Video games have come a long way from their humble beginnings. Once upon a time multiplayer games were limited to two people and some joysticks. Today, video games servers house millions of avatars, all of which representing an individual somewhere in the world. In earlier days our characters were limited to a pixilated 2d version of the developers design. However, today our characters serve as a digital emissary to an online realm in which the dynamics appear to be endless. This is the digital age we find ourselves in at the present. All of this sounds very appealing and except one must look beyond the visage portrayed by these video games and attempt to penetrate their core. These video games are not all give and no take.
This fully immersive world serves as the breeding culture for a very prominent subculture known as massively multiplayer online (MMO) gamers. In my experience these have proven to be the most addictive games. These digital environments share some real world’s qualities and when mixed with fantasy along with lore a virtual world is created. Communities are then formed within these worlds such as you may find in any other locale. According to the economy, social interactions, and infrastructure, one may actually argue that MMOs are in fact communities.
Yet another advance in multiplayer video gaming is the rise of local area network groups or LAN parties. LAN parties combine face to face gaming with online gaming and have proven to be one hell of an experience. While watching the below video I read a comment which read “LAN parties are better than Club parties”. Personally I disagree but that is an interesting notion. Let’s see why:
By: Matt Alexander
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment