (users can also use a Facebook Chat-esque interface from within the browser).
If Raptr can become the de facto standard for gaming buddy lists, it will be a huge success. Though it may come as a surprise to some, one of the most important facets of modern gaming is the social aspect. Gamers often align into Clans, and will readily boot up a game whenever they see a familiar screenname pop online. Unfortunately, existing networks are proprietary and only allow users to see who’s logged on to a single network.
Phat Lootz Newsfeed
Another impressive feature on Raptr is its news feed, which allows users to keep track of their friends’ activities thoughout many of the site’s supported games. The site keeps tabs on a wide variety of data, including in-game achievements from Xbox Live and high scores from Guitar Hero. Some games (particularly those with a supported API), allow the feed to get very detailed - you could conceivably use the site to track all of your quests for loot in World of Warcraft. Others send updates with more generic messages, like “Jason Has Just Played Chess”.
Gamers can also use the site’s profile section to display a list of their achievements, including the Gamer Badges seen on the current generation of consoles. While this may seem a bit silly, many gamers are extremely enthusiastic when it comes to earning in-game trophies and awards, and will value any opportunity to display their merits to a broad audience.
Automatic Game Updates
When we first wrote about Raptr in February one of its biggest selling points was its ability to automatically update PC games, saving users the hassle of hunting them down themselves. Since then, the feature seems to have become less important to Raptr, in part because automatic updates only apply to native PC games, which only constitute a fraction of Raptr’s game database.
At launch the site includes support for thousands of games across platforms including the console systems, native PC games, and web-based Flash games. Unfortunately, many of these games don’t make their data accessible - Raptr has to rely on a number of different methods to keep gamers’ activity status up to date, though some developers have made this easier than others. The issue is best demonstrated by today’s consoles: Microsoft has given Raptr access to Xbox Live backend, allowing the site to efficiently monitor user progress across all games. Conversely, Sony has yet to implement an accessible API, which means Raptr can only support select games.
In the long run, we’ll likely see gaming networks become more open, as cross-platform gaming buddy lists and accessible rankings can only help the industry. Raptr is positioning itself as a central hub for these services to play nicely, which would make it immensely popular. But as a casual gaming site, it may have some issues - I have a hard time picturing a casual game player taking the time to download one of the service’s clients or fill in a profile.
Raptr’s social networking shares a number of features in common with Rupture, Napster-founder Shawn Fanning’s startup that was aquired by EA for a reported $15 million. EA apparently aquired Rupture for its technology - the site, which was originally developed as a social network for World of Warcraft players, never launched to the public.
Until a website has software that can capture PS3, and XBox360 packets on the router via a windows app, it will be useless to most gamers. Most gamers use consoles.
Some guy that wants to do a gaming social network, but for real is going to have to sit there with packetdump and hack the PS3 and XB protocols so that people’s online status for consoles can be updated, and their ranks as well.
Until that happens, we’re going to have to settle for @Home which is coming very soon. PC gamers are obscure in comparison. Nobody I know that used to game on their PC does anymore. There’s just WoW, and there are already a million SN’s for WoW players.
All somebody has to do is create an app that hacks the PS3 games’ ranks and publish them online on a website, and that would be good enough to get millions of hits? I’m not going to sit there and do that. But somebody should. I would definitely visit that site as would millions of other people. There are no way to view ranks online. A whole social network could be built around online PS3 and XB360 ranks being published on a website.
Chris, are you saying it is ‘Game Over’ for Raptr in its present state?
Chris,
We, in fact, do automatically update your status and pull data from the various platforms (including Xbox Live and some games on the PS3) without the need to download our client.
Our desktop client is for people who do play games on the PC and Mac or simply want to see when their friends are playing on any platform right from their desktop.
Hi Dennis,
So if I’m playing GT5 prologue, will it show my ID as being online and playing GT5 on PS3 ???
Then will it show my ranking in that game, and say in Tekkin 5 Dark Ressurection?
