Impact Of Online Games

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

In the year 2003, it has been estimated that approximately 430 million all across the globe have started playing online games (Ng, Zeng and Plass, 2009). According to Dondlinger (2007), 7% of the entire world’s population has been estimated to use the online games as a source of recreational entertainment. With the growth in the levels of internet technology, the percentage of online game users has risen at a high rate. The revenues which have been earned with the use of online games have been calculated to be $31.37 billion approximately (Ng, Zeng and Plass, 2009).

It has been accounted that people who have been playing the online games do so for an average 15 hours per week or more (Ng, Zeng and Plass, 2009). One of the major reasons due to which online games have been popular amongst the players is due to the fact that it attaches high levels of fun as well as reward the social aspects within the internet community. With the help of online community, the user will be able to stay in touch with the old friends, come across new people and learn, share new information.

The effect of online games would be referred to as one of the most important topic as the online gaming has been on rise with the help of various techniques or strategies. Online gaming would be referred to as a source of entertainment which consists of appealing games in order to attract more number of users towards it. The usefulness of the online games has been tested and has quite remarkable effects over the players. It must be seen that, the usage of the same shall not be such which would lead to addition amongst the users (Ng, Zeng and Plass, 2009).

According to the specialists, it has been seen that online games play one of the critical roles as they develop different types of imagination regarding the players along with the use of intelligence as well as speed of the reaction. The usefulness of the same shall be understood with the help of limits and its effects over the online games which have been created for the users as well as the players.

Literature Review

The influences of technology in the field of online games have been increased in the recent years. As computers as well as video games have been on rise, there has been an exponential increase in the usage of online games as well (Ng, Zeng and Plass, 2009). Online games have been referred to as one of the upcoming modes of entertainment. The respondents who have been interviewed in order to analyze the effects of online games are Elementary to High School (Age 6 -18), postsecondary, college and graduate (more than age 18), educator adults and non-educator adolescents or adults like community stakeholders, mothers, gamers with specified information (Zhong, 2011).

The impact of rise in the usage of online games can be seen with the help of the changing lifestyle, behavior of the people. Online games have been referred to as one of the fun activities for the children belonging to different age groups (Ng, Zeng and Plass, 2009). Computer plays an important role in changing the overall mindset of the people. Taking into consideration its positive aspects, children are able to explore as well as widen their scope of thinking. According to Zhong (2011) one of the survey reports state that the children who played the online games were much sharper as compared to those who do not use the same.

Alternatively there are various disadvantages associated with online games. The major disadvantage refers to control over your actions. Excessive online games can be addictive for the users. Therefore, users shall try and decide to be in control while playing online games (Hudson, Kielser and Schell, 2006). Most of the time it is seen that, people spend more time on their computer rather than spending it over something productive. This will sometimes lead to useless issues. It must be kept in mind that, if such issues continue in future then variety of diseases might be caused to the user. As Dondlinger (2007) said that some of the major diseases which can be caused by the same would be heart diseases, obesity, acute blood pressure, etc .

Advantages or Disadvantages

In today’s generation, the networking sites have been emerged which would take over the social lives. It has been seen that, we tend to involve ourselves amongst the different types of services which have been evolved online. Most of the time people involve themselves amongst the different online games and provide its users with various services. There are various types of advantages and disadvantages related to online games. They have been discussed in this section of the literature review (Griffiths, Davies and Chappell, 2004). They are as follows:

Social relationships: The first advantage which is attached with online games is to build high levels of social relationships. This will help in order to open the doors for the community as well as act as a medium for interaction amongst different gamers. This will help in order to build strong relationship with the other gamers in a much effective and efficient manner. As example of this the fames game " Second Life", which is a 3D virtual world where users can socialize, connect and create using free voice and text chat (Livingstone and Kemp, 2007).

Entertainment: Playing games online will help in order add as a source of entertainment. Finding the game of your choice over the net will has been termed to be one of the easiest steps. The online games have been referred to as a user friendly and accessible in nature. The online games have been associated as daily activities such as business related games, adventurous games, household games and fun games (Hudson, Kielser and Schell, 2006). The games are prepared in much of personal manner which helps to relate it in the real sense. This will help in order to relate the activities which can be termed as a major source of entertainment.

Concentration: Based upon the various studies it has been seen that, browsing of the net for 15mins apart from the normal work will help in order to increase the levels of effectiveness and efficiency. The levels of productivity and concentration skills will be increased (Livingstone and Kemp, 2007). Playing games over the internet will be discouraged by boosting up the stressful day. Few minutes online will help the user to act more focus as well as work for the entire day in the best possible manner (Livingstone and Kemp, 2007).

Awareness: With the help of internet technology, high levels of awareness could be spread. Social networking sites along with online games will help in order to attract new as well as high amounts of information. Use of online information is like an open book which helps to make the providers more interesting and entertained in the best possible manner (Griffiths, Davies and Chappell, 2004).

