Online gaming
Online games refer to games that are played over a network and in the present times refer to games that are played over the internet. Online games can be simple games which are available all over the internet and can also be complex games with graphics and virtual worlds which are played by many players at once. Thus online gaming has in a way brought about a new facet to gaming and has in some ways made single player gaming obsolete. While some sites offer games for a fee there any many sites where gaming can be done for free and the site owners make their money from advertising revenue instead.
In the early 1990s games were played over a Local Area Network (LAN) and by the late 90s games began to be played on the internet. As the internet became more and more improved and the quality and standards of browsers also improved more and more browser games began to be invented where games could be played by using HTML & HTML scripting technology while more complicated games were played on a web server. The kind of games and the level of online gaming improved with the advances in technology.
With the development of web-based graphic technology such as Java and Flash came a new era for online gaming which allowed browser games to become far more complex than before and these games became immensely popular and were being played increasingly and all over the world. Games created earlier were also recreated with the new technology so as to improve the playing experience. In recent times a technology called AJAX was invented which allowed complicated multiplayer gaming through browsers, something which was impossible until then.
With the spread of broadband internet, massive multiplayer online games became popular and involved people from all over the world in a single game.
Now multiplayer games can also be played through browsers with a technology called Massive Multiplayer Online role-playing games (MMORPG) which have taken gaming to an never before reached level. Thus online gaming has come a long way since the 1980s with the rapid strides made by internet based technology.
