How has the Internet changed the games industry?

The internet and games. They were always going to go hand-in-hand, and I’m sure the gaming industry would look very different today if not for the advent of personal broadband. Of course, there are the obvious benefits such as online multiplayer and downloadable content, but there are also slightly more subtle ways the internet has changed the industry. Things that are not so immediately apparent.

But, however known to everyone they may be, it would be wrong not to talk about those internet-enabled elements that have the most impact. Online multiplayer is huge. Whether you like to run around killing people in Call of Duty or quest with friends in World of Warcraft, it’s almost certainly going to be online. There are many, many games out there which are far more fun to play with people you know, and the internet makes that far easier. It removes the barriers of you and your friends having to be in the same place on the same network – hugely reducing the hassle of playing together. For most people it also probably increases the number of friends they can play with on a regular basis, with location no longer an issue. A good thing then, certainly.

Then there’s downloadable content. There are possibly mixed opinions on this one. Some may see it as a nice way for developers to provide more content for your game, while others might think it’s a way to pay more for the content that would have been included in days gone by. Indeed, there was general outrage when 2K Games released a downloadable expansion for Bioshock 2, and it was proved that the content was already on the disc.

Also, sometimes the prices are (or at least seem) ridiculous. For example, the Call of Duty: Black Ops map packs retail for £11.49 each – just under a third of what you pay for the game in the first place, and only for five additional maps! But at the other end of the spectrum, where the prices are lower, you may still end up paying more. It’s a classic technique – consumers are less likely to bother to keep track of micro-payments, and hence will actually spend more of their cash. Let’s look at buying additional songs in Rock Band/Guitar Hero as an example. A single song download will knock you back around £1.50. It doesn’t seem much at first glance, but it will soon rack up. Without this however, you’d have to rely on the developer releasing a disc with extra songs on – pre-chosen and at a specific price. At least with downloads you get the choice.

Patches are in a similar vein. It’s almost impossible for a developer to release an entirely bug-free game. Even though games studios pour hours upon hours into testing, quality assurance and fixes, it is as Josh Olin of Treyarch said: “If you look at the population size of the Call of Duty franchise, just a single hour of gameplay collectively after the game’s been out - you add up all the man-hours that all the fans put into it - that’s more time than you could put into Quality Assurance in a lifetime.” So – even for an offline game – the internet makes it very simple for games developers to distribute patches for inevitable issues. On the flip-side however, it could be said that this makes said developers lazier. Armed with the knowledge that fixes for any arising problems can easily be provided to the users, it’s certainly conceivable that games could be pushed out sooner with less testing. It would probably save the developers money if the early adopters become testers of sorts, but it’s something we definitely don’t want to see.

However, there are ways when early adopters being testers can be very beneficial, and that’s for indie games. Games like Minecraft get a lot out of those people who buy early versions of the game. Those who are playing it in such early stages are likely to want to help out with aiding development, so they’ll submit any bugs they find. On top of that, the testing is free(!) but it is probably going to be more sporadic than proper user testing. Also, without the internet, games like Minecraft wouldn’t even be on the map. Indie games wouldn’t be able to create any sort of presence without driving forces such as social media.

So what else has the internet changed about the gaming industry? In the same way that the internet has changed almost everything, it is so much easier to find information about games. In many cases, there is a plethora of information available about a title even before it is out. Take Super Smash Bros. Brawl as an example: before its release you could find out every character, stage and item. On top of that, every gamer has a dozen different reviews for a game at his or her disposal at the click of a button. Long gone are the days when you need to buy a gaming magazine to find out about upcoming games, or just guess as to whether or not a game will be good. Nor do we need to ring a premium rate number or buy a guide to complete a game, with online walkthroughs available for almost every game.

Those gaming magazines also used to give access to new games via demo discs. For a few years, due to rising costs and lack of demand, demo discs went into decline. However, thanks to the ease of distribution thanks to the internet, there are many more demos being produced today. These are mainly on the consoles though, with the manufacturers offering a fairly easy way for developers to push out their games.

What PC gamers sometimes do, though, is adopt a bit of a try-before-you-buy mentality. Some gamers will illegally download a copy of the game first to try it out and see if they like it. Of course, this ties into the big problem of pirating games in general, but it’s an interesting use-case of sorts. Other people sometimes illegally download games for emulators of their favourite consoles. This though is usually not for current generation consoles, as emulators are inherently inefficient.

There are many more ways that the internet has altered the gaming sector, more than it is possible to detail in this article. For example, services like Steam for digital content distribution, the rise of global leaderboards and rankings, and the possibilities of game-streaming services such as OnLive. Nevertheless, I think it’s safe to say the internet has definitely affected the gaming industry, and mostly in positive ways. And I’m sure it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.