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Online games refer to any online video games that are played over the Internet. The expansion of online gaming has reflected the overall expansion of the internet.
Online games can range from simple text based games called MUDs to games incorporating complex graphics and virtual worlds populated by many players simultaneously. A proliferation of diferent gaming options has occured, each tapping different gaming focusses, levels of technology and multiplayer dynamics.
and competitive multiplayer games such as Counter-Strike and Halo. Internet games usually allow people to play together, although in the case of some browser games this is sometimes limited to a shared high score list. Many Internet games have associated online communities, making Internet games a form of social activity beyond single player games.
Early Online Games
Online games started in the 1980s with MUDs. These text based games were often played via BBS via a modem. These games were frequently based on fantasy settings, using rules similar to those in the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Other styles of games were also available via BBS, such as chess, Scrabble clones, and many others.
During the early take up of email text based play-by-email games became popular.
Browser internet games
With the development of web based graphics technologies such as Flash and Java, browser games also known by their related technology as 'Flash games' or 'Java games' became increasingly popular. Many retro games such as Pacman & Frogger were converted to browser games which could be played over the internet. Most browser games have limited multiplayer involvement, often being just single player games, at most sharing a high score list.
Modern Online Games
During the 1990s, online games started to move from a wide variety of LAN protocols (such as IPX) and onto the Internet using the TCP/IP protocol.
Doom
Doom popularized the concept of deathmatch where multiple players battle each other head-to-head as a new form of online game. Since Doom, most first-person shooter games contain online component to allow deathmatch/arena style play.
Current popular first-person shooter games include:
With the growth of broadband Internet access in many developed countries, the types of online games playable over the Internet exploded. Massively multiplayer online games were made possible with expanding Internet access, using the Internet to allow hundreds of thousands of players to play the same game together. Today, almost any style of game has been created for play over the Internet.
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