Online Gaming

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Online Gaming

• Abby Hokula, Steve Skiff, Phillip Keigley, Liran
  Harun

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Presentation

• Intro to Online Gaming
• WoW
• Fiscal and Economic Impact of Online Gaming
• The social impact of online gaming

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What Is Online Gaming?
Games that are played online via the Internet.
They are distinct from video and computer games
in that they are normally platform independent,
relying solely on client-side technologies
(normally called plugins). Normally all that is
required to play online games are a web browser
and the appropriate plugin.
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Types of Gamers

• Active Gamer
• Casual Gamer

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Statistics

• 117 million Active Gamers in the U.S.
• over 56 play games online
• active Gamers spend over 5 hours a week on social
  online gaming
• teenagers play over 7 hours a week

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Age and Gender

• 40 of Active Gamers are teenagers
• 8 are 45 years or older
• two-thirds of all online gamers are women
• Males ages 25-34 and Hispanics most valuable
  emerging markets

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Types of Online Gaming

• browser-based games
• single-player games
• massively multiplayer games
• role playing games
• gambling
• fantasy sports

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World of Warcraft

• By Steve Skiff

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What is WoW?

• Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
• Adventure game
• Takes place in Azeroth
• Two factions Horde and Alliance 8 races

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What to discuss?

• Overall game play
• Why one would play
• Problems
• How WoW mimics real life

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Game Play

• Two main categories
• Questing
• Solo or Group to complete difficult tasks
• 40 man raids defeat the toughest bosses
• Player vs. Player PVP
• Battlegrounds

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Why Play

• Entertainment!!
• 15/Month vs. 20 movie/per
• Social Interaction
• Talk and interact with many of your friends
• Competition
• Compete for rank in PVP
• Addiction
• Flat our addicted to WoW

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How WoW mimics real life

• Fairs and world events that coincide with
  holidays
• Team work
• Each class has its
• own job to do
• Business meetings
• The new golf

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Problems with WoW

• Addiction
• People dont even realize they are addicted
• Controls your life
• Base day to day plans on playing WoW
• Raids and meeting people for groups
• Illegal activity
• Selling gold
• Account hacking

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Videos

• Onyxia-http//youtube.com/watch?v3Tu59KCMInQ
• Leeroy-http//www.youtube.com/watch?vH9n0bX0AgBI
  moderelatedsearch

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Fiscal and Economic Impact of Online Gaming
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The Internet

• The introduction of the internet has afforded
  many new markets to emerge.
• Online gaming has become a colossal industry due
  to the internet revolution.
• Broadband communications has opened the door for
  high-tech, multimedia intensive games

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Examples of Online games

• Online Chess Chess
• Fantasy Sports Example
• Online Gambling
• Video Games
• (just to name a few)

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The two industries of Online Gaming I will
discuss are.

• Online gambling sites
• Fantasy sports games

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Gambling Big Business
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With the advent of online gaming, Americans have
been afforded a new way to feed their need for
gambling habits and addictions.
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American Gambling Facts

• The gambling industry has grown tenfold in the
  U.S. since 1975
• Thirty-seven states now have lotteries
• Gambling profits in casinos are more than 30
  billion while lotteries are about 17 billion
  annually
•   "Players" with household incomes under 10,000
  bet nearly three times as much on lotteries as
  those with incomes over 50,000

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Online Gambling Statistics

• In 1997, Online gambling industry saw revenues of
  300 million dollars
• By 2000, Online gambling industry rose to 2.2
  billion dollars in revenues.
• By 2006, revenues from online gambling are
  expected to hit 100 billion

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The downside of this market - Online Gambling
has been dubbed the crack cocaine of Gambling

• You can point and click and bet at any time.
• The internet has provided a means for Online
  Gambling sites to avoid US regulation by setting
  up operations in places like Curacao, Antigua,
  and Barbadoss.
• This hurts American economy, no taxes are paid
  on American soil.

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Example

• http//www.sportsbook.com/
• Operates out of Dublin, Antigua, Vancouver and
  San Jose, Costa Rica
• launched in 1997
• publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange
• expected revenues exceeding 3 billion in 2005

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Example

• http//www.bodog.com/
• San Jose, Costa Rica
• 7.3 billion in wagers and gaming in 2005
• revenue is processed through the Royal Bank of
  Scotland in London (not in America)

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The ups and downs of Online Gambling

• It is a highly lucrative market!!!

