Virtual Ping Pong

Susie Symonds asked:


Digital games from the basic of tetris, super Mario, ping pong and other flash based games to massively multiplayer online role-playing games can be played for free or after paying some membership fees on both specialized consoles and on your good old personal computer (PC) Since gaming consoles have developed web capabilities between August and December of 2002, the debate on which option is better, has gained steam.

Given the enormous popularity of gaming consoles such as PlayStation 2 and Xbox, some industry analysts have suggested that PC gaming has seen its day and that consoles will be dominating force in future. But PC gamers have seen such claims biting dust since the days of Nintendo. This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of gaming consoles.

Console Advantages

• Cost Advantage: Good PCs cost much more than the consoles. The Xbox currently sells for around $200, often with a couple games in the bundle, while it’s easy to spend that much or more on a quality PC video card alone.

• No Fuss: With consoles, just plug it in and start playing. No operating systems, drivers to deal with and to top it all, there is no more heartburn of finding a game incompatible with your system after buying it with much anticipation.

• Multiplayer gaming made easy: Just connect your console to Internet through a DSL or Cable Internet connection and get into a multiplayer game.

• Play where you want to: Play it on the couch, your bedroom, even bathroom with a gaming console. No more sitting on dedicated table.

• Easily gettable games: since consoles don’t have copying ability, the console games are more readily rented and returned to the retailer than PC games which are easy to copy.

• Easy learning: Console games tend to have a relatively low learning curve. You might need fast thumbs, but you certainly won’t need to spend hours in a tutorial trying to learn how to operate basic game functions.

Console Disadvantages

• Difficult updation: If some of the components inside the box become dated, the whole console need to be replaced to keep playing newer games. No remedies for that. This way you need to invest quite a hefty amount with each turn in technology. No such problems with PCs.

• Lack of versatility: Computers can do whole lot of things besides supporting online games. On the other hand consoles perform only one task really well. Some console manufacturers may try to make them a little more flexible, but it’s unlikely they will ever support near the selection of applications that is available for PCs.

• Lack of inter-connectivity: It is the biggest grouse against gaming consoles. There is a clear lack of inter-connectivity between the different console brands because of commercial compulsions.

When it comes to online play of flash based games or multiplayer strategy games for free, players can pit against each other only on a specific network of people playing on same types of consoles. There is no way for console gamers to jump into a fray on one of the countless servers available. The PS2 has made some progress in this area, forging the way for cross-platform gaming between PS2 and PC users, but only one or two titles support this right now.

Of course, there are many things to consider before deciding on a gaming platform. Foremost among these is deciding which games you want to play, how much money you want to spend, and whether or not you need a PC for other purposes. Go for a good computer if you want to do multi tasking, but for a die hard gamer nothing less than the latest console would do, would it?

Or better still, check out Play-Online-Games-Free.com that offer even the most popular games such as tetris click here for free tetris to play now, super Mario, ping pong and other flash based games or multiplayer strategy games for free. You can get a good practice at computer gaming, don’t have to download anything and you get everything for free! Now aren’t you game for that?

Steven Golden asked:


Participants in the game change their real money into the game currency called PEDs at the rate of 10 PEDs for every dollar. They then use their PEDs to buy clothes, weapons and even houses and mining and forestry rights. Players who make a profit in the game can then convert the imaginary money into real cash.

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Project Entropia, which has over 200,000 players, has its own stock market and auction house where players can trade services and commodities. The markets also allows gamers to determine the supply and demand of a host of other virtual resources that can be accumulated through long hours sitting in front of the computer.

(MMORPGs stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) Globally, there are about 350 active MMORPGs, with dozens having over 100,000 subscribers. ItemBay, a Korean company specialising in trading virtual goods such as magic battleaxes or laser carbines, has 1.5m customers and revenues of $17m per month.

To put all this in context, it is possible to calculate the gross domestic product of a virtual game world based on the value of its total assets in real world terms. Using the time it takes for gamers to gather those assets also means that other economic measurements such as an hourly wage rate and GDP per head can be calculated.

In 2001 Edward Castronova, an economist at California State University, was one of the first to realise that the largest MMORPGs had economies greater than most African countries on a per capita basis. But real world trading of virtual goods and services comes with a health warning for gamers looking to make a quick buck.

With this background, here comes a post from Nine Shift: “Intangibles key to our economic future” which comes to the conclusion that Intangible products and services: Can and must be the primary business of American companies. Can be sold without a manufacturing intermediary. Can be sold internationally. Create high paying jobs for knowledge workers in the U.S. and other post-industrialized nations. Lower the trade deficit and restore a balance of trade.

I am not necessarily looking from an American viewpoint. However, I think this remark holds true for all developed countries. We should constantly look for opportunity of high value job in order to keep the living standards in these countries.

Andrew from Telegraph quoted some economists suggesting that Project Entropia resembles pyramid selling the only way for players to make a profit is at the expense of others who are less successful in the game.

I don’t necessarily agree. I am no economist nor lawyer. So my understanding may not be correct.

Pyramid selling refers to a marketing technique where the “goods” being sold is the membership of the scheme. There is no intrinic value of the membership except by selling more to other people. The game world in MMORPGs has real value – the value of experience, be it entertainment or learning. The creation of virtual objects involve “labour” and when someone wants to enjoy other people’s labour, they may pay for it. This is the fundamental driving value of the economy of MMORPGs. Of course, once the interest (or the experience value) of the whole MMORPG is lost (for whatever reason), the virtual economy built around such virtual world will disappear as well. This is a real risk in investing your real resource (effort or money) in such investment. Again, this is quite similiar to other investment in the real world.

Is working for the virtual work a real job? I would say “yes” as long as the demand of the service is there.