Deep inside a patch that expands pet battles and tweaks raids, Blizzard dropped a quest for a selfie camera into World of Warcraft's latest update. Some players may gleefully twitch and others may moan, but it's obvious the selfie phenomenon is arriving in the video game realm and won't be leaving anytime soon.
To unlock the selfie camera, players have to complete the Field Photography assignment. The mission takes about four hours and requires no special skills.
The selfie camera can only be used by one of the player's cameras, unless it's upgraded. Completion of the "Lens Some Hands" mission, a rare assignment, enables players to upgrade the selfie camera lens so it can be added to toy boxes and shared between all characters.
It's a lot of work to get the selfie camera for all of a player's characters, but Blizzard may be betting a good number of WoW players are eager to obtain the vanity item. There's reason to believe WoW's selfie camera may provide some compatibility with the game's new Twitter integration, which was rolled out in the same patch. Right now, though, all the kinks in the Twitter integration haven't been worked out.
At the Game Awards back in December, Konami's presentation of Metal Gear Solid 5's online component revealed the game will enable players to take selfies. If it wasn't humbling and enraging enough to watch a player's killer dance on a killcam, being forced into his or her selfie definitely fits that bill.
Games like WoW and the upcoming Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain are profiting from consumers' love for embracing the small number of breaths and heartbeats they are given and it's likely more game makers will adopt selfie functionality for the same reasons.
After all, the world of video games is an extension of the lives people lead offline, even if it appears to be an escape. Even if an enemy merc is rekt by Snake, it's the player who guides the characters and it's the gamer who wants to celebrate that moment. The gaming world loves to share screenshots and videos of gameplay, so it was only a matter of time before developers started making it easier for gamers to include themselves in those gaming snapshots.
