Why developers of games switched to online and multiplayer games

Contemporary game developers are torn between those who favour complex games that are difficult to master and those who prefer more straightforward offerings that deliver quick gratification to players. The jury’s still out on which of these parties is correct (perhaps they both are).But one trend that’s unambiguous today is that just about all developers have switched their resources toward creating more and more online and multiplayer titles.

Online casinos are ahead of the curve on this, having offered a shifting repertoire of digitalised online versions of classic card games, slot games and roulette (among many others) since they first emerged from brick-and-mortar-only operations.

Given that hundreds of new UK casinos are emerging online, enthusiasts for the genre wouldface a bewildering (and potentially risky) choicewere it not for regularly updated expert review sites like Casino UK, which highlights the most trustworthy fully-licensed and secure options to its visitors. But the point remains: gaming is moving away from offerings that run exclusively on local disc spaces inside user-owned devices towards cloud-based, online “gaming-as-a-service” alternatives.

Why so? The answers aren’t that difficult to fathom. New generation games are verygraphically sophisticated and therefore verydemanding of onboard graphics cards and device storage, both of which drive up outlay costs to the point where gaming computers are getting more prohibitively expensive.

But new technologies, notably Web protocols like HTML5, are beginning to make eye-watering costs like this a thing of the past. On paying a comparatively modest subscription package fee to a gaming-as-a-service operator, players can get stuck into their favourite online and multiplayer games knowing that the tech power comes from the cloud and doesn’t have to be integrated into their devices.

With the option of multiplayer games now available to game developers, they have an advantage that single-player games couldn’t offer; they can use the dozens of options HTML5 gives them to distribute multiple copies of online multiplayer games, expanding revenue in the process. This is increasingly why even uber-popular single-player titles like Red Dead Redemption also release multiplayer online gameplay modes.

The fact is that the most sophisticated single-player games with epic plots, brilliant writing and breathtaking graphics are exceedingly expensive to develop. Publishers can only reasonably expectplayers to buy it once. But revenue options are expanded with multiplayer alternatives, from subscription fees to “premium accounts” to “boosters”. Publishers can now reasonably expect players to spend a lot more on a favourite multiplayer title over time than would with a one-off purchase of a conventional single-player alternative.

And, unlike conventional single-player console games, the content of online multiplayer games can be regularly updated and expanded – one reason why classics like World of Warcraft, which debuted way back in 2004, still attracts millions of players every year.

Were it not for advances in digital technology,none of this would have been possible. Cloud-based online multiplayer games are popular mainly because they have been made possible in ways that simply weren’t available in the early days of single-player offerings. Instead of crowding around a console and taking turns with a couple of your best mates in a small room, online multiplayer offerings allow dozens and even hundreds of players to participate in the same game simultaneously.