Is Online Gaming The Latest Form Of Social Media?

By Author: Lionel Mepham
Total Articles: 4
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With the rise of Facebook, Twitter and the like over the last few years, the ‘social networking revolution’, already attributed to starting the Egyptian riots, fuelling the English ones and increasing the exposure of numerous charities, is now beginning to spread to all corners of the internet. Although the latest mobile technology may be one of the drivers behind the way modern day social networks work, namely enabling the great ease, speed and convenience sought by consumers within today’s society, it must be remembered that ‘social networks’ have existed for far longer than the past decade.

Taking the example of the internet, a relatively modern social network, it must be remembered that the internet has not just started to bring people together over the past few years, but over the past twenty. Emails, IMs and chat rooms are some of the obvious examples of this, but online gaming is a phenomenon which has brought people from all over the world closer together, often in unexpected ways and now it is really beginning to make its mark.

Online games have been around as long as the internet, indeed one ...
... of the earliest ‘uses’ found for the internet, after email, was the playing of games against human opponents on different computers linked via the internet. This trend continued to grow throughout the ‘90s as more and more games developers integrated online multiplayer capabilities into PC games, but it only really started to take off in the 2000’s when developers made PC and console games alike that depended on online multiplayer gameplay as the main component, and attraction, of the game. Gradual developments in hardware, software, internet access and individual bandwidth meant that online games were soon becoming the main focus of attention of games developers; some responded by creating a new type of socially interactive online PC game – a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game).

MMORPG were the first signs that online gaming at a computer, or a console for that matter, could actually be a social activity. The genre’s characteristic ‘clans’, ‘guilds’, buddy lists and chat rooms gave players from around the world chance to interact both inside and outside of the game’s environment; most importantly these games did not just involve fifty-odd people at a time, they brought millions of players together in one huge environment. With players able to play the game whenever they chose, not being restricted to certain online session durations, and how they chose, these games gradually became a platform for worldwide social interaction long before Facebook or Twitter came into being.

Today, the different ways that social networking is undertaken by people, with ease being foremost in their minds, has led to many opportunities for online browser games to become a part of the social media fabric. Much smaller, more relaxed and easily playable ‘boredom busting’ casual games have invaded the likes of Facebook, many becoming incredibly popular due to their fun, if slightly addictive, nature. But many sites are now being set up to act as their own portals for whole rafts of various free browser games, forming their own online gaming communities with individual player profiles, effectively combining the worlds of the original MMORPG with the modern social networking infrastructure of Facebook. Such interaction on a vast scale is achievable by bringing people together for a reason: to play games!

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