The history of digital gaming goes back to the earliest days of home computers in the 1970s and 1980s. With these came the first examples of games that were designed to be played solely on a digital device.
At the same time, hand-held digital games consoles began to hit the market during the 1980s. Back then digital gaming still came second to playing games in the real, physical world, but gradually it has supplanted that.
This has not led to the decline of the games industry though – quite the opposite. Gaming is bigger than ever thanks to digital devices and games tech keeps forging ahead, improving the experience for players.
The Effect on Casino Gaming
One of the areas where the shift has been particularly dramatic has been that of casino gaming. Online casinos first began to appear on the internet during the 1990s and they have gradually become the primary way in which people play games like slots, blackjack and roulette.
The effect that it has had on that part of the games industry mirrors the wider picture. Rather than causing casino to lose popularity, online casinos have boosted its appeal.
To cite one example, roulette used to be played only by the small section of the population that regularly frequents land-based casinos. The rise of sites like Rainbow Riches Casino and their online versions of the game such as Lightning Roulette have changed that though.
Online roulette is popular with groups – women, young people – who never played it before. That is down to both the convenience and ease with which it can be accessed and the fact that younger generations are so comfortable with technology.
This is the story across every aspect of the casino gaming world. Furthermore, it is not limited to casino games.
The Growing Games Market
There have always been people who played games in their spare time, but never quite as many as there are now. More than 227 million people in the US alone are regular gamers – that is people who play each week.
Around 74% of American homes have a minimum one family member who is a gamer. That astonishing growth in the popularity of games has been driven by digital gaming.
What it is important to note however, is that this digitization of gaming has not destroyed traditional games. Alongside ultra-modern video games, many favorites from the pre-digital era are flourishing.
Already we have seen that casino options like roulette have grown in popularity since moving online, but they are not the only ones. The same thing is now happening with board games.
Digital Board Games Burgeoning
Several of the oldest and longest-lasting board games have been successfully developed for digital play. Let’s look at a couple of examples.
👉 • Chess
This may be the earliest board game in history and is believed to date back 1500 years. You may think that makes it a primary candidate for the scrapheap in our brave new digital world, but you would be wrong.
Chess is now very widely played on PCs, to the extent that it is a pre-installed feature of many operating systems. It is being opened up to a new generation of players.
👉 • Ludo
This is another board game to thrive digitally. It is a much simpler game than chess and the chance to play it online greatly increases its appeal to young people with their devotion to everything online.
Mobile Digital Gaming
All of the statistics show that mobile gaming is the biggest growth area for the digital games market. It has been leading the field for at least the last three years, with annual profits of $83.5 billion.
What this means is that those traditional games that can be played on Smartphones are the ones most likely to enjoy continued popularity. Casino games like roulette and slots have already successfully made that transition and mobile casino is big business now.
Like casino games, board games are very well suited to mobile gaming. That is because they can be recreated with quite simple graphics that are not negatively impacted by the smaller screen displays.
Mobile gaming is growing older games in some of the same ways as computer gaming did. It takes the ease and convenience of playing online a stage further, because mobile phones are much more portable than computers.
People can carry them around in their pockets and play games like roulette or slots in spare moments. Alternatively they can play board games like chess, ludo or noughts and crosses on an app with opponents who are in a different location.
The digital world has given many traditional games favorites a new lease of life and emerging developments like VR and AR could continue that.
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