Online games are now being played for over 60 minutes a day by over half a billion people globally, says Jane McGonigal.

In the United States alone, that number is 183 million.

Ninety-nine percent of boys under 18 and 94 percent of girls under 18 say they play online games on a regular basis.

On an average, young people will rack up 10 thousand hours of gaming by the time they reach the age of 21.

That is about the same amount of time that they will spend in their classrooms.

Over 5 million Americans are now spending over 40 hours a week playing online games, which is the equivalent of the time spent at a full time job.

The NPD Group, a financial-analysis firm that tracks the sales of video games, says the U.S. games industry sold $6.71 billion worth of new games in 2012.

The top 10 best-selling games of 2012 were:

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
2. Madden NFL 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, Wii U)
3. Halo 4 (360)
4. Assassin’s Creed III (360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
5. Just Dance 4 (Wii, 360, Wii U, PS3)
6. NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, Wii U, PC)
7. Borderlands 2 (360, PS3, PC)
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
9. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSV, PC)
10. FIFA Soccer 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, 3DS, Wii U, PSP)

FarmVille is a highly-popular farming simulation social network game developed by Zynga in 2009.

FarmVille 2 was released in September 2012.

World of Warcraft holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game), with over 8 million subscribers as of March 2013 (Wikipedia).

Another popular game is Clash of Clans, which is a combat strategy game.

Free games, often referred to as freemium (free + premium) games, is a business model where the game is given away for free, but the customer has the option of spending money on a variety of game enhancements.

This model has become popular on both smartphones and iPads.

Free games are downloaded much more readily than paid games.

The freemium model seems to be the trend of the future because many are becoming reluctant to pay for a game before they use it.

Once a customer uses a game, they will usually be willing to spend money within that game if they find it fun and engaging.

As an example of how the freemium model works, consider the free game Clash of Clans.

The objective of this game is to create a clan, build a village for the clan, then train your warriors to protect your village from invaders.

You can download the game to your smartphone for free. Then, once you find this game fun and engaging, there are all kinds of available upgrades.

Sure, you can go on playing for free for as long as you like and slowly earn virtual “gems” to help you fund your clan project. Or you can make a purchase over your smartphone to speed up the pace of acquiring gems.

With the touch of a finger, players can buy a “pile of Gems” for $4.99, a “bag of Gems” for $9.99, or a “box of Gems” for $49.99.

And if you feel really ambitious, and if you wish to get a few extra swords and sling-shots to fight off barbarian invaders, simply touch your shartphone screen and buy a “chest of Gems” for only $99.99.

The company that makes Clash of Clans (Supercell) rakes in over 1 million dollars… a day!

All from people who downloaded a free Clash of Clans game to their smartphone.

Apple gets about 30% of that, or $300,000 a day.

When the ability to buy things is made easier through the use of technology, wealth is created faster and more abundantly than ever before.

Also consider that when people play Clash of Clans, they are encouraged to simply press a button to invite all of their friends from Facebook to join them, which brings Supercell even more money.

Of course, Clash of Clans is only one of many examples.

The users, the fans, and the players of Clash of Clans (and other freemium online games) generate millions of dollars for companies like Supercell and Apple.

Meanwhile, the users get zilch… a great big goose egg.

Does that seem fair?

Shouldn’t the users get rewarded?

We believe rewarding users of online games is an idea whose time has come.

Online gaming nowadays is indeed very popular especially to the youth of today’s generation. Thousands of online games are now wide spread at the circles of the World Wide Web. An online game only requires a computer network, which is the internet, through a personal computer or a video game console that can be linked into other players on the web. This proves that typically, online gaming is a means for linking players together instead of the usual pattern of playing games. As what have stated, one of the benefits that online gaming offers is to connect to multiplayer games.

Multiplayer games are games played by more than one person by means of a computer and an internet connection which allows players to play in similar game setting at the same time. It serves as an avenue for players to benefit from interactions with another person by either as forming of a joint venture or competition. This also allows them to have a form of social communication.

Advantages of Multiplier Online Games

· Promotes Association

Multiplayer games allow players to build their own networks of alliance. This promotes interaction within the players since they need to support each other in order to win the game. This will also allow players to build teamwork in order to attain victory.

· Boost Self Reliance

Multiplayer online games will also contribute in boosting one’s self confidence since this type of gaming not only limited for forming groups or teams but as well as in developing competition within each player. This will entice each to do better as reward points are still given individually to those players who show off throughout the game.

· Improves Social Interaction Capacity

Since this permits alliances and competition, this will surely improve a player’s social interaction capacity as it allows supervision of co-players activity, resources and skills. Players will also be required to communicate with one another in order to achieve a common goal or have a good fight.

· Most exciting game experience

Multiplayer gaming will promise you to practice a more exciting game experience since you are now dealing or fighting with other individual unlike in a typical one-player game which only put up a fight between you and the computer. Having an alive competitor or partner will entice you think of strategies and techniques to achieve your goal.

