Online gaming has really taken centre stage when it comes to playing any game these days, whether you are playing on your desktop computer, laptop, gaming console or smart phone, all games are played via the internet.

The one thing we can be really thankful for is the fact that the internet connections have improved. Broadband speeds are getting faster each year with more fibre optics being laid out throughout every country; this ensures that everyone has the benefits of fast broadband without the hitches we used to face. Do you remember when you had to use a dial up connection through your telephone line, you could actually hear the modem dialling out and the internet was lagged. You could probably go and make a cup of tea or coffee while you waited for the page to open.

Luckily this is not the case anymore and with fast broadband speeds, online gaming has increased in popularity. Many of the online games have serious graphics; I mean the graphics are faultless that in most cases you cannot believe you are playing online, as they are crystal clear. This wouldn’t be possible with the internet we knew all those years ago, the graphics would have taken way too long to load and you would be sitting there probably losing interest.

As the internet technology has improved in leaps and bounds, so has the online gaming. You can find just about any game online these days from your favourite board games to strategy games, simulation games and role playing games.

Find Yourself in a Virtual Reality

Find yourself in a virtual reality where you can make friends, team up and defeat the bad guys, achieve goals and level up. Who would have thought that online gaming would become such a social game, such a game where you could meet up with friends anywhere in the world and play a game together? One friend in the UK and the other in USA meet at the same time every night and play a game together, it’s actually mind boggling.

The truth is that the youth of today just know it’s there, they don’t remember the times before smart phones or even the internet, where the only way to play was to go to each other’s houses, now they can interact and be social, strategize together and make new friends from their computers.

It’s not only youngsters that are enjoying online gaming though; there are millions of adults worldwide who are enjoying the benefits of online gaming. They are getting to meet new people from all over the world, make new friends and play with old friends and acquaintances. There are no limits when it comes to online gaming any more enabling us to put our thinking caps on when playing strategic games such as online poker, to put our fighting caps on when playing some of the multi-player role playing games and to put our social caps on when playing some of the simulation games.

Increasing in Popularity

If you think about it, almost every home in the world has a computer, laptop or smart phone, each of these offers the user the ability to play online games, so you can imagine how many people are going online and playing each day.

Yes online gaming is increasing in popularity, as I said before you can find just about any game online. There are games for younger children to help them with counting and spelling, there are games for slightly older children where they learn how to strategize and build cities, there are games for the teenagers where they come together to achieve level success and there are the games for adults which include poker, bingo, slots and multi-player role playing games.

Each game has its own followers with new gamers joining every day, many of the games require a payment up front and some you can enjoy completely free. When you walk into a gaming store and buy a PC game off the shelf, you find it’s not as cheap as you may have originally thought. Go home and find it online and you can buy it for a fraction of the price online, download it and start playing.

The question has to be is online gaming still considered as an anti-social exercise? When I was younger we rode out bicycles out in the fresh air, went to the beach and played hop scotch. The youth of today sit at their computers for hours on end and play games together even though they are in different houses or maybe even different countries.

With the types of games on offer which include social games and strategic games, I have to say that I don’t think online gaming is as bad as computer gaming a few years back. Today the gamer gets to constantly interact with others, this means good communication skills as they work together to defeat the enemy. They need to learn strategy in most of the games, enabling them to strategize in a working world later in life. So when you look at it that way, online gaming isn’t as bad as you may have thought when you watch your child playing in front of the computer for hours on end.