Online Gaming Today By Christopher Low, Viwawa The online world has evolved rapidly. I remember when I was much younger, upgrading of my computer would always be motivated by my craving to play the latest games which require a good set of hardware. Gaming was a very fulfilling and distressing experience for many avid gamers out there. When the Internet exploded in the late nineties, online gaming took on its nascent form. Graphics were crude then but early online games like Ultima Online proved to be very popular. Suddenly, online gaming has evolved to become a movement of multi-player games or what we call today MMORPG for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. MMORPGs became pervasive around the turn of the century. Incumbents like World of Warcraft became one of the main de-facto benchmark by which many other early MMORPG studios based their games on. MMORPGs has taken on a very strong cultural and social angle in many communities around the world. Its effects among the youths of today can be clearly seen through their linguistic gaming slangs and time allocated to their favorite MMORPGs. Although MMORPGs fulfills the needs of the usual hardcore gamers, there is an emerging pedigree of MMO games with a casual theme. Famous casual game sites like Viwawa.com and QQ.com are fast capturing the mass gaming markets through the appeal of casual games.

These games exhibit important traits like familiarity and simplicity. In order to create a sustainable business model to a typical casual game, MMO Casual Game studios are weaving innovative features found in MMORPGs as well as Social Networking. These convergence of features has led to a new gaming genre called MMOSCGs or Massively MultiPlayer Online Social Casual Games. Instead of the Role Playing nature of traditional MMORPGs, the marriage of Social Networking and Casual games proved to be a winning success for new game studios like Viwawa.com.

In addition to online gaming, support for multiple platforms are also critical to spearhead the delivery of MMOSCGs. Due to the nature of the casual games, it is possible to offer these games on mobile phones. The net effect is a play-anywhere-anytime model. Viwawa.com offers mobile games which allows gamers to play certain games from their phones with opposing gamers who maybe playing from their PCs.

The landscape of MMO games are fast evolving. In the future, I foresee the landscape to be driven by technology, economy of scale, and the creativity of the gaming studios. Already we are seeing a new class of gyro-motor based games. A little of those can be seen on games which run on the iPhones. These games utilize the iPhones accelerometer or gyroscope mechanism to create a very fun game model.

The future is definitely bright and interesting for Online Gaming. I, for one, subscribe to the belief that Gaming is for Everyone.

Play on.