I know you can do it if you have a dedicated machine that pulls packets from a PS3 that switches in and out of games, but how would you pull in people’s online statuses unless they were on your friends list of the PS3 machine being sweeped for data?
I suppose you could add them, but I think there’s a limit. And if you’re sweeping PS3 packets for stats data of game after game, how often does it take to do a rotation? How often are the stats updated?
If you can reach into the PS3 data stream and pull this data, are you going to try to integrate Raptr with Home? So that we have all the @home stuff on our profiles too?
NM, I just figured out that you guys must have the PS3 and XB360 sdks to do this.
I just can’t believe that they would allow that in the sdk EULA. They should have just made an API for this stuff. I guess that would be an unreasonable request seeing how valuable they think the proprietary data is.
You seem like a crazy person. First, explaining how “this should be done”, jumping to conclusions all over the place; then deciding you understand the “how”, but that the “SDK offers too much” and that an API would be better.
What? You wish you cloned this idea rather than some PHP scripts for a generic social network?
You and the “site locator guy” need to get off of government aid and all the meds you guys must take, and just go outside.
“We, in fact, do automatically update your status and pull data from the various platforms (including Xbox Live and some games on the PS3)”
It doesn’t work. I signed up to Raptr, then entered my PS3 ID and logged into Gran Turismo 5, and signed on to the PS3 network.
None of my statuses were updated either on the website or the client.
It didn’t import any of my scores from any of the games I play on PS3.
If they had used the SDK to reverse engineer data out of the PS3 onto the internet outside of their own game, I believe that would have violated the EULA anyway.
XBox and MSN is no sweat because you can tap MSNP for Live, there are 10s of PHP, Perl, Java ect libraries to interface MSNP.
“You wish you cloned this idea”
No I don’t.
“but that the “SDK offers too much” and that an API would be better.”
The SDK doesn’t offer too much. They won’t ever make an API, as it would undermine @home.
I signed up to Raptr, entered my id. None of my PS3 buddies were imported, none of my stats for Tekkin, GT5, ect.. were imported, my PS3 online status doesn’t show up.
Not as advertised. I don’t have an XB360 any more, so I can’t say for that, but for PS3 it definitely does nothing. They insist on signup that you import all your gmail and yahoo contacts. What does that have to do with gaming?
It honestly seems to me like this is yet another SN that’s trying to use gaming as a premise to get you to import friends. It certainly doesn’t seem to be able to interface existing gaming profiles.
In my humble opinion, for 12M in funding, they should have used a million or 2 to cut deals with Sony and MS to get the console data, to seemlessly import your PS and XB network data in real time.
Have the network be as easy as a Mac. This is difficult and painful. Instead of leveraging your existing profile you built on the consoles, it makes you rebuild it out of gmail and other contacts.
It’s definitely not a Mac style plug and play experience. I’m going to wait it out for @home.
““We, in fact, do automatically update your status and pull data from the various platforms (including Xbox Live and some games on the PS3)””
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8.....107020448/
No you don’t. I entered and triple checked my PS3 ID, not only does rank data, friends, ect.. not get imported, it does not update my status. Here is 3 pics in a Flickr set which clearly show me logged in and playing GT5 online and my status is not updated in the web or AIR client.
I am assuming that you have a PS3 on your side or emulation and you are adding the people to the friend list of that bot to grab the statuses, but it’s not working. Plus I didn’t see a “Raptr” friend on my PS3 friendslist, so I dunno if that’s even the case.
@Chris:
We don’t support the entire PS3 platform as a whole, only certain games on it. We’re hoping that will change after they launch Home.
We appreciate the comments, though. We certainly aspire to make the experience as seamless as possible and your feedback will certainly help us determine what to work on next. We’re just getting started…
Most gamers use consoles? Wake up and do some research. There are over 65 million PC gamers in the US alone. There are just over 10 Million Xbox 360’s and most people play on consoles? Like most Americans today, you need to read a bit before commenting on subjects you know nothing about.
