So many areas of modern living have been drastically and irreversibly changed by technology, specifically the internet and its widespread availability.
Thousands upon thousands of articles have been written on this topic, but if you are old enough to remember the days before the internet, you are surely aware of a time when you had to wait a standard two weeks for a package (AND paying for shipping), wave down a taxi, and a phone connected to the wall.
Of course, in many cases what happened was that old forms of entertainment simply got an internet revamp or “went online” so to say. Having better access to entertainment-related information also changed. Let’s say that you’re visiting a city in another country.
In the decades before the internet, finding information on the entertainment scene in that country was a laboring and time-consuming task, nowadays it is a simple search that can be conducted in a matter of minutes.
All games are available in multiplayer mode
But one aspect of the entertainment industry was really shaken to its core – gaming. Yes, there were games before the days of the internet, in fact video games have been around for few decades before that. But the way games were played and the types of games that were available is very different. This Forbes article mentions three aspects in which the internet has impacted the video game industry – crowdfunding, social media and mobile gaming and while these are some the most impressive phenomena, but by no means the only ones worth mentioning.
Generations growing up in the 1990s are old enough to remember the first games with network capabilities which made it possible for people who are not physically present in the same room to play together via LAN, and while it is difficult to compare it today’s network gaming enabled by Broadband, it really revolutionized gaming.
At first it was mainly first-person shooters and strategy games that were played in multiplayer, but nowadays pretty much all games can be played by multiple people, and in the case of MMORPGs, by thousands of people, all situated in the same virtual universe. This gave birth to some phenomenal games and communities. While many sociologists and other scholars see gaming as it alienates people from the real world, it is also an opportunity to meet people from all over the world, albeit virtually, and to connect with like-minded people with similar interests.
All types of games have changed
Gaming is very diverse, when discussing genres and types of games that can be played, we already mentioned some examples. Graphics and complexity are the two aspects in which games have changed in the last few decades. Not that all older games lacked complexity, but the lack of technological capabilities did not allow them to make the games as complex as they would like to.
In the wake of the new and all too complex games that require thought out strategies, many players turned to simple, hassle-free games that lack complexity and are casual and easy to play. Casual games have been on the rise and are particularly popular in social media. Many of the complex, story-based long video games also feature mini-games within the main game, as an interlude or a prelude to a new level (part of the game). It breaks the routine and let’s players have a rest from the complexity of the main game.
One branch of the gaming industry which can also be considered to be an industry on its own, has also changed in the age of the internet. We’re talking about gambling, of course, and particularly about online slots. First with the emergence of the first online casinos, the online slot games started becoming a lot more diverse.
Long gone are the days of slots that featured only fruits, bars and 7s as symbols. Many modern online slots also come with a storyline, characters and a higher degree of interactivity. But there are also games which combine more retro elements with advanced graphics, such as Reactoonz slot.
Even board games changed. Firstly, it became possible to play online, but it is also a lot easier to do research on new board games, communicate with other enthusiasts, learn about new projects, new board games that are being developed and a lot more. Thanks to technology, the sky is no longer the limit — next one is virtual reality, facial recognition, and artificial intelligence taking us into the next generation of gaming.
