Online gaming has truly come a long way since its beginning. Today millions of people play various games online on a daily basis, including card games. Even you must have played some online games till now. It is mostly a fun and entertaining activity done by many as a hobby or for stress relief. Today, you can also earn real cash by playing and winning in certain games like online rummy. But, do you know what exactly is online gaming, its features?

A Little History

The first ever online game was MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), created in 1978. It was a text-based or storyboarded real time virtual world. It was confined to an internal network, but then in 1980, it got connected to the ARPANet. Commercial online games began after this with the 1^st title released in 1984 – Islands of Kesmai.

What do you mean by ‘Online Gaming’?

When you play any video game over the Internet or any other computer network like LAN (Local Area Network) then it becomes online gaming. It is not necessary that online gaming involves multiple players. Besides other real players, you can also play online against bots. Previously, an Online Content PEGI was used to classify online games from other offline video games, but now since almost every game provides a varying level of online interactivity, this is no longer used.

Types of Online Games

A wide variety of online games have been made till now and millions of people play them on a daily basis. These online games can be roughly classified into the following few categories:

Sports games, Role-Playing games, Card games like Indian Rummy, Simulation games, First-Person Shooter games, Racing games, Strategy games, and Adventure games.

Earning through Online Games

Even though games are meant to be our entertainment and playing them is supposed to be our pastime, you can also win cash prizes and earn real cash by playing some of the games. There are 2 ways to do that:

• eSports

For some of the popular games, national level tournaments in various countries like Russia, the USA, Japan are held and also International Tournaments are held where professional players, as well as amateurs, compete to win huge cash prizes and trophies. Usually, live spectators are involved in such tournaments and they are prestigious for many players. Some examples of games are: FIFA, Counter-Strike, and NFS.

• Cash Games

In these games, you can win/earn real cash on a daily basis by playing individual games or taking part in online Tournaments. Most of such cash games are from the ‘card games’ category like poker, Teen Patti, Rummy, etc. In India, Lakhs of people play rummy online and win huge cash prizes daily.

Devices of Online Games

Some people are of the notion that online games are played only on Computers, but the scope of online gaming also covers those that are played on consoles like Xbox and mobile devices. On these devices, you install a game first (.exe file for a PC and an app for mobile) and then play it online, but online games also include those that are played in a browser. These are ‘flash games’ or ‘Java games’ and are usually simple to play.

Nowadays, people play online games even on ‘cross-platforms’. For e.g. if you are playing rummy cash games from a web browser interface, your opponent will play rummy via the app of a rummy platform. People not only play online games for their entertainment and thrill factor but also because they get many benefits from playing online games. Hope you all were enlightened about the basics of online gaming. If you wish to add anything on this topic, do tell us in the comments below.