now that i think about it, i have played many online games, but been turned off.
i play a lot of sports games. playing online is quite a thrill... except when the other guy just quits when they're getting their ass whopped. i gave up after a while.
another example is when i was trying to improve my chess skills. i played quite regularly on yahoo for a while... but again, there are always people who quit when they lose, and just let you wait there letting the clock run out. or Magic Online, more examples. in Magic it's not that frequent, but it's very very frustrating when it does happen.
a consequence is that i end up playing with friends--this happened to my online bridge (the card game) habits. you need 4 people to play, and it's VERY, VERY, VERY annoying when one guy just loses connection or decides to leave the table. the quality of the play also varies too much, so in the end, i only play bridge online with friends.
so even without friends code, i ended up only playing with friends anyway!
so we'll just have to see how this friend code experiments turns out. one thing is for sure--it's different from anything i've seen. cumbersome? feels like it. but don't bash it just yet--if the DS or the Wii has taught us anything, don't bet against nintendo.
(my prior view on nintendo and online play is that nintendo sucks at it because their management probably doesn't have much online expertise or understanding, with gaming being their forte. but i might have to change that viewpoint, depending on that friends code outcome.)