Over the last few decades, the practice of online gaming has gone from an obscure curiosity to a globe-conquering phenomenon. Simple text-based interfaces have given way (at least in part) to high-fidelity, immersive environments. The change in the industry has been enormous – but still, it’s easy to forget just how far things have come. Let’s take a look back at the key milestones.
The Early Days of Online Gaming
Online gaming can actually be traced back much further than most of us imagine, to the debut of the DECsystem-10 in the late seventies. This allowed for thirty-two players to participate in the same gaming environment. The internet first came about in 1983, but it wasn’t until the release of SGI Dogfight in 1986 that gamers were able to actually use the internet to connect to one another.
The Rise of Multiplayer and Social Gaming
A significant milestone was reached in the 90s, when id Software’s ‘Doom’ brought the concept of a ‘deathmatch’ to the masses. ‘Doom’, and later ‘Quake’, set the benchmark that’s still being followed by competitive first-person shooters. But the Internet is a means of co-operating, as well as competing; Massively-Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, like Blizzard’s ‘World of Warcraft’, allowed entirely new kinds of gameplay to emerge, as players interacted with one another, and with a vast fantasy world.
Mobile Gaming: Gaming on the Go
In the late 2000s, the release of the iPhone utterly transformed the way that we interact with the internet. Rather than being bound to a desk, internet users could now connect from wherever they happened to be – which was an earth-shattering development as far as mobile gaming was concerned. Now, everyone had access to a gaming system – and with it, access to games like Slingo and its variants.
Casual Games and Hybrid Formats
The emergence of the ‘casual’ market is what has fuelled the explosive growth of the gaming industry over the past few years. While millions of people might have been willing to play the original ‘Doom’, many millions more would be willing to play quick puzzle games like ‘Candy Crush’. Games like Pokémon Go would later take advantage of the GPS system in a phone, meaning that real-world actions could unlock new in-game possibilities.
Technological Innovations Changing the Game
The innovative use of GPS wasn’t the only thing pushing the world of gaming forward. More sophisticated mobile network technologies, improved graphical hardware, and expanding storage space have made new kinds of gaming experience possible. Software like the Godot Engine has made game development more accessible, too.
The Role of Streaming and eSports
The internet doesn’t just make it easier for gamers to actually play games with one another; it’s also a channel via which we might watch other people play games. Streaming content is abundant on the modern internet, and certain games make for excellent spectacles. High-end players in games like Counter-Strike, Defence of the Ancients, and StarCraft can command serious audiences and serious prize pools, too.
What the Future Holds for Online Gaming
Given the pace of change over the last decade or so, it’s difficult to say with certainty what the future might bring. It’s likely that Artificial Intelligence will be involved not just in the production of games, but in the way that they’re rendered and displayed, too.
