Entertainment software is one of the leading segments in the US economy and according to a projection made by Price Waterhouse Coopers; this segment is all set to witness above average growth till 2011. Video games have come a long way since the 1970’s when individual video game enthusiasts used keyboards or dials to manipulate dots across a screen, to the modern era of highly digitized superior multimedia experiences. The gamers have matured, evolved, grown and diversified significantly over the years with the rapid strides made in the video games segment. It is worth noting here that between 2003 and 2006 the video games industry grew at a rate of more than 17 percent whereas the US economy grew at an average rate of 4 percent during the same time. Presently the video games industry employs more than 80,000 people across 31 states in the US.

The programming for video games has evolved from being simple, linear, DOS based pieces of programs to dynamic, dramatic and highly interactive multimedia experiences that literally explode in front of your eyes and take you to a whole new trip altogether. Modern video games enable gamers to change their environment through intelligent use of motor sensor controllers and realistic animation. Today, video games are no longer used as mere tools for entertainment. The United Nations World Food Program has used video games to impart knowledge to children about hunger that is prevalent in the world. Companies such as American Express, IBM, Pfizer and Nokia use novel video games to provide interactive training using appropriate computer graphics and simulations.

As the population of video game enthusiasts increases rapidly, the video game industry also evolves significantly to cater to the changing demands of the gamers. Senior citizens opt for Sudoku and Word Scramblers to keep their minds sharp, whereas the youngs crave for more action, animation and intelligent interactive features.

Video games like many other modern innovations bring with them positive as well as negative influences. The most positive factor is that it employs a huge number of people and is a booming industry contributing significantly to the GDP growth of a nation. The other factors in their favor are: they promote intelligence, encourage creativity, offer an entertaining way to learn new things and help enhance the hand-eye coordination among gamers.

However, there are people who believe that video games promote laziness, aggression and stupidity in the name of entertainment in addition to encouraging escapism by creating a make believe world for the gaming addicts. They also argue that video games promote ill health and cause a lot of health hazards as the gamers shun all forms of outdoor activity and remain absorbed in games through out day and night. People also complain that video games make people unsocial and unproductive.

On whichever side one may choose to be, it is definitely not possible to remain immune to the multi-billion dollar gaming industry. The video games are here to stay and so if we use them to our advantage, they can be a boon to us.

The cue ball is to be hit with the stick and pocket as many balls as one can. Now this game has got on to the Internet as well—just like so many different popular games. Online pool games have become a huge rage amongst the youth across the globe and there are some web sites that specialize in this game. Some offer the game for free; whereas for some one has to pay a subscription fee. Online pool games are as exciting as the real game itself and have many distinct advantages, such as having 24×7 accesses to the games and getting to play from the comforts of one’s home. The rules are same for both the online and the real games. The most basic requirement for playing a pool game is to be able to shoot with a correct technique. Using the right amount of force and shooting at the correct angle are very vital. Online pool games allows one to choose the quantum of force to be applied while hitting the cue ball; the only difference being that instead of a real cue stick one has to use the click of the mouse.

All the online pool sites have online instructions and simulations that help you to get acclimatized with the game. The game is not only about using the cue stick to hit the balls– it requires a lot of intricate calculations involving the possible outcomes of a shot and how the shot would impact the opponent. One can go on hitting till one pockets the balls and has to stop when he fails to pocket a ball. At this time, the opponent gets the chance and the game continues moving to and fro till there is a clear winner. Only after getting familiarized with the rules specific to 8 ball, 9 ball or straight pool game, should one go for betting, because betting without knowing the rules may result in huge losses as you may be pitted against the best online players.

The 8 ball pool game is the most popular pool game and is played with 15 object balls and one cue ball. The 9 ball cue ball was until very recently played by professionals, however now it has entered the online arena where any one can participate. The game is played with 9 balls that are numbered and one cue ball. During the game, a player is required to make contact with the lowest ranked ball on the table. The straight pool or 14.1 pool was the ultimate professional pool game in the US; however, this version of the game has become very popular online where a person has to score a predefined number of points (usually 150). There are 15 numbered balls on the table.

The ever increasing popularity of Java and Flash, which resulted in the rapid development of the Internet, thereby enabling websites to make use of streaming audio, video and a wide array of interactive applications; enabled the growth of online games significantly. As Internet Explorer, the web browser from the stables of Microsoft incorporated Flash as an in-built application, the Internet metamorphosed from a data intensive application to an on-demand entertainment platform. This revolution ushered in a new era that was brought on by online games such as World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy XI, Lineage II, Guild Wars, RuneScape, Artix Entertainment and Mabinogi. Some of these sites allowed free access to games while others charged a subscription fee.

