Playfire vs Raptr

vs

First off, this is just my opinion, but the interface in Raptr.com sells me right away. It tells you who is playing, when they are playing, what they are playing, gives you detail, and links you to the gamers profile, when they are playing.

That factor of Raptr by itself is what would make me join in a heartbeat. I have never seen a website with an application that tracks your game play, and displays it on the website, except for Xfire. I did some research on the owner of Raptr, and he used to be a video game champ, with games ranging from Doom, to Quake. The owner was pretty rich already, but wanted more. He pulled funding from some more people, to add up to over 10 million dollars, and created Raptr. I also learned that he was a programmer at Xfire. This explains how he knows how to link players to the games they play, and have a close partnership with Xfire.

Playfire on the other hand, only seems to brag about how many gamers they keep collecting, in the text on their home page. They show no content for games in the home page, they just show how many members they are collecting, and the features in their site. If you have to brag, you are boosting your own self esteem. I had a friend like this, and that is all he does all day, is brag about how much money he makes, but has nothing concrete to show me.

Lets take a look at member profiles. Playfire shows a pretty cool theme system, and your profile allows for some HTML in the About Me area at the top of your profile. It displays your Networks for PSN, XBOX and Wii, but does not link to them, so gamers can see your detail. The PSN gamercard for Playfire is inaccurate, because you can select platinum for every trophy in PSN. The Xbox Live data, and all the rest are accurate. Playfire also displays the Genres you play, but does not link to them, so members can view your Genre likes. There is a display on your profile, for owned games, and loved games, but the bookshelf interface is really huge, and can stretch your profile. The Setup feature is pretty cool, since it can tell other members what kind of computer you have. All in all, the interface at Playfire allows a member to lie about achievements, and game experience. So if someone hooks up with a noob, they will never know until they fail badly.

Raptr's interface also shows gamertags in profiles, but also links to your gamertags in XBL, PSN, Steam, and more. The platforms in a profile shows a graph of how many PC, or console games a member has, plus links you to view only those kind of platform. This is a quick way of viewing a members games, without thumbing through their profile, as you do in Playfire. Although Raptr does not use HTML to customize any aspect of your profile, they do allow pre made themes, and a live feed, showing your recent gaming activity in your profile. Your recent games played, and your recent achievements from Xbox, and steam, show up in your profile. I liked the Raptr interface so much myself, that I created a link to Raptr in this website, in the Extras Menu.

So in conclusion, I like Raptr better than Playfire, in my opinion. The interface is more engaging for gamers to see what others are really playing, and there are links in your profile, linking to games you own in a platform that other gamers might be interested in.

=)

I also like Raptr. I prefer it over Xfire because, up until I discovered Raptr, I was using Xfire and Trillian as seperate entities because Trillian could not link with Xfire in an accurate manner. So now I only have one client to do all of my talking in, saving me space on my PC. I also REALLY like the cross platform syncs that are offered through Raptr. I don't plat PC games, at least not that often, so Xfire is semi useless to me. Raptr though is capable of letting my contacts know that, not only am I currently playing my Playstation 3, but it will tell them what I am currently playing on it. I like that I can see my Live contacts that are online without having to cut on the system to see if they are online. Plus, keeping track of all of my recent history allows for up to date trophy information when my name is hovered over in the chat client. All of these reasons, for me, make Raptr a must! I understand the purpose of Xfire or Steam for those who are strictly PC gamers, but for someone like myself who likes console based games over PC, Raptr is hands down, the best. I've got Xfire (and Steam if I had an account) to talk to my PC game buddies, as well as regular chat clients for my IMing buddies. Yet I am still able to chat, in a PC game, like I was using Xfire. I could go on and on about why I like Raptr, but I think it speaks for itself.

Dennis Fong is the founder of Xfire as well. I think he knew what the community wanted, as far as a social networking website. You know that Xfire is already built on its own coding, and to redo that would be a nightmare. So Dennis created Raptr, an evolved version of Xfire. It has everything you need to connect to your friends.

This link is something I found as well on the internet:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-9877079-52.html