How Has the Internet Changed the World of Gaming?

Ever since the internet became a part of many people’s lives from the late 1990s it has wrought changes in almost every area.

Firstly, it’s transformed the way that communication is carried out with email now being the primary method that businesses and individuals use for getting in touch.

It has also brought a wealth of information to our fingertips. So, if we want to find out who won the World Series of Baseball in 1927 we can discover it in seconds (it was the New York Yankees).

One area in which it has made a very significant impact has been in the world of gaming. This is hardly surprising as it’s an activity whose growth and development has closely matched that of the internet and it has been affected in a number of very significant ways.

A New Distribution Model

One of the most striking of these has been how it transformed the way that giving gamers access to their favourite games works.

There was a time when any big game’s launch was hotly anticipated and games stores saw long queues outside as the release time grew closer. Then these dedicated gamers would head off clutching the CD-Rom of the game ready to load it into their PC or console.

But the internet, and increasingly fast download speeds, means that today a game launch becomes simply a time when it can be loaded onto a hard drive.

Many games don’t even need to be downloaded. They can be played in the cloud gaming in an equivalent of one of the big streaming services like Netflix or Spotify.

In turn, this has had a major effect on the financial model used by the gaming industry which now relies on a number of revenue streams including monthly subscriptions as well as the sometimes controversial in-game purchases.

The Growth of Mobile

These have become especially prevalent in the fast-growing world of mobile gaming. The reason for this is a straightforward one. The great majority of mobile games are free to download and play.

This means that the developers have needed to find another method of recouping their money and making a profit. The answer has been to request so-called microtransactions from players whether to buy more lives in a game or to give their characters more weapons or a faster car.

One area of gaming for which this hasn’t been a problem has been the casino industry. Today very many people choose to play their favorite casino games online which has led to a boom in the number of new online casinos entering the market. This is a business that operates on a very different model so all money that changes hands is either in the form of stake or winnings, hopefully more the latter than the former.

A Spectator Sport is Born

It would also once have seemed almost inconceivable that fans of the activity would have wanted to spend their time watching others playing games. But thanks to online channels like Twitch this has indeed come to pass. Each month this has an incredible 240 million unique visitors. At any one time there are also an average of 2.4 million viewers tuning in.

This is related to the incredible sense of community that online gaming has generated. So now it’s also possible to play against others literally anywhere in the world in multiplayer games, something that has helped to bring the worldwide community of gamers closer together than ever before.

The Rise of E-Sports

No examination of the effects of the internet on gaming would be complete without mention of the phenomenon that is e-sports.

This has quickly grown to be a multi-million dollar global phenomenon in which the very best gamers in the world can earn huge incomes for doing what they love best.

The number of tournaments and competitions have multiplied at an unbelievable rate, and so have the viewing figures for the same.

With teams being created and sponsors keen to be associated with them, e-sports are creating the sort of legitimacy that no-one could have predicted. So now you can even take a degree in the subject – and they even have the approval and support of the International Olympic Committee with the first ever Olympics Esports Games to be held in Saudi Arabia in 2025.

Improved Feedback Loops

Finally, from the games developers’ perspective online gaming has made it easier for them to tweak and improve games. This is thanks to the feedback that players are able to give, either direct to the developers or on one of the countless fan forums out there.

So glitches can be spotted and mended, and enhancements can be made.

Looking ahead, the worlds of AI and VR are certain to have a big effect on online gaming amongst many other changes. So however much the activity’s been changed to date, we can be sure that there’s plenty more to come.

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