After the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001, may online gaming sites that relied exclusively on advertisement revenue faced severe cash crunch. Despite severe decrease in profitability some of the online gaming websites have survived and have been able to offset the revenue loss by promoting other websites owned by the same company and diverting the online traffic there, which in turn generated revenue in other ways. In the 1990s, online games transcended LAN protocols and became compatible with IPX and TCP/IP. One great innovation in the online gaming sector is the real time strategy game which allowed multiple players to play over a local network. With the growth of the Internet, innovative software allowed players to tunnel the LAN protocols. By the end of the 1990s most real time strategy games were supported by the Internet which enabled players from across the globe to play amongst themselves in real time scenarios.

With the rapid strides made by the online games, open source networks including Dreamcast, Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo entered the online gaming arena armed with their own versions of PC games.

Massively multiplayer online games slowly entered the online gaming sphere with the rapid growth made by the broadband internet, thereby allowing hundreds of online players to play the same game on real time basis. Some important styles of massively multiplayer online games that evolved are:

• MMOSG (Massively multiplayer online social game)
• MMOFPS (Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter)
• MMORTS (Massively multiplayer online real-time strategy)
• MMORPG (Massively multiplayer online role-playing game)

Most of the popular online games are governed by EULA (End User License Agreement), which defines the boundaries necessary to protect the rights of the creators of the games. Online games are a very popular mode of modern entertainment and are definitely here to stay. It will definitely witness a lot of innovations in the near future.

Recalling back to 1800s, when people loved to play physical games like hide and seek and lock and key etc, a lot of changes have been made around us. For example in that period, most of the games were the homemade games and they were generally played in the open air, fresh fields and under the sky. The trends have changed now and most of the games are played on the computers.

Interestingly, previously it was thought that games are just for fun and entertainment. However, nowadays educational games are in demand. The most popular games are the funny games which are liked by all age groups. These games can make people life and can give a positive kick to our emotions.

There are various kinds of funny games but one of the most famous games is the ‘Slap the Nerd’. Such games provide a lot of fun to the kids and adults really like such games. Slap the Nerd is especially designed for the kinds who love to live in their cold world.

These games are designed for the kids who are not naughty and mischievous. In order to remove the depression from the lives of such kids, ‘Slap the Nerd’ is a perfect game. It is a funny game therefore; it gives a lot of fun to the kid who wants to play alone.

Some funny games are especially designed for the adults and the adults can get rid of their depression by playing such games. It is not necessary that you just have to play such games in melancholy only but some funny games are created which can be played with your friends and they can really give you a good playtime. There are different characters which can make you laugh or sometimes jokes are added to increase the excitement of the game.

Funny games are generally controlled by the mouse but some games are also played with the keyboard. In the case of the slap the nerd, mouse is used. It totally depends on the nature of the game. Some of the most famous funny games include Sonny, Warfare 1917, Platform racing, Governor of Poker, Arcane and many others. Most of the funny games are easily available online and they provide a great free fun to the people. Unlike, other games, funny games never make you feel boredom because their characters, actions and videos are very humorous.

Therefore, funny games actually provide the excitement, learning and a great fun to all age groups.

Kids always want fun and playtime. It is very difficult to find a kid who may not love any game. The reason is that games provide entertainment and fun to the children, therefore, most of the children love to spend several hours in playing games. Nowadays, a number of large companies have stepped in kids’ gaming industry like Disney games.

This has really enhanced the quality of the games. The concept that games only provide fun to the children has worn out because nowadays, most of the games provide both learning and entertainment to the kids. Studies have shown that if learning is provided to the kids through games then kids are more willing to learn because they do not realize this thing. In addition, kids’ games also offer other development skills and cognitive and thinking skills.

There are various kinds of games available in the market and they are usually offered to different age groups among the kids. The most popular kids’ games are the Board games and card games. These games include go fish, spades, carrom board, checkers and many others. These games are liked by the kids who are in the early teen age because these games usually involve thinking. Physical games are very popular among the children because kids usually have an unrest nature.

Some of the most popular physical games include hide and seek, tag, hop scotch, charades, scavenger hunts and many others. In the physical games, role playing is one of the most favorite games of the kids. Another category of the games are the computer games. These games are considered very effective from the learning point of view. These games usually include the video games and fighting games etc.

Homemade kid games are also popular among the kids. These games are generally played by the preschoolers for example, rhyming games or stair counting are two homemade games. Sometimes, kids attempt to make their own games like arranging things. Homemade games keep the children active and they also improve the thinking capabilities of the kids.