Essentially, Raptr is a social network for gamers, but one filled with useful applications–at least for those for whom hard-core gaming is a way of life.
I reckon that in the time to come,majority of online users will have primarily two social N/Ws where they will spend some time out of their schedules…
First one to make up the social gap(the existing N/Ws) and the second one for satisfying one’s personal passion(be it music,dance,gaming,alcohol,technology or whatever).
And that’s why such networks and similar core social n/ws like fubar will find success in securing their loyal audiences.
Any new entry in general social network category has a narrow possibility of survival,bcoz of over-saturation
I personally love the Phat Lootz Newsfeed.
http://www.KidTechGuru.blogspot.com
You guys can’t read apparently. I’ve been a part of the private beta since february and I can tell you I’m not a hard-core gamer (I’m more of a social network buff) and I really love this service. I don’t have time anymore in my life to devote 60+ hours to a single videogame anymore. And just knowing that all of my friends are informed that I installed a new game on my PC or I’m in the middle of a tiny escapade of FPS shooting is one of the best things ever.
Also I love the fact I don’t have to go digging the internet for the latest patches and they’re just, there.
What exactly is a “social network buff”? you just like being in social networks for the hell of it? get excited about long friends lists?
Raptr is “priceless” for Silicon Valley engineers who care enough about gaming AND social networking - for the r99.99% rest of us - useless.
The only sensible comment on this page at this point in time.
EPIC WIN!
drool. let me in.
i used Xfire earlier and the update section from them was nice . They had these weekly pro nights for each games. Using it from an year or so. Lets see how Raptr will fare !. Though one is a messenger and other is a networking site !.
Looks good.
A lil bit annoying though, to see how it looks like the very new portal my team has been working on for half a year.
I suppose that’s the way for good ideas : you’re never alone turning them to reality!
Essentially this 2, http://playum.com a social network for gamers site!
Who cares if Dave is playing a single player chess game?? I wish they had challenges and tournaments, otherwise its pretty useless since most PC games will update on their own (thanks steam).
This seems very similar to xfire a company which Dennis Fong co founded and later sold for $100 million
How in the world is this better than Xfire? It’s already the standard buddy list manager for gamers among other things.
Anyone got the numbers on Xfire? At one time I thought it was the largest gaming network. I assume that it still is although the Steam client is getting more popular.
The steam client is very popular, it has already experienced the bulk of it’s growth.
@Eric:
Raptr was not meant to replace Xfire, but was designed as a complement to it for people who play more than just hardcore PC games. I believe and hope that Xfire will continue to be an invaluable tool for hardcore PC gamers. (Of course, I’m a little biased as a founder of Xfire
)
I used to play games exclusively on the PC - that’s not the case anymore. I found it frustrating that the only way to know when all of my WoW friends were playing was to log into the game because so many of them played on a Mac.
Some prefer Steam; some play web/flash/social games (not tracked by Xfire or Steam); some (especially WoW players) resort to using in-game friends lists because they have many friends who play on it on the Mac; and a large majority
Oops, accidentally hit the ‘enter’ on the previous post…
…a large majority of my friends today play console games. It was out of my frustration that there was no easy way to know when my friends were playing on various gaming platforms that inspired us to create a solution for it.
I wonder why TC never featured GameStrata? Is it because they are lacking in the Silicon Valley name recognition circle jerk - no Fannings, Fongs or relatives of Calcanis running the show?
That seems to be the trend. Whenever a site is featured, it usually has some big name attached to it or they were a part of one of TC’s start-up conferences. Coupled with the excess of CrunchGear-like stories and iPhone stories is making this site kind of annoying. The influx of spam and unintelligent comments in the comments just makes things worse. Popularity is often the death knell for a site’s original audience. I think Schonfield should start his own start-up blog site. I’d switch over to that in a heartbeat.
I can’t really add much to the conversation (sorry) but I really must chime in on their font/logo - looks OUTSTANDING!
What s lovely news!