If you think gaming is a bad influence to the humanity, you might as well want to rethink it again.
Ever heard of online game? MMORPG? Virtual worlds? Dude, if you haven’t heard of any of those three terms, where have you been for the past 10 years? But I certainly believe that most people know those terms ever since World of Warcraft or Ragnarok Online have become a phenomenal massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
When I first play an online game a few years ago, my opinion is that maybe I won’t last long since it’s just a game, with fake money and epic winnings. But surprisingly it lasted about 15 months before the game contents updater speed is really ticking me off. During the 15 months of playing, I discover a new meaning of words, languages, terms, friends, and even marketing strategy there. Not to forget that sometimes I have to do mathematics to find which latitude I’m living since the time here and American server (they have many servers but sadly they do not have Malaysian server) time for few official game events.
If you ask me how online games can socially connect people? Players can use instant messaging during game playtime and some online game is able to offer a character interactivity between players such as handshake. It does not stop to only an instant messaging, the people in charge of the server also provide a forums, wikis, blogs and chatroom where players can socialize even when they’re offline and thus creating a community.
Online game also provide education though in minimal amount. A friend of mine whom originally come from Japanese server but instead she join American server to practice her English. Though not verbally, but it still improve her English writing skill.
As businessmen compete in the real world, they also compete in virtual world. Heck… I have to learn how negotiate with players if I want to buy something worth the price. I need to go interrogate few peoples before I have to compare the prices and the item durability (yes, the game install a durability on the item and if the durability goes down it will go poof next). Most online games provides player to be able to setting up their own temporary shop for limited amount of items and time at the bazaar area but unable to receive a feedback unless the buyer have contacted the player through the instant messaging to negotiate the price. However, most players prefer to set up their shop in forum as they can easily view the feedbacks and offers from their buyers. From this way, players able to updating their item list without limit including the item details and as well the service that they will offer to the buyers.
Playing online games obviously gives you an advantage in gaining more friends from all over the world (actually more than Facebook can offer you). But, the thing that bothers me most about online gaming is the time that we HAVE to spend on it. Hours and hours, just gone like that. My brothers and sister are hardcore online gamers and they even created a bot when they're going out so that they would still be 'playing' even if they're doing something else. They would also rather prefer to study the stratergy official guide than their school books. So for me, it have a lot of cons but still it depends on the person as well.
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