In an online age where online gaming is at an all-time high, it’s not at all uncommon for people who don’t consider themselves online gamers to be keenly aware of which games are seeing the most attention at any given time. This is at least partly due to the kind of revenue that these titles generate, and with that comes a massive amount of success and media attention that serves to bring new players on board.
On top of this, you have live service games that utilize this model and continuously add updates and content to the game so that people never have to stop playing and so the game is continuously relevant. However, those aren’t the only online games being played, and with so much attention given to the big names, it’s not surprising that others can go unheard of.
Battle Royales
Among the online gaming genres, one of the most successful newcomers is that of the battle royale. Fortnite is undoubtedly the most popular example, proving to amass a level of popularity that other longstanding cultural cornerstones of gaming, like Minecraft, have achieved. This explosion of success has led to the battle royale genre becoming key to games that wouldn’t have included it otherwise, such as Call of Duty, making it an influential staple that heavily impacts the industry moving ahead.
This is also often an example of an online game that utilizes the free-to-play genre. This is seen regularly throughout online gaming and offers no barrier to entry; instead, microtransactions are how the game producer makes its money.
Casino Games
To people who might consider themselves more casual gamers, casino games can feel like the perfect bridge between just starting out and heading into the more complex world of certain online genres. This is especially true when it comes to casino games that look more akin to other gaming experiences, such as this site, which includes RPG elements that can better involve the player or incorporate mini-games into slot variations. While the monetization present here might make it more appealing to certain audiences, offering an encrypted platform with multiple ways of paying can help a new player overcome this hurdle and see what’s on offer here.
MMOs
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs or MMOs) often don’t feel as loud within the online gaming industry as some of the flashier names on the list. World of Warcraft is an industry staple and a title that even non-gamers can recognize, but part of that fame arguably comes more from longevity and impact rather than current relevance. That’s not to say it’s not still relevant, however, as it very much is, and that’s something that can showcase just how valuable these kinds of titles can be when they’re done right.
However, even less popular examples can find massive amounts of success. Star Wars has its own MMO in the form of The Old Republic, a sprawling online game that looks to be a sequel to the popular Knights of the Old Republic single-player games from the early 2000s. Establishing itself as both a part of the popular world of Star Wars as well as a long-awaited sequel to a critically beloved game made it no surprise that it found such success initially, but its longevity comes down much more to the genre itself. Success is far from guaranteed, of course, as many failed MMOs will tell you.
Fighting Games
The genre of fighting games is an interesting one due to how much of a presence it’s had in the video game scene since the beginning. Titles like Tekken, Street Fighter, and Mortal Kombat can all be traced back decades, but those same franchises find themselves launching popular titles to this day.
That’s not to say that there haven’t been deviations in the appeal or changes to their structure, but adapting that structure to the online age might have been one of the most successful choices they could have made. With this, not only do these games have a way of being played indefinitely (or at least until the next installment arrives), but they can find new life in the esports scene, where the finer details of the tactics involved can take center stage.
ARPGs
Another shade of role-playing game that has seen online success is that of the action RPG. Included in this genre are titles from the famous Diablo series, as well as Path of Exile and Grim Dawn. While action RPG is a broad genre that can also be inferred to include things from single-player campaigns, what is usually referred to here is a gameplay loop that focuses on dealing with large groups of enemies and collecting loot to continuously improve your character.
The kind of optimization that is often required to maximize the potential of any given player character can often come across as daunting to new players. Once this barrier of entry is crossed, however, many players often find themselves playing these kinds of games for hours on end, even despite the relatively simple gameplay loop that newcomers might fear getting stale. Titles like Diablo IV include more traditional questlines to add some variety to this while still keeping the core experience much the same as fans would expect.
Shooters
Then, of course, you have the classics. A lot of modern shooter games might not be fully distinct from live service games or battle royale games, with examples like Call of Duty Warzone arguably fitting into both of those genres. That being said, with online gaming having been popularized by earlier Call of Duty titles, it’s understandable that this nostalgic legacy would have been carried forward through the same game modes that were so revolutionary back at the time of Black Ops and the original Modern Warfare titles.
To a lot of people, this connection to what got them into online gaming, to begin with, is now the gateway that allows them to experience the newer aspects of it – like the battle royale genre through Warzone.