Another category of kids’ games is Paper and Pencil games. These games are generally played on papers and they include crosswords, logic puzzles, and word findings. These games are generally played by two or more players. These games are especially famous among the school going children.

Therefore, kids’ games are very important for the kids in various ways so, proper playtime should be given to kids to play all kinds of games.

Games have been always popular among the kids and the adults. The fight games are especially liked by the boys. A fight game is an action video game in which the player of the game controls a specific character in the game and plays against another character.

There are different characters in a specific game and the player can select the character of his/her choice. The power and fighting actions of the characters are same. Although there are many types of fighting games but in a typical fight game, there are several rounds of the game.

A player who is the master of the techniques like blocking, counter-attacking and combos usually wins the game. The characters are controlled by the keyboard and there are specific buttons of the keyboard which perform the specific actions. The history of the fight games originated when in 1976, a fist fight game Heavyweight Champ was introduced.

After this game, a more refined version of the fight game was developed in 1980. The popularity of the fight games started when Capcom introduced Street Fighter II in 1991. The competitive video game version of the game was introduced in mid-1990s.

Nowadays, there are several fighting games available and some games include two human players. In the two players fight game, the character of one person fights against the character of the other person. The fighting games vary from the simplest games to the complex games. Generally, there are many rounds in the game and the player who wins most of the rounds becomes the winner of the game.

In a typical fight game, there are life bars of every character and a successful attack of one character lowers the health of the opponent character. In some games there is a game arena and the fighter which forces the opponent outside that arena wins the game. An example of this fight game is Virtua Fighter. In the case of the computer controlled opponents, the individual has to defeat the computer controlled character.

When a player wins a fight game, he may increase the life bar of his character. Sometimes, victory gives new hidden characters to the player. Basically fight games enhance the skills of the player to control different situations. These games provide a lot of entertainment to all age groups. Therefore, the fight games have become very popular among the people and they are being introduced with more appealing graphics.

Disney Company is the largest International media and entertainment corporation. It was founded on 16^th October, 1923 as an animation studio by two brothers Roy and Walt. Today, Disney has become an icon not for kids only but also for adults. Disney games are also very popular among the people because kids and adults have become the fan of the Disney characters.

Disney games develop the fine motor skills of the children and through these games the gross motor skills and the cognitive language skills are also improved. There are various types of Disney games and all of them provide full entertainment to the players.

One famous toy among the children is push toy which helps the kids to learn the balance and coordination. This game also enhances the hand-eye coordination and grasping skills of the children. Basically, different steps in a game improve different abilities of the child.

Disney games offer tons of fun to the kids and the very young kids who play Disney games, get assistance in their development from these games. The major benefit of Disney games is that they provide both fun and entertainment to the kids. For providing the combination of the two, Disney believes that structured and unstructured playtime is very essential for the kids.

Through the Disney games, it has proven that kids can be taught developing skills or learning, only if they feel that they are having fun from the game. The popularity of the Disney games among the kids is because of the characters in their favorite movies.

Disney games have targeted various age groups like for small children they have introduced a broad game with large child safe pieces. Children identify their favorite characters and it appears as a good learning exercise. For the teen angers, video games have been introduced which help the kids to improve their intelligence by handling various situations. Video games are also available online. Many studies have been conducted determine the benefits of the Disney games and they have proved that Disney games play an important role in the skills development of kids.

Disney games can help the children to enhance their thinking skills and to achieve their goals. The satisfaction of the kids after winning the games bring motivation in the kids. Therefore, on the basis of all the studies and benefits of Disney games, we can say that Disney games really play an important role in the development of the kids.

Adventure games are kind of video games; where players are assuming as the character of hero. The games like puzzle games quite different than the action games. Adventure games are based on exploration which is altogether a challenge for the player. The stories of adventure games are based on i.e. fantasy, horror, mystery, science fiction and comedy. Mostly the adventure games are designed for one player; multi player game design would be very difficult to make because of the story and theme. Designers of adventure games require strong video plots and characters to implement the adventure game on commercialized level.

Graphics in adventure games make these games more attractive for the users; such games are user-friendly. 1980’s was the most successful era for the adventure games; in every house these games were on the desktops but in 1990’s adventure games came up to their maturity level. Now the action and adventure games both are common among people, the blend of both the games is now more popular in the market. There are some components which makes the game an adventure; following are the components required in an adventure game:

• Problem solving
• Puzzle solving
• Interactive story
• Exploration of facts
• Manipulation of subjects and objects
• Immersive environment
• Mystery situation
• Logic Puzzles

Text adventure game is similar to the adventure game as it instructs the player what to do and what not to do; such games are helpful for the children to understand that what to do next. On the other hand graphic games are quite different than the text adventure games as these will facilitate the player to know about the game environment through graphics. Most common example of graphic adventure is the point adventure as it helps the individual to solve the puzzles with the help of mouse.

