Overview

Over the past few decades, video games have become a common ritual in the lives of millions of people. In the United States over 54 % of households own a video gaming system of some sort. The video game industry has come a long way, from the very first extremely basic missile defense game, to today’s multi-player Modern Warfare titles. What was once a scene dominated primarily by teenage males has now evolved into an attraction that is virtually unbiased. The video gaming market is ever increasing, even in an economic downturn; the gaming market showed no sign of strain, in fact, over the past few years it has reached record sales, globally reaching tens of billions of dollars. One trend that has become extremely popular is online gaming. Broadband internet access availability has been constantly increasing over the past few years. This has influenced a stronger market for online gaming. Currently, online gaming consists of many different platforms; this paper will talk about the following major online gaming platforms: Xbox Live, The PlayStation Network, Nintendo Wi-Fi, Steam, and Blizzard. Each platform has different specifications, and because of this, the ways they generate revenue may differ from one another. The purpose of this paper is to provid