3 Reasons Online Gaming Has Become Increasingly Popular

Gaming has, for the most part, moved from the consoles-only multiplayer to the digital space. You might still remember needing to bring your Gameboy with a cable as a kid just to fight with your friends or trade with them in Pokémon. Or you might even remember the old times when you had LAN parties just to play World of Warcraft or Counter Strike 1.6. Those trash talks between you and your friends, shouting “I need healing” or “rush B” are probably still echoing in your mind.

Portrait of the Young Handsome Pro Gamer Playing in Online Video Game. Neon Colored Room. e-Sport Cyber Games Internet Championship.

However, today, you can just turn on your Wi-Fi, send friend codes, and interact with people online. You can just simply pop into a Discord, look for some games, and find people near your skill level.

There’s a plethora of reasons why online gaming has become increasingly popular, but here are the top three reasons why it’s become as big as it is now, to the point of being a part of the mainstream media, when it was just a niche hobby before.

• Larger Playerbase

With the rise of the internet, finding people to play with has never been easier. Especially with the pandemic going on right now, connecting with people whilst staying at the comfort of your own home has become both a necessity and convenience.

Applications like TeamSpeak, released in 2002, and Discord, released in 2015, allow communication between users through instant messaging as long as they have an account on the respective platforms. Discord, offering categorized chats, voice channels, and easy-to-organize team-play, has made gaming more accessible, thus increasing the number of online gamers worldwide.

Anyone with a smartphone and mobile data can go ahead and start playing fun games such as Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, League Of Legends: Wild Rift, and the niche Gacha games such as Fate/Grand Order, Arknights, or Genshin Impact. There are also free-to-play games offered by certain game stores both on consoles and PCs. A great example is Paladins. Paladins is a free-to-play game that’s available not just on PCs but also on consoles, paving the way for larger groups of people to check out and play this game.

The size of the playerbases of team-based and versus games has even given rise to tournaments; some websites allow you to play video games for real money by just winning competitions.

• Dedicated Game Developers

From the big shots like Riot to indie game developers like Tobey Fox, a dedicated development team for your game can go a long way. Valorant is a free-to-play game that has garnered a lot of attention just because of how its developers actually listen to its players’ feedback.

A great example of this was when Valorant developers, Riot Games, addressed player harassment in the game.  They weren’t able to quell this in their previously developed game, League of Legends, which is infamous for its toxic playerbase. The developers have dealt with this by enforcing the code of conduct, taking the discretion to apply penalties as needed.

Meanwhile, Tobey Fox created Undertale, a very famous game with an insanely huge playerbase. He was the only one to create the game while being the developer, designer, and music composer all at once. With his great and dedicated work as a developer, the game has garnered a Steam review score of 10/10 and 97% of players have enjoyed the game according to Google Users.

When developers are praised by each game’s players, which rarely does happen, the games get more popularity. People get curious about what the hype is about and try out the games to see what caused it. When the outcome is good, which is usually the case, people end up playing the game more and more.

• Esports

War. Glory. Victory. Esports is the biggest event in the gaming industry that involves any modern multiplayer online game competition. Besides game reveals like E3, esports always garners a lot of media attention. From social media to news outlets, it will always be the talk of the town, especially with competitive games such as Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Tekken 7, Street Fighter V, Overwatch, Paladins, and more. While the first esports tournament dates way back to 1972, what started the current trend are old fighting games, Counter Strike, and StarCraft.

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Being shown on streams while executing intense gameplay against enemies with the same skill level creates a lot of tension. These moments are widely talked about in online communities, and many people look up to these achievements, drawing inspiration from esports wins to do better as online gamers.

With the current pandemic, more and more players gain access to tournaments online as most tournament organizers have stopped orchestrating offline gatherings and have resorted to virtual tournaments instead. If you want to join the online gaming community , Discord, Twitter, Facebook, Smash.GG, and Reddit have the information on how to join such online tournaments also for those interested in placing some bets head on to rating bet net to see what games are covered.

Conclusion

Online gaming is not a new trend. It’s been here since 1980, but it only really took off in the 2000s, becoming part of the mainstream media in the 2010s. The trend goes all the way from small children playing games on their parents’ phones to dedicated players competing at the highest level. Regardless of what skill level you have, once you get into the game, you’ll realize that online gaming is totally fun and engaging. This is the main reason why it has become increasingly popular in this digital age. Online gaming creates an experience that players enjoy, and being able to do it with friends from across the globe makes it even more fascinating as well.