Online games for children and adults alike have experienced an incredible rise in popularity over the last few years. From educational games, to online strategy games, virtual reality games to traditional games like chess and monopoly – free online games are widely available and widely played on the internet.
Online games are diverse in their complexity, ranging from simple word and number puzzles to tricky brain teasers and leading to complicated and layered online strategy games that can take weeks even months to complete. Online games also cover a diverse amount of subjects and topics – from language, to music, arts, craft, sport, psychology, animals and animations.
What is driving this free online games revolution?
There is a combination of global factors that has created a perfect storm for the online games industry to grow exponentially.
1. Games culture has exploded globally driven by demand as well as supply competition. On the supply side, there are now numerous true global players which are all developing popular games and driving the growth of games culture. This games culture flows through to online gaming. Free online games sites have appeared to cater for this increased demand for online games.
2. The growth of the internet continues to fuel growth of the free online games industry. Free online games generate web traffic and click through to sites, therefore have become popular tools for site owners. Consumers are embracing these free online games in their masses and in turn more sites, more games are developed.
3. There is a genuine global shift to online human socialization – illustrated by the growth of social networking sites. Interactive games and networked games like virtual reality games are part of this growth in online networking. Online strategy games, free online casinos, card games, video games, battle games, fantasy games etc are bring people together online everyday from all corners of the world.
4. The global mobile phone (and in general technology) revolution has also driven the growth of online games. Buy a mobile phone these days and you are encouraged to download ringtones and access free electronic games online. Most modern mobile phones have internet access therefore accessing online games anywhere anytime is very easy. And mobile phone users are playing free online games in their millions!
5. Free online games are becoming the chosen marketing tool of the internet age, boosting its reach to consumers. Free games are a simple, effective and global tool to reach consumers. Direct marketers, mass marketers, niche marketers alike promote free games as a bonus extra, part of a marketing competition and use innovative games to drive customers to websites. This marketing trend has made free games very popular among all types of consumers.
6. The reach of online games has no demographic boundaries. Irish journalist Robert Lynd once wrote “It is in games that many men discover their paradise.” Toddlers to seniors (and all ages in between) alike can find their own paradise. They can enjoy, be entertained, be educated, be inspired equally by the simplest online puzzles or the most complicated of online strategy games. Games and puzzles have the implicit ability to impact on people of ages and of all backgrounds. Culture, language, age and level of wealth doesn’t prevent people accessing free online games.
7. Games are part of every person – games are inside every one of us, there is inbuilt human nature that is attracted to games, puzzles, problems and competition. As global population growth, so does the demand for online games, puzzles, problems and competition. A game to a person is life an small encapsulation of life that he or she can control – solve the problem, win the game, build the jigsaw, find the strategy to win – a game gives us confidence and control in a world that is often difficult to control. As Benjamin Franklin observed, “Games lubricate the body and the mind.” So as our lives become more cluttered and chaotic, we will keep turning to free online games to soul our body and mind.
8. Games are fun – “Life, like all other games, becomes fun when one realizes that it’s just a game.” (by author Nerijus Stasiulis). People gravitate to free online games because it is fun and games help them realize and remember that life is meant to be fun too!
These significant trends and phenomenon have combined to make online games hugely popular around the world. When burgeoning technology continues to meet supply and demand side forces, the only result is exponential growth. Whether it is played for entertainment, used as an educational tool, passed on as marketing gadget, used as a social networking device – the revolution of free online games show no signs of abating.