Puzzle adventure games are commonly available in online stores; and very easy to play for the children as it involves collection of different items, searching for the objects etc. Visual novel is another example of adventure games offers static graphics for the players. There are different options for the players’ i.e. One is to play online and the other is to download such adventure games for free. Web stores offers games on discounted prices but be sure that if you are planning to buy a CD of such games then check the company’s reliability regarding to that.

Adventure Game	Adventure Game 2

History of 3D Games:

First 3D Game was developed before 1985.These 3D Games used to run on 8-bit micros. The first 3D games were flight Sims or space shooters. Flight Sims was not easy to make. They used wire frame models they could move, rotate and so on. That was all 8 bit machines could do.

In late 1980’s the new technology was introduced that was Atari ST, Amigas and PC’s. These machines were 16 bit and it had much more computing power. New methods were introduced. Instead of wireframe models, the games used objects composed of flat polygons. Flat polygons were used to give solid look to objects and shades. Color was associated with each polygon. The polygons were in their simplest forms that is triangles.

In every 3D scene, one or more sources of light were introduced that depends on the position of the object with respect to the light source.

Methods of Shading:

There are several methods of shading:

· Flat Shading

· Gouraud Shading

· Phong Shading

In 1990’s a new technology was introduced called texture mapping. Texture mapping is defined as applying skin on the flat polygons. Textures in some instances also called decals. It is computationally intensive as it requires every pixel look up of the output image. It can also be combined with light to give it different shades.

Good examples of 3D Games are Quake or Descent.

A related technology that was introduced is z-buffering. When drawing complex 3D scenes, there are many overlaps between the polygons when they are viewed by the camera. To overcome this problem and for better results third dimension also called as z dimension was introduced .The main purpose of this method was to discard or replace the pixel that was closer to the camera according to the pixel depth information.

In 1995-1996 3Dfx Voodoo Graphics was introduced. It was 3D accelerator that took the world. It was totally different from general graphic cards. It could only run programs in full screen mode but ran them really fast. It not only draws textured polygons but also smooth them using technology called “bilinear filtering” and also removes jaggy look when the image was rendered.

Many technologies were introduced but today the last technology that I will talk about is tessellation. It is a method of rounding 3D models. It also adds more polygons to a model through some algorithm.

Now days with the emerging technologies 3D games are introduced with realistic view and you can’t even make a difference. For example Doom3, world of War craft etc

History:

In the beginning all the video games that were developed were almost Action Games; for example Pac –Man, Space Invader, Paper Boy, Robotron and Doom etc.

Action Games are defined as the video games that emphasizes on physical challenges that includes hand-eye coordination and reaction time.

Action Games include any game where physical tests of skill are challenged. Players may have to encounter tactical and exploration challenges. Action Games require high reaction speed and hand eye coordination so it is very difficult to apply strategic planning while playing the game. The faster the Action Game, the more challenging it would be. Players are under time pressure while playing these games. Action Games also involve puzzle solving games but they are quite simple.

Design of a Game:

Levels:

There are different levels of a game and a player advance in a game by completing series of levels. Levels are grouped by theme which involves similar scenes and enemies. Every level has a challenge that is to be accomplished by a player. Older games forced the users to restart the level after dying but now you can save the game and there are also checkpoints that make the game more interesting for the player. The only differences in the levels are the change in scenes and the appearance of enemies and their unpredictable path.

Levels in an Action Game may be linear or non linear. In some levels the exits are hidden behind the enemies and in some levels you have to find the exits by exploring the level.

Action Games are made difficult by locking the doors, time restriction and when a player loses his life.

Abilities of a Character:

Different Action Games have different characters and they have different capabilities. For example players may find power up in a game and they can increase their power or sometimes they are provided with such powerful attacks that they can destroy number of enemies in a single shot.

Obstacles and Enemies:

Players have to encounter with enemies and obstacles while completing the level. There would be many obstacles such as traps, locked doors etc and enemies will attack you from different directions and you have to kill them by saving your life and health.

There are many subgenres of Action Games such as:

· Beat them up’s

· Fighting Games

· Maze Games

· Platform Games

· Shooter Games

Rhythm and Dance Games