Disadvantages of Multiplier Online Games

· Requires long hours of playing

Since you are playing with multiple other players, you cannot just stop from playing because this will affect the network. Typically, this will require you to play in long hours depending also o your co-players playing the game.

· Incurs health hazards

Due to the long hours of playing, numerous health problems may be acquired such as eye or carpel tunnel syndrome, poor postures and severe stress on joints and nerves. Everybody should be aware that there are real health hazards involve in spending too much time in front of the computer.

The modern technology truly makes twists on typical online games which are, as what can be observed, widely accepted by this generation. With the advantages and disadvantages stated above, it is now for you to decide whether you would like to engage in or practice multiplayer games.

Playing online games is a lot of fun. Unlike usual computer games or single player experience, online games or multi-player gives a complete new and fun experience to its users every time. However, all this fun can be ruined because of the lag or high-ping.

The lack of smoothness and high frame rates is usually known as ‘Lag’, which hampers the fun experience of playing online games. However, there are various things that you can do to minimize this lag issue, and to fully enjoy your online gaming experience.

1) Check your Computer’s Hardware Specifications:

Lack of CPU power is a prime factor of lag in online gaming. Check for your system’s performance. Make sure that your computer is fully compatible with all the latest games, and it is completely up to date with the latest tools and technologies.

Note that the integrated graphics card is of no use for high-end games – figuratively speaking. You need to have an external graphics card, along with high RAMs and top-notch processors, if you intend to run the latest high-tech games.

2) Check your Internet Connection:

One of the most common reasons of the online lag is the outdated or low-speed internet connection. Make sure to use the high-speed internet connection for better speed, while gaming. There are various types in the Broadband internet connection; always try to use the best one for online gaming.

3) Free up Your Computer’s RAM:

You can also free up your computer’s RAM, before playing online. This will enable your computer to fully concentrate in processing the game, which will eventually make your online gaming experience a more fulfilling one.

4) Defragmentation of the Hard Disks:

Another major cause of the frame rate or the lag issues is because of large hard-drives’ fragmentations. It is necessary to defragment your hard drives every now and then, to ensure that your computer gives you its optimum performance.

5) Firewalls:

Blocking firewalls is another major reason of high-ping or latency problems in the online gaming. If you checked your computer’s hardware specifications and internet connection, and you are completely satisfied with the result, but still, you cannot solve that lag issue, there is a great chance that the blocking firewalls may be the reason of it.

Therefore, it is important to unblock the firewalls for your internet connection, various gaming ports, and your games’.exe files.

6) Operating System:

Operating system can also cause the lag issues when gaming online. Your operating system must be compatible with the requirements of the game. Furthermore, it should be free of any type of viruses, malwares and Trojans, etc.

7) Downloading:

Any type of downloading or uploading should be stopped, when playing online. Otherwise, it will definitely affect the ping.

By performing all the above-mentioned steps, you can definitely reduce lag when playing online games.

Online gaming is one the fastest growing trend in today’s generation. Keeping kids in mind, it is both useful as well as harmful for them. Hence, it is not advisable to keep them totally away from gaming. You could be doing them more harm than good, by banning them from playing games online.

In this post, we shall talk about some of the solutions to make online gaming a safe and enjoyable experience for children, by considering their benefits and drawbacks.

Few disadvantages of online gaming for kids are:

• Internet is an open place where you can access a vast amount of information. Kids may download games from less reputed sites. As a result, they end up downloading spam, viruses, malicious software etc.
• Some people out there are always trying to find ways to take undue advantage of kids. Kids are fooled and cheated and can also be abused and harassed online.

Now some advantages:

• Online gaming makes the kid sharper and mentally more active. The games generally have various levels or missions to be completed in limited times. This helps the kids in learning about time management.
• Mind and hand coordination. This is one of the main and important advantages that the kids experience while playing online games. He/she learns to coordinate his/her mind with the actions of his hands. While executing those actions, they also develop mental strength.
• Kids tend to become socially active, as they interact and play with complete strangers online. It helps them in their social life too.

Even though gaming has some drawbacks, parents can still protect their kids from becoming victims to online attacks. Since it can still be very useful for kids, parents should avoid banning their kids completely from playing games online. Rather, you will need to make some strict rules to be followed by kids.

• Secrecy – You can teach kids to keep their personal information a secret, especially not to share it on the unknown sites.
• All the online games need passwords to access. Teach your kid not to share this password with anyone to avoid cheating, and getting hacked.
• They should never to give out their personal or real names online, unless the website has a good reputation.
• You could teach them some general etiquette like paying fair game with fellow players.
• Never trust anyone whom you meet online. Never agree to meet them in person.
• Most importantly, online gaming should be played only be for fun, and not for any accessing age restricted activities like gambling.