• It is unethical
• It takes money from the U.S and spends it in
  other economies.
• Its illegal in the U.S!!!!!

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• Gambling, has always been successful in America,
  and with the internet and technology making it so
  easy, online gambling will continue to record
  massive revenues.

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Fantasy Sports

• Fantasy sports are another highly lucrative
  market that have emerged with technology and the
  internets growth.

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The Facts

• Fantasy sports were invented in 1979 by Daniel
  Okrent, who developed the first fantasy baseball
  rotisserie league.
• Definition of Fantasy baseball is a game
  whereby players manage imaginary baseball teams
  based on the real-life performance of baseball
  players, and compete against one another using
  those players' statistics to score points. It is
  the oldest and most popular form of fantasy
  sports.

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My words

• Fantasy sports come in a variety of flavors.
  There are predominantly Head to Head (H2H) or
  Rotisserie leagues.
• There are a compilation of managers, usually
  between 8-12.
• Managers are your friends, colleagues or random
  people.
• You can invite people into your league, or join a
  public league with strangers.
• You can have a live draft or an automatic one.
• You draft players from a player pool, and you try
  to get players that will accumulate the most
  points on a weekly basis.

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Examples

• Fantasy Screenshots
• http//www.albany.edu/pk763769/presentation/fanta
  sy_baseball.jpg
• http//www.albany.edu/pk763769/presentation/fanta
  sy_basketball.jpg
• http//www.albany.edu/pk763769/presentation/fanta
  sy_football.jpg
• http//www.albany.edu/pk763769/presentation/fanta
  sy_football1.jpg

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• An estimated 15 million to 18 million Americans
  will play fantasy sports, for fun or money, in
  2006
• Fantasy Baseball alone has 3.5 million players
• Fantasy sports generates an estimated 100
  million in revenue and growing at a 7-10 clip
  annually

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• Overall, with Information Technology growing, new
  markets like online gaming have come along, and
  soared with huge profits.
• Online gambling and Fantasy Sports are just 2
  markets that have prospered with the increased
  technology and growth of the internet.

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The Social Impact of Online Gaming

• In order to study the relation of social behavior
  with online games and real life we must first
  consider the following questions
• Why do so many people spend so many hours playing
  on the
• Internet?
• Who are the players?
• When, how and why do they play?
• What are the social effects of the game on
  offline life?

(Kolo Baur, 2004)
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How These Virtual Communities Have Evolved

• Games are made so easy to play.
• Popularity number of players increases.
• Social spaces in a virtual domain are formed.

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Virtual Social Interaction

• The elements contributing to a MMORPG and their
  relation to the three layers constituting a
  gaming situation.

(Kolo Baur, 2004)
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Tools Used To Socialize
Enabling users to interact with each other while
playing games online.

• In-game Chat
• Communication via Headsets
• Instant Messenger such as x-fire

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Do Games Emulate Real Life?

• Games include small details, such as
• Age
• Gender
• Physical appearance
• Clothing
• And even tattoos
• Most often these details do not change the
  performance of a player.

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Case Study by Kolo and Baur, 2004

• Main Goal
• Examine the social behavior among German online
  players while playing Ultima Online
  Everquest vs. the social behavior while
  offline.
• Problems
• The average player of these games simply plays
  for too long and too frequently to be able to
  maintain the distinction in behavior.
• Findings
• Female players reported to feel more strongly
  attached to games where the sense of community
  and social structure of the game was more
  emphasized and therefore they favored playing
  those types.
• Although, male online gamers were more frequent
  then women overall.

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Sources

• Kolo, C, Baur, T (2004). Living a Virtual Life
  Social Dynamics of Online Gaming. Game Studies,
  4, Retrieved November 7, 2006, from
  http//www.gamestudies.org/0401/kolo
• Takahasi, D. (2006, October 5). Nielsen
  entertainment releases study on gamers. The
  Mercury News, Retrieved November 7, 2006, from
  http//blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2006/10/nielsen_e
  nterta.html
• (2002). IGDA online games white paper.
  Internation Game Developers Association,
  Retrieved November 7, 2006, from
  http//www.igda.org/online/IGDA_Online_Games_White
  paper_2002.pdf