As the internet progresses, along with the development of China and other countries, the gaming industry, and its leaders, is finding itself under more and more pressure to come up with various gaming ideas that will freshen up the industry. Recently, a lot of products (game consoles and the games themselves) have been nothing more of a disappointment. For instance, the huge failure of Daikatana and Sony’s PS3 is nothing short of discouraging, and that is saying it nicely.

But with the expected ratio of internet growth by the year 2010 (according to internetworldstats.com, from the year 2005-2007 alone, there was an estimated jump of 265.6 % in the world’s internet usage), could community gaming be the next wave to hit the gaming nation?

The highest number of users comes from Asia, with its population more than 50% of the total world population, and around 38.7 % of internet users come from this huge continent. Obviously, community gaming should have boomed by now, especially since a lot of consoles have made it easier for people to connect through their gaming gadgets to interact with others through their games and consoles, and Asians love their games as much as the next race does.

But if one would look at economical and social standings, Asian countries have not really reached their full potential yet. It is given that the highest population of internet users comes from Asia, but not all of the gamers in Asia have decent internet connections, and much more, enough money to buy the more advanced consoles with connection features. A lot of gamers still have to go to internet cafes or computer shops just so they can feed their gaming needs. This is already expensive enough for these gamers, much less save up for an expensive Xbox 360.

That however, might change soon enough.

It is no secret that a lot of third world countries from Asia are starting to get up from the slums. People are getting higher wages, thus giving them more spending power. The large and powerful gaming companies are beginning to understand that there is a huge market waiting to erupt in Asian countries. “Erupt” is even minimizing the potential, with the expected internet usage in a good couple of years is in huge terabytes already.

Another factor on the community gaming explosion is that a lot of companies are starting to offer cheap internet deals to their customers. Only a couple of years ago, the only connection available to most Asian countries were those ear-splitting dial-up connection, with a staggering (not!) 56kbps capacity (years and years for you to load a simple website). But now, fiber optic connections and wifi services are starting to gain popularity, although most of the users of such connections are still under the upper middle class families. But by 2010, it is expected that the connectivity rates are so low that every house can avail them.

Gaming is already a huge industry in Asian countries, especially in Japan, Korea and The Philippines. Girls and guys alike flock to gaming events in order to get a load of the latest games and gadgets. Not only is that, but gaming communities that mostly have Asian members the most active in the net (mostly MMORPGs). That is because these games (such as Ragnarok and Fiesta Online) can be installed in public utility computers, and does not require the players to shell out more money than they would prefer. It is estimated the pRO or Philippine Ragnarok Online, is the biggest and busiest Ragnarok server ever. The players in Asian countries are very much eager to sack their game bot enemies, and start interaction with real people.

But by the time the cost of Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 (4, 5 and 6), games and internet connection fees go down, it is no surprise that you’ll hear the biggest and most powerful gaming companies are clamoring and tripping all over themselves to establish a “local” vibe in Asian countries in haste, if they are not already doing that.

But these companies need to develop games that will suit both the Oriental and Western tastes, and also to make sure that moderation and smooth collaboration within the community is maintained. Now, that will definitely cost a lot for these cheapskate companies, online mods and even call center agents need to be strategically set around the clock, to ensure that everyone follows the rules and does not start anything radical while on the gaming server.

Not to mention, probably the biggest problems that gaming companies would face would be the different laws and rules in Asian countries, due to the fact that intellectual rights, age standards and a load more of other heavy laws pertaining to gaming is not (and most probably will never be) standardized.

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