Online gaming is so common now, it has grown expodentially over the past few years. I can only attribute this to three key factors.
1. Wi-Fi - There is a reason I am not on Xbox live, because it has to be hardlined. Ease of access is something that is appealing, especially to lazy people like me lol. I play my wii and PS3 online and enjoy the experience, but I don't think I would if online gaming required a fair deal of setting up.
Wireless internet is popular now, but as this graph predicts, the use of Wi-Fi devices are increassing
link
2. Cheap broadband - When I first got broadband during the last gen it cost twice as much (even though I was still living with my parents) and was around 8 times slower if I remeber. So the attraction to get a modem and hook it up to my PS2 wasn't that great.
3. Social networking - Over the last year the top ten social networking sites have grown on average 47%. This indicates that the rate of people communiacting over the internet is constantly reaching new heights, a trend that is unlikely to reverse in the near future. This includes games. People are socialising over games such as WOW and second life, easing them into online gaming.
(mostly)
