The advantages of playing online games

For the most part, handheld gaming is a solitary pastime. Only a handful of games released for the Vita offer local multiplayer options. Even fewer offer online gameplay functionality, and for those that do, many of these have had servers shut down in recent years rendering this feature useless. While many are passionate about this aspect of gaming, online gaming isn’t loved by everyone. Many fail to look for any form of positivity in it, regarding it as being anti-social and dismissing it as a virtual world cutting people away from reality.

No, I am not completely disagreeing with them, it surely is a virtual world. However, my point here is that living a virtual life in the virtual world can be a great escape. Because, admittedly, “real life” has become more stressful for many than it used to be a couple of decades ago. However, that doesn’t mean that we should spend all our time in these new virtual worlds and escape the real world completely. Surely not. This virtual life of online gaming is important only to give us a break from this harsh real world.

Vita owners these days have to settle for its library of predominantly single player games. This is still a great means for stress relief and something I often turn to a few times a week. But online gaming plays an important part as well for those who do have access to it for relaxation and taking away the stresses of the day. Despite online gaming having its harsh critics, most of these tend to ignore the old saying that there are two sides to every story. So taking a closer look, here are the some of the advantages to playing online games that often go unnoticed by its detractors…

Integrates social skills

This goes without saying as these online games are played with people from all over the world. A game like Bingo has held this factor for ages now. However, as its popularity declined by the end of the 20th century, the best casino bingo online games saved the traditional seaside game from dying out. The same social element found in bingo halls seen across the country were now seen when the game was being played online with players from different parts of the world.

More than half of the gamers today prefer online gaming over offline games. This percentage of gamers includes players from all over the world and when one player meets a player from the other part of the world, bonding and socialising are bound to happen.

Improves thinking skills

There is a huge variety of games you can play online. Some of them are first-person shooters such as the legendary PS Vita classic, Killzone Mercenary, while others are clan building. For those wanting more diverse gaming you can turn to arcade shoot-em-ups like Resogun or the Sword Art Online series for multiplayer RPG hack-and-slash action. The versatility is never-ending. However, there is this one common factor amid them all. They all compel you to make strategies to excel at the game. You cannot win a Rummy game if you don’t plan your cards. You cannot win a PUBG game if you don’t strategise your attack on the enemy. Since all of these games are intense, the thinking speed also needs to be immense. At the time of leaving the game for the real world, you are taking away an already exercised brain with improved thinking skills.

Helps you manage your emotions

We all learn our best lessons in life from our failures. And one of the best places to learn is online games. Here you can fail and nothing will change in real-life. You can fail once and keep failing until you learn to handle failures. This can help to make the player emotionally strong. It also help you to learn to control your emotions and each time you respawn in action based games, develop skills to try to progress further. As this is often a process that can be continued indefinitely, so can your emotional growth as you play.

Teaches important real-world values

There are certain values that anyone must hold if he wants to lead a successful life. These values are empathy, cooperation, planning and tackling difficult situations. Life is not all about cakes and cherries after all. Any online game teaches these important life values on a very basic level. It will not be wrong to call it inception instead of teaching. The players don’t always realise it, but often naturally develop and learn these values during play to cooperate, plan and get out of difficult situations. So yes, maybe a virtual world is teaching some of the most fundamental real-life values.

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