For almost anyone who has ever played a computer game, from a simple coin-operated machine in a bar or an arcade to a complex strategy or role-playing games on a personal computer, the appeal of playing with or against an unseen flesh-and-blood person is hard to resist. Rather than facing off against programmed responses, playing against real people adds unpredictability. Computer-aided communication with the other players often adds a level of connection and community, online game players and developers say.
What might have been an isolating technology seems to be evolving into a more inclusive technology, game analysts say.
That's the case for the Hazzards, who spend as much or more time chatting as they do playing while they are online. "I like talking to my brothers, hearing what's going on in their lives, how we've all been and what we're doing," Thomas Hazzard said.
Such game play and communications are expected to become even easier when Sony's PlayStation 2, Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube start to take advantage of online abilities that are either built-in or added to the gaming machines. Since all PlayStation 2 users, for example, require the same machine with an online module, there will be almost no hardware limitations to arranging online opponents.
The only high-end gaming console that actually plays a range of games over the Internet is Sega's famously failed Dreamcast, which is no longer being manufactured. Sega's game site, SegaNet, has become a favorite of many gamers because of the range and quality of games that can be played on the system.
Access to SegaNet has been free (although players must usually have a Dreamcast console and a copy of the game they want to play online), but it will soon become a pay-to-play site. Among other sites, EA.com charges US$5 to US$10 a month to play a range of games that also include tournaments and other head-to-head competitions.
For online gaming to approach the kind of profit levels that offline computer gaming rakes in each year, Brown of Electronic Arts said it needs to offer games with more compelling content than car racing and first-person shooter games like Quake and Doom.
Comparing online gaming to the early days of cable television, Brown said that Internet gaming has been searching for a breakthrough product that would move people to pay to play games online, much the way millions of viewers pay to watch premium cable channels like Home Box Office and shows like The Sopranos.
For Brown, the game that is poised to change everything is called Majestic. Electronic Arts is scheduled to release it later this month on EA.com, which is also a game provider for America Online's 29 million subscribers.
Majestic is an episodic fantasy mystery-thriller, meant for adults, that unfolds both online and in a series of offline communications, including telephone calls to your home or office, messages to your e-mail accounts, faxes and frantic instant messages. Many of these communications refer players to elaborate Web sites that offer clues to the game.
"Every four weeks, there will be another episode of Majestic waiting for you," Brown said. "This will be a revolution."
All for just US$9.99 a month.
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