Online gaming: am I less of a gamer cos I don’t play online?

Let’s face it, online gaming with last Gen consoles was never an issue, and that never made me feel like any less of a gamer. The dream cast started online play during the time of the 56k connection, since then the phenomenon has now become an integral part of gaming.

As most people who I talk to on Dtoid know (dyslixec, electro, garbz etc) I don’t actually have the internet in my university dorm room. Now I can use the internet at the library, which is in all fairness only 30 seconds away, for shit like posting here on Dtoid, fair enough. But it doesn’t mean that I can play either my Wii or 360 online. But how much does this impact the gaming? Do I actually need it be able to play games?

Before becoming part of Dtoid I was a pretty isolated gamer, I really didn’t have many friends who were ‘gamers’ and that didn’t bother me. Final fantasy viii, Zelda and metal gear 2 weren’t multi online player anyway. I never felt like my experience as a gamer was compromised in anyway. Then gears of war were released. Now I am a massive unreal tournament fan, so games like that get me excited, but after listening to certain people on here talk about their experiences of Co-op playing online, I realised, the game I would be playing, the gears of war offline, was not going to be the same experience as what they were getting online, and the game I was playing, wasn’t as much fun. It appears to me, that I can still finish a game, and be good at it, on or offline, not effecting my skills as a gamer, It is the cooperative and socialisation of online gaming that makes it so damn appealing a makes me feel like I’m missing out.

Figures show that around 40% of Xbox 360 owners DON’T play online, even though online gaming is apparently integral. Is it just me, or are people no longer satisfied with sitting in front of their [insert favourite games system here] and playing games by themselves? Are people now craving a deeper form of social interaction that Co-op gaming provides? How long before I to become bored of spending my nights by myself with nothing more than the Intel chip for company, before I feel the need to get online and head shot dyslixec in a room full of people that I know, but yet have never met? And lets faced it, I can’t wait until I get to play my favourite games against other people and won’t have to deal with my fucking television screen split into four parts!

The community here on Dtoid shows one thing, socialising while playing games, is really going to be the future, there are already entire games based upon this, for example World of War craft. There is no world of war craft without online capability. Gamers like myself with no internet, will either have to accept that, offline their consoles will only take them so far as gamers, before they to have to go online.