Some of the most well-known and best-loved traditional games have found a new lease of life online. In fact, in recent years gaming has experienced a boom, and the market now incorporates a wide variety of different types of gaming opportunities, including solo games, competitive games played with others and games the whole family can enjoy. Here are a few different genres that have become extremely popular among people of all ages.
Scrabble
Things have moved on since the popular board game Scrabble was invented by unemployed architect Alfred Mosher Butts in 1938, and now there are lots and lots of word games available online, including Scrabble, which can now also be played by email and post. The original name for the game was Lexiko and it was played only with tiles, no board. Other favoured online word games include word searches, crosswords and Hangman.
Bingo
Gone are the days when bingo meant elderly relatives meeting up at the church hall to play bingo as a church fundraiser. At least, while that may still be the case in some places, since going online bingo has gained increasing popularity among the younger generations and really is a runaway gaming success story, with the number of UK-operated sites increasing from around 20 in 2004 to more than 350 by 2013. Older than Scrabble and originally entitled Beano, the game was invented by Edwin S. Lowe in 1929. If you fancy having a go at winning a contribution towards Christmas spending or your next holiday, click here.
Poker
Just like bingo, the number of online poker sites has increased over the years. Players from all parts of the world participate daily in games and sometimes also in online tournaments. The poker game Texas hold’em is the single most popular poker game in the world. Other well-liked card games online include the many varieties of solitaire (played solo) and multiplayer games where players can either compete against a computer or other opponents.
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a role playing game (RPG) and is extremely popular, offering players the chance to take on a new personality in a fictional setting and to interact with other characters. In RPGs there is always a system of guidelines and rules in place and a character’s actions succeed or fail depending on these rules. Many RPGs have their roots in more traditional tabletop games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, with a huge number of participants worldwide.
Perhaps apart from one-player games such as solitaire, playing games online is not a lonely occupation – indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. Online gaming offers participants an opportunity to “chat” electronically with other players and often to meet new people. The convenience of being able to play a favourite game on a number of different devices, such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, makes them even more attractive. As more and more games go online, undoubtedly online gaming is flourishing.
