Recently, I was talking to some friends about an upcoming MMO release, and it dawned on me how far the online gaming industry has really progressed since its founding.
I remember playing free online games years ago, namely on a website called Bonus. I will never forget dialing up (respect for the old school 56k) on my parent's computer and checking it out. It was one of the most valuable of the hidden internet gems that populated the late 90s. This website offered a multitude of games geared particularly towards preteens. I distinctly remember some really cool, simple games that seem harder and harder to find in the modern age of MMORPGs and fast paced first person shooters. These games kept me occupied for hours after school. It was not until a couple years later that this free gaming phenomenon really took hold on the net.
One game that stands out above all of the others in my memory is Battlefield. Battlefield was an online tank game that was revolutionary for its day. Bonus got this one right, indirectly creating an industry that would later learn how to profit from free gaming in ways Bonus never imagined. Battlefield was unique because it was entirely user based. You competed directly in a massively multiplayer environment against others. The gameplay remained simple and at the same time cutting edge in the gaming era of the late 1990s. I continued to play this game into my late teens and early twenties, following the community that shared my feelings of sentiment towards it. Because the game was based purely on player interaction and competition, a community had formed and sustained the life of the game long after Bonus shut down its main website. When Bonus finally filed bankruptcy in 2008, the community it left behind persisted. Battlefield was the first of a long line of games that induced user loyalty by capitalizing, albeit in this case accidentally, on the social aspect of online interaction through gaming. Unfortunately, Bonus's failure to realize the value of social platforming was its biggest mistake.
Today, developer giants like Blizzard and Square Enix dominate the world of online multiplayer gaming with subscription based, rich content role playing games. These developers have capitalized on the craze, implementing subscription based services with multiple outlets for social interaction and competition. However, a new kind of game has begun to reemerge as an answer to big developer domination and subscription abuse. These games are free to play, implementing ad based and itemized revenue models to fuel growth and development, leaving little to no cost for the everyday user to cover. Despite this return to founding principles, it seems that the world of online multiplayer gaming has become entirely dominated by MMORPGs. What happened to fast action games like those developed by the former gaming website Bonus and other small startups that featured pure online multiplayer environments and action-packed anticipation and reaction? Are they forever lost to the folds of history, or is there another stage of revival in the world of online gaming that has yet to be realized?
Recently, a new game very similar to Bonus's Battlefield called uTanks was released. Through uTanks, modern internet gamers can experience a bit of the past, a retro flavor found nowhere else in the online gaming world. If you are interested in making a pilgrimage to the roots of online gaming, I encourage you to take a look at the uTanks homepage for yourself at http://www.utanks.com.
by Andrew T. Morgan
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