Future Issues

Online issues which might be faced while playing online games have been discussed in this section of the report. The potential issues which can come up while playing the online games are as follows:

Abusing procedures:

The potential issue which might rise while playing online games would be by using offensive procedures. This might happen when two players are scoring a Go game. The artificial intelligence is not that intelligent as well as matures to identify who won in the last. Therefore, the online players shall remove the dead stones before counting of the final results. One of the most common example of abusing policy is escaping (Hudson, Kielser and Schell, 2006). It has been seen that, in most of the games, the rank of one person will affect the overall rank of the other person. Different online games use different types of strategies to deal with cheating.

Cheating by Compromising Passwords:

One of the main issues which might arise while playing online games would be regards to the use of passwords. Human memory is most of the times choose passwords such as phone numbers, birth date, names of family, human languages, etc. With a dictionary attack, each of the word within the list will be tried, simple transformations such as suffixing, prefixing, reversing the word would be tried to get the right password (Dondlinger, 2007). The online games is generally used by the users which provide key data and authorization for the player within the game for the password (Dondlinger, 2007). The attacker can exploit the password in order to do various cheating. Thus, a good password shall be practiced which would help to prevent online cheating. The success rate of transforming the easiest of the passwords has been quite high. It is very simple to access such type of passwords.

Cheating Related with Internal Misuse:

The last issue which might arise while playing online games would be in regards to the internal misuses. It has been seen that, some of the game operators who develop the entire game have the entire control over them which the cheaters might dream to do. It has been seen that, at one instance they are able to summon the character or weapon they like. The gamers will be able to develop an offline dictionary which would help to attack as well as compromise over the password (Cohen and Cohen, 1983). At a certain place, the trading virtual characters shall be profitable in terms of money which will have an economic incentive for the insiders to misuse the entire privilege.

Methodology

Collection of data in order to analyze the effect of online games has been done with the help of "Questionnaire Base Survey". Questionnaire based survey has been termed to as one of the simplest way to fetch out results from the respondents. It is one of the prompts means with which information can be gathered. Questionnaire based survey would be referred to as a method which would investigate the patterns, frequency as well as shift the attitudes of the users. This type of method would be referred to as one of the simplest as well as quickest method to grasp the view points of the respondents.

Respondents

The respondents which would help in order to complete the research process would be as follows:

Age of the Participants

Elementary to High School (Age 6 -18)

Postsecondary, College and Graduate (> Age 18)

Educator Adults

Non – educator adolescents or adults (eg: community stakeholders, mothers, gamers with specified information)

Sample Size

Medium

Data

Self Report

Observation

Performance

Others

Questionnaire Survey

Computer Log, Observation on subjects i.e. behavior, etc.

Skills, Game play performance

Other

Results/ Findings

Survey

Please answer <ALL> questions. All answers will be strictly confidential with only summarized data made public

Age:

Country:

1.

Do you have an internet connection at home?

2.

If yes, whether a dial up connection or a broad b connection?

3.

Do you play online games?

4.

If yes, what genres of online games you prefer? Select all those apply.

5.

What genre games you prefer the most while playing online?

6.

How long have you been playing it?

7.

Do you play any online game which requires a paid subscription?

8.

How long you spend playing games per week?

9.

Would you buy an extra console just to play a game?

10.

Are you currently or have you been a member of a clan?

11.

If yes, was clan dedicated to playing a specific game, specific genre of a particular game?

14.

Have you ever taken part in a LAN party?

15.

Did you play against online players in addition to those who attended the party?

16.

Do you think a limit shall be set for the online gamers in order to restrict the continuous playing time?

17.

Should gamers decide as to how long they shall play?

18.

Is online gaming beneficial to the society?

19.

Do realistic games encourage gamers act out the content in reality?

Population playing Online Games:

Internet Connection at Home:

Connection at Home:

Play Online Games:

Genres of Online Games:

Online Games with paid Subscriptions:

Hours Spend on Playing Online Games:

Online games beneficial to the society:

Limit shall be set for the online games:

After conducting the questionnaire based survey it was founded that out of a population of 100% - 39% of the females played online games the rest i.e. However, the males played online games was 61%. Most of the online players had an internet connection at home with a broad connection. Most of the female population was into educational games whereas the male population was into adventurous, shooting and racing online games. Most of the male members order the paid subscriptions even to play online games. They spend approximately 12-18 hours per week in playing the online games, whereas on the other the females only spend 0-6 hours per week over online games. Most of the respondents think that, a limit shall be set for the online gamers in order to restrict the continuous playing time. A 50-50 response has been analyzed regarding the fact that online games are beneficial to the society (Charlton and Danforth, 2004).

Conclusion

It could be concluded that effects of online games have a great impact to society. Actually, I discussed along with various advantages, disadvantages and future issues which might be faced within the same. Also, I explained the methodology, which has been used within this report in order to know the effect of online games. It has been done with the help of the "Questionnaire Survey" method. Thus, I collect the results specifies the fact that, online games will decrease the level of isolation along with an enhanced social integration for all those who have been playing the online games as a major source to spend time and interact with other friends. In my opinion, each one of us responsible to do something that have value to their life, so spending time on online games is worse idea.