These are some things you can ask or tell your kid to take care of, but as a parent, there are few steps you can take to make Online Gaming a safe and enjoyable experience for them.

Some of them are:

• Antivirus software is very essential, and more importantly, it should be updated everyday. It will protect your computer from common viruses automatically. They also come with parental guidance features, using which you can avoid your children from entering illegal sites and unsafe sites.
• Manually activate the family safety settings in your system. This will block the sites which you do not want your kids to enter.
• Limit their gaming privileges for certain hours in a day. You can suggest and encourage them to play only the safe and fun games like the Minecraft, so that they do not browse for games on their own.

Some solutions if the problem already exists:

1. Everyone has their own personal instinct about anything good or bad. Make your kids share everything with you. Make it comfortable for them, so that they will come forward and tell you everything, without the fear of getting punished.
2. If someone is pressuring your kid to share personal information, or harassing the kid, you can always file a complaint against the users or websites.

Enjoy the online gaming experience and have great fun, but make sure that you play it safe.

Children and games go together perfectly! The players don’t necessarily have to be young because games work perfectly for every age category. Taking into account the development of the Internet and other technologies existent nowadays, people have a large variety of indoor games. Even larger than the outdoor ones. Everyone has started loving the online games, and kids in particular. Online games have become a fantastic source of entertainment and leisure for everyone, and for this reason lots of sites avail them.

Options

You can find lots of entertainment options available for all gamers out there. The categories of games are infinite and choosing represents a true challenge for lots of gamers. For instance, you can find 3D games or car games among other similar ones. The only thing parents have to do is create some rules and agree with their kids on how to play games. Internet safety should come first, so this is also pretty important. Monitoring the activities of the kids is very important to check exactly what they are doing.

Stress

Since they truly are an entertainment option, online games are great at reducing mental stress or frustration. They often offer funny and creative instances that can make gamers unwind. What can be better than playing your favorite game?

Motivation

Lots of the games attract the player by promising some sort of prize. It is a known fact that kids love rewards and they adore accomplishing certain objectives. This is exactly what their game is trying to do. By winning, they boost their self-esteem and they move on to the next challenge. This makes kids overcome the tiny objectives in their game and prepares them to do the same in real life.

Intelligence

Did you know that, by playing online games, kids get to grow their intellectual capacities? Why? Because this develops their thinking abilities! Lots of games can include calculations that help the kid perfect his math and computation skills. Normally they are called logic games, and they also trigger their imagination. In some cases, children need to personalize animals, thus they have to use their creativity. Moreover, kids who play video games can develop their hand-eye coordination much better than those who don’t play.

Social skills

Lots of games require your kids to interact with other kids during their play. This is a fantastic chance for parents to explain their kids the ways in which they have to behave or how much information they must share in the online environment. This will help them develop better social skills that can also be used outside the online environment. Not to mention that kids can also learn more about various cultures, if we are to consider the range of people that play online games. This will boost their development and social skills.

Computer games can be costly. There have been several initiatives to cut down on the cost of older games but without a lot of success. As a result, gamers seek out free online games. Fortunately, there are many legitimate websites that offer games that are not only free but fun to play. A category of games that have a loyal following are the arcade games of the 80s and 90s. There is even a community of game-makers that offer these games at no charge, so that gamers the world over can enjoy these nostalgic games.

When most individuals consider anything that is free on the net, there is an automatic conclusion that the games are pirated. Generally, this is not the case. You may come across a questionable site or two but for the most part these games are designed to be played with absolutely no out of pocket expense. The only thing that you may to contend with is the occasional banner ads but these advertisements are how the website designers pay for the hosting so that they can continue to offer these games for free. Many games that have turned into downloadable console releases and even paid apps on Smartphones and tablets, offer a free version online.

Some of the more popular free games are offered by major online presences like Yahoo! and Google. These games are targeted to the not-so-serious gamer. The person who has some leisure time and wants to play a simple, recognizable game. Poppit and Bejeweled are examples of games that can be found through these providers and again, are perfect for the average person who wants to kill a few minutes of free time online.

The more popular games, targeted toward the serious gamer can be found on aggregate online sites. These sites include Armor Games or Kongregate and offer hundreds of games that can be played at any time of the day. Many would be surprised to find that some are actually designed and produced by gaming professionals. In order to keep these sites running, member donations are accepted along with banner advertisements.

There are an abundance of very popular games such as Fancy Pants Adventure, Alien Hominid and Doodle God that got their start on such sites before being converted to handhelds and consoles. These sites are perfect for gamers that are looking for the next great game or want something that will occupy them until a favorited or eagerly anticipated console makes it debut.

Again, you can find several free games online and they are available on many websites. It may take you a bit of searching in order to find the best games online. You may have to wade through massive libraries at some of these sites but the investment of time will be well worth it. You may be able to find older arcade games and games that will soon make it to the console market. Free does not always mean pirated or low quality. There are plenty of games that will be among the best that you have ever played.