Online gaming

As the 1990s wound down, online games were ramping up. The first massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) began to spring up, allowing many individual players spread out to play together in connected video game worlds such as EverQuestEverQuest. The early 2000s saw huge growth in online gaming, with games like Runescape and World of Warcraft dominating the online gaming market for most of the decade.

As the 1990s wound down, online games were ramping up. The first massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) began to spring up, allowing many individual players spread out to play together in connected video game worlds such as EverQuest. The early 2000s saw huge growth in online gaming, with games like RunescapeRunescape and World of Warcraft dominating the online gaming market for most of the decade.

Due to multiplayer often requiring coordinated actions and communication between players, online gaming communication channels are a key facet of the industry. While some platforms have built-in communication services, like Xbox LiveXbox Live or the Playstation Network, others do not and require third-party applications for players to communicate. As online gaming continues to grow and small and large companies enter the space, communication services have grown as well. Discord, a popular voice and text service, has over 140 million users as of 2021, showing the popularity of third-party platforms.

Due to multiplayer often requiring coordinated actions and communication between players, online gaming communication channels are a key facet of the industry. While some platforms have built-in communication services, like Xbox Live or the Playstation Network, others do not and require third-party applications for players to communicate. As online gaming continues to grow and small and large companies enter the space, communication services have grown as well. DiscordDiscord, a popular voice and text service, has over 140 million users as of 2021, showing the popularity of third-party platforms.

The internet was created on January 1, 1983, opening the door to online gaming. Sega released an online video game service for the Genesis in 1990, marking one of the first console platforms to allow internet access. NintendoNintendo released Satellaview in 1995, using satellite to allow Japanese customers online play as well.

Online game streaming has increased with the constant rise of online gaming, influenced by a wider range of social media platforms and the emergence of content providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The most popular online gaming streaming platform, Twitch, has risen to host over two million viewers at any given time of any day. The service hosts 91% of all video game streaming, despite the growing number of competitors that include YouTubeYouTube and Facebook. First-time downloads of Twitch rose 14% in the US since the epidemic in March, and 41% in Italy during that time.