Guest editorial for special issue on massively multiplayer online gaming systems and applications
2009; Springer Science+Business Media; Volume: 45; Issue: 1-3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1007/s11042-009-0310-z
ISSN1573-7721
AutoresShervin Shirmohammadi, Mark Claypool,
Tópico(s)Peer-to-Peer Network Technologies
ResumoMassively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), now a profitable sector of the industry and subject to academic and industry research, are gaming platforms that allow hundreds of thousands of players to simultaneously play in the same online game, often interacting with tens or even hundreds of other players.Although originally designed for gaming, MMOGs are now widely used for socializing, business, commerce, scientific experimentation, and many other practical purposes.One could say that MMOGs are the "killer app" that brings Virtual Reality into the realm of eSociety.This is evident from the fact that real companies are opening "virtual branches" in these online games, such as Reebok, IBM, and CNN, to name a few.Virtual currencies such as Linden (or L$) in Second Life are already being exchanged for real-world money 1 .Similarly, virtual goods and virtual real-state are being bought and sold with real-world money.Massive numbers of users spend their time with their fellow players at online games like EverQuest, Half-Life, World of Warcraft, and Second Life.World of Warcraft, for example, has over 11.5 million users [3] with a peak of over 500,000 players online at a given time [1].MMOGs have the potential to be the cornerstone of any eSociety platform in the near future, because they bring the massiveness, awareness, and inter-personal interaction of the real society into the digital realm.Observations about the growth and evolution of MMOGs are confirmed by data from recent measurements.For the past few years, studies have concluded that these applications are expected to be major contributors to Internet traffic.DFC Intelligence forecasted the worldwide online game market to grow from $4.5 billion in 2006 to over $13 billion in 2011 and the total number of online gamers in the twenty leading online game countries is
Referência(s)