Online Game Layer

Throughout human history games and game play have been a huge part of social expansion. In the last 30 years since the advent of personal computing we have seen the exponential spread of gaming consoles, podium, and handheld devices. With the spread of Internet access alongside faster connections and speedier hardware the spread of gaming has reached all corners of our day-to-day lives. 

Powerful smart phones, or 'super phones' and other devices are now offering users permanent 'always-on' connections. Processor speeds and graphic chip expansion is allowing access to immersive gaming and play worlds as never before. We can now play games on the bus or train, in the car and on the move. Social networks such as Facebook offer access to a range of gaming 'apps'. The gaming company Zynga is leading the way - producing games for Facebook and MySpace. Founded only three years ago Zynga now has 1300 employees worldwide and a shadow share market valuation of approximately $5 billion. Tapping into the human desire for play and games is proving to be an emerging next step in the spread of the Web and global connectivity. Alongside this new wave is evolving research into the use of games and gaming in the realm of learning.

Researchers have for many years been enthralled and intrigued to find out what makes young electronic game players tick. Watch any group of global teens, or 'Digital Natives' as they are termed, and you will see a generation of youth permanently involved in the rich interactivity of electronic gaming - on a wide range of devices and with myriad forms of connectivity and networking capabilities. Most of us are now familiar with consoles such as Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo, as well as PC gaming. Yet rapidly growing strata of other connected devices and access points are now all around us - the iPad, iPhone, Android, smart-phones, online apps, and more. According to a new report by research firm Interpret, mobile phones are now responsible for about 44 percent of handheld gaming, up 53 percent over the last year. It's a natural next step to seek a way to tap into these new channels of communication and gaming and realise their potential as learning tools and services.

Digital Natives spend many hours online, either in solitary gaming pursuits or as part of communities of play - networked gaming has been around for a number of years. The spread of handheld devices and faster always-on connections have turned this phenomenon into a permanent presence in the lives of today's youth. A new research initiative out of New York City seeks to harness the fascination of online games and services for educational purposes. In the past commercial educational gaming efforts have produced some stilted and fairly boring games with educational aims and objectives. 

Quest to Learn (Q2L) is a New York City public school focused on game-based learning using the gaming platform 'Gamestar Mechanic' developed by the Institute of Play with financing from the MacArthur Foundation. Q2L have developed a curriculum incorporating a range of ways to include gaming principles and problem solving skills in the classroom.

New online games offer a much richer and more social dynamic and sense of possibility. The spread of social networks such as Facebook and MySpace has fostered in today's youth a sense of collaboration and community that wasn't present with stand-alone games consoles where gaming was for years a lone journey. Now gamers can interact online from around the world in virtual environments within a range of settings and incorporating an unlimited set of characters, roles and possibilities. 

Gamestar Mechanic seeks to develop a gaming platform and community of play where learners can delve into very familiar game play territory where they both play and create their own games using the in-system tools and functions. Here alongside the dynamic of fun and interaction learners are able to expand their skills in critical thinking and complex problem solving. Stimulating children to take hands-on control of these digital environments is key and provides a very powerful sense of involvement and achievement. Educational electronic games of the past were considered simplistic and unchallenging and didn't have the opportunity to tap into the power of the web. Now with a range of connected devices and ancillary hardware such as the Wii controller or the Xbox Kinect controller immersion is possible as never before.

New platforms such as Gamestar Mechanic fall into a category populated by offerings such as those by Quest Atlantis who create a range of critical thinking games for schools. These interactive worlds offer much more than 'skills and drills', encompassing functions and capabilities familiar to students from their console play - video game levels, tools, power-ups and challenges. Entire virtual worlds available to adapt and mould. Engaging students in their own native digital environments and languages is a key component of these new services. Gamestar Mechanic can be accessed by any school, training center or club with Internet connectivity. A pay-for service can also be accessed providing a wider range of tutor tools and additional add-ons. Gamestar also offer a range of curriculum resources and classroom samples for the educator to adapt to their needs.

In Gamestar Mechanic students can design platform games and shooters; they can experiment with physics, planning and design. A wide range of core skills can be brought into play as learners share and publish games as well as involve themselves in peer review via in-game commenting and collaboration tools. Harnessing the powerful human desire for game play and interaction via these tools is the beginning of a new journey into the heart of the 'Digital Native' experience and lifestyle, meeting learners and youth on their own turf.

As the world seeks to place a new game layer on top of the Internet, via social networking podium and services and through a multitude of apps and other tools we will see the human desire for play and interactivity tapped into as never before. A whole new stream of applications and products utilizing game play are set to emerge. The world of education is evolving as an environment ideally placed to profit from intelligent and creative use of these new resources. Our instinctive desire for experimentation and discovery and our wish to solve problems are key components and the driving forces behind the newly emerging game layer on top of the world.

Online Games In Social

Microsoft Corp. is creating a new online game and make it a center of social actors, combining it with Facebook and Windows Live accounts. The new center will combine the companies so-called casual games features games, MSN, Windows Live Messenger and games for its search engine, Bing, to allow people to sue each other in a simple game but exciting as Bejeweled and Plants vs.

Zombies irrespective of the places he plays. Microsoft Xbox Live gaming service has already found success with a game completely different race. - Call of Duty as Halo and the new hub, announced Monday, players can log on to Facebook or Windows Live account, invite your friends to play or challenge, and round bridge. They can also send their achievements and status information, check online rankings.

Online Gaming Technology

An online game is a game of some kind of computer network. This almost always means that Internet technology or its equivalent, but the games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the internet, cable and terminals before modems.

The expansion of online gaming has reflected the overall expansion of computer networks for small local networks of the Internet and the growth of the Internet itself. Online games can range from simple text based games to games incorporating complex graphics and virtual worlds populated by many players simultaneously. Many online games have associated online communities, making online games a form of social activity beyond single player games.

The rising popularity of Flash and Java led to an Internet revolution where websites could utilize streaming video, audio, and a whole new set of user interactivity. When Microsoft began packaging Flash as a pre-installed component of IE, the Internet began to shift from a data/information spectrum to also offer on-demand entertainment. 

This revolution paved the way for sites to offer games to web surfers. Some online multiplayer games like World of War craft, Final Fantasy XI and Lineage II charge a monthly fee to subscribe to their services, while games such as Guild Wars offer an alternative no monthly fee scheme. Many other sites relied on advertising revenues from on-site sponsors, while others, like Run escape, or Tibia let people play for free while leaving the players the option of paying, unlocking new content for the members.

Many sites solely relying on advertising revenue dollars faced extreme adversity. Despite the decreasing profitability of online gaming websites, some sites have survived the fluctuating ad market by offsetting the advertising revenue loss by using the content as a cross-promotion tool for driving web visitors to other websites that the company owns.

The online game term in many circles is carefully defined to describe the games that require no intervention, although many still use the term synonymous with online gambling game online. This article focuses on online games that do not paris, online gambling is discussed in a separate article. 

Online gaming is a technology rather than a genre, a mechanism for connecting players together rather than a particular model of the game. Online games are played over some form of computer network, now typically on the Internet. One advantage of online games is the ability to connect to multiplayer games, although single-player games online are very frequent.