Since the 1980s there have been many takes on the venerable arcade game. Starting simply with the game Pong, which involved batting a pixel back and forth with a computer, the Video game transferred to the quality interactive gameplay of the Sims games; the high graphic intensity of the Halo games; and the huge worlds that can be explored in MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Everquest.
Early in the development of the gaming industry an obvious trend towards shooter and sniper games begins to rear its head. This trend seems obvious as males make up the higher percentage of gamers. The tendency towards this type of game began with the first person shooter battlezone. Battlezone featured a rotating, land based 3d field of vision with basic vector graphics. The game pioneered 3d graphics as well as the genre. While not strictly speaking a sniper game (as that involves marksmanship) it had certain elements that laid the groundwork for future games.
The birth of the internet spawned a series of sites that offered simple so called ‘flash games’ named so because of the use of the graphic rendering product Adobe Flash. These simple games were countable in many diverse genres from fantasy to reality. Some sites sprung up hosting Role playing games which had only been found on consoles before. The games were originally text based, then gradually at the turn of the century some games were designed that involved first person or third person immersion.
The obvious development from the computer RPG was the advent of the interactive online game. There are many types of online game, and many of them are not computer based. Online games are either hosted online or involve a social aspect where other gamers are playing the game at the same time. The former are mostly on game sites and involve puzzle solving, some sort of adventure, or a jump-and-run style platform game. The attraction of these is mainly the simplicity of the game, as well as the lack of a pay-to-use service.
There are many browser games which are pay-to-upgrade services, such as Runescape (a multiplayer role playing game). The standard content is limited and the upgraded content is considered to be far better. These games are often of medium quality, and the cost will usually be one off.
The next step up is arguably the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online roleplaying game) which immerses the user in a fictional world and the user can explore the world, quest and level up. Players will usually be able to communicate via text. The graphics are almost always better quality, the gameplay less limited. Often the only cost incurred is the cost of the game, but some games have a subscription cost for an account. World of Warcraft by Blizzard is the most famous example of this.
If you want to devote much of your time to gaming it might be advisable to buy a console such as the XBOX by Microsoft, PlayStation by Sony, or Nintendo Wii; or one of these various follow up devices from these. These usually have some online multiplayer capability. The Nintendo DS series for example has Wi-Fi capabilities and the XBOX has a pay to use service called XBOX live. PlayStation have a similar service but it is free to use and is supplied with the newest in the PlayStation family, the PlayStation 3.
Through the whole rigmarole of advancing gaming technologies, no-one has abandoned the first-person shooter. It is arguably the type of game with the most variations on a central theme. And nowhere else is graphical advancement in particular so marked. Compare the graphics of Battlezone with those of Call of Duty: Black Ops, or even so far back as the first instalment in the Halo series. Some graphics are so advanced that it has become difficult to tell whether the game is live action or animated.
The technological advancement of three decades has brought us this far. It will be intriguing to watch the world develop as these technologies become yet more refined. So far gaming has allowed us to develop high level graphics and immersion systems which theoretically could be used to simulate combat, although it is not limited to just that. To think that such a huge industry could be formed in such a short space of time is testament to our abilities as humans to adapt anything we have created.
The advancement of the online game to the way of life that it is often seen as being today has been a relatively short period in human history. Computers have revolutionised our experience of the world and it seems only logical that gaming should be transferred as well; and from that the leap to the World Wide Web seemed only a short one. Regardless of social reservations, and the outward view of gaming as some sort of cult, the importance of the development of online game cannot be understated.