Yesterday was World Video Game Day , a very special day in which you will have already seen that even Google has signed up to celebrate it with a small RPG video game set in the Olympic Games , in which we are a little kitten and we will have to join different skills.
Netflix announced in July its intention to enter the gaming industry.
However, video games like the doodle that Google has developed are not exactly the ones that represent us today; it is online video games that reign over the leisure of young people in the world, so much so that it is already considered a sport.
Coinciding with the celebration of the largest European video game event: Gamescom 2021 , DE-CIX, the world’s leading operator of Internet exchange points, has carried out a survey among the Spanish population to find out their online gaming habits and the quality of your internet connection.
With a sample of 2,500 people of all age ranges, the results show that 53.2% of Spaniards play more video games than before the pandemic and 64% say they feel annoyed due to connection problems.
How has technology influenced the development of video games today?
In the video games sector, online gaming is gaining more and more weight and this was noticed, especially after the outbreak of the coronavirus in March 2020. In fact, in the survey, more than half of the players (53, 2%) claim to play more video games than before the pandemic and 8 out of 10 do so online. Regarding the time they dedicate to this practice, 15% do so exclusively on the Internet.
What are the most played online games?
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With the arrival of tablets or smartphones, which have an Internet connection, and the improvement of connectivity with fiber optic and 5G deployments , the game console is taking a back seat .
In fact, they asked about the most common device to play online, most of those surveyed affirmed that they do so through mobile (43%) . However, game consoles remain in second place (22%), followed by PC , with 21% . Fortnite and the Battle Royale genre only account for 8% of the online game.
New ways of playing require new ways of relating
Unlike offline games, in which to play with friends you had to know them beforehand, they had to have the game, the console or you even had to have more than one controller or device to play.
The quality of the graphics is spectacular in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
The games online are made available worldwide with very low requirements (some are free, do not need to have a computer with high performance …), this facilitates communication and community building among people who are not even amateur to the videogames; A great example of this would be Among Us, a game that gained a lot of fame during the pandemic and is one of the most played, slightly above action adventure games like Grand Theft Auto and MOBAs like League of Legends .
The League of Legends World Cup is the most important eSports event of the year.The League of Legends World Cup is the most important eSports event of the year.Worlds 2020 – eSports
Online technology poses new problems and challenges
- Connection issues frustrate gamers
Daniel Aguilar is one of the best FIFA players internationally.
With the rise of online gaming and the growth of competitions such as eSports , video games of this style require a large connection, higher bandwidth and lower latency to guarantee an optimal gaming experience. In this way, 64% of those surveyed say they feel annoyed by the problems caused by their Internet connection.
This is something that did not happen previously, since the experience of the game was not linked to the Internet ; However, nowadays it is more important to have a good connection than to have good graphics because sometimes the connection is what will make the difference between victory and defeat on many occasions.
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So much so that DE-CIX conducted a test between Madrid and Frankfurt and it was shown that a difference of 20 milliseconds can be terrible for a team when deciding victory.
In fact, this issue is not only reflected in amateur players, in professional tournaments, there have been games that had to be stopped due to connection problems , game bugs or any type of incident that may affect players.
- The creation of cheats with third-party programs: Hackers and Cheats
Hackers violate the security of companies alter the operation of the game.Hackers violate the security of companies alter the operation of the game.Healthy Land of Knowledge and Ideas
When an online video game is launched, especially if it is a MOBA like League of Legends (with a competitive and professional scope) or a Shooter like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive or Valorant , programmers and users with high computer skills They take advantage to create programs and exploit the vulnerabilities of the game to sell them as ‘Cheats’ to the players.
Other stolen information includes EA’s proprietary frameworks and software development kits.
These ‘Cheats’ or also known as ‘Chetos’ in the community, make the player in question dodge the enemy’s abilities, hit his own 100% of the time, have inhuman dodge reflexes and, in the case of shooters , always shoot at the head without having to aim or know the position of the enemies on the map.
Users who use ‘Cheats’ are often expelled and punished for it, but lately such subtle programs are being developed that they will not even be detected by the players or the company.
Cheats spoil the gaming experience, break the rules and intoxicate the community.
The problem comes when there are supposedly professional players cheating, which can be compared to when a cyclist takes drugs before starting the competition, although using technology in this case. This is the main problem in online games today, and the reason why many confrontations are generated.