Team Roar
Online and network gaming has gained huge popularity with the adoption of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), which started in the 1990s and gained momentum in the 2000s. MMOs typically feature large numbers of players connected simultaneously to the same game instance, or the game ‘world’. The real-time capabilities of these games and the ability to interact and compete with others across the globe can be very attractive to gamers. In 2010, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft pulled in 10 million subscriptions. By 2014, Blizzard announced that WoW had generated more than 100 million accounts over the game’s lifetime. The MMORPG still holds the record for the most popular game by subscribers.
The popularity of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games has also led to large e-sport events. In 2014, the MOBA, League of Legends, held a world championship tournament whose grand finale was hosted at the Seoul World Cup Stadium. The tournament had a prize pool of over 2 million dollars.
The popularity of MMOs has spread to Sri Lanka as well, with large numbers of gamers competing against each other and the rest of the world to place high in the game ranks. Sri Lanka, though, in the early days of MMOs, faced difficulties—mostly owing to its geographical location. The further a player is away from a game server, the more time a data packet takes to travel from the user to the server. For example, a gamer playing on US servers might experience a latency of several hundred milliseconds, which can cause significant lag when playing. This not the optimal experience for gamers in Sri Lanka.
Broadband For Gaming
Over the past few years, Dialog has made significant investments in network infrastructure that has improved internet connectivity in Sri Lanka. With lower latency and higher speeds, Dialog broadband provides a much better experience for massively multiplayer online gaming. With fixed 4G speeds clocking in at over 20 Mbps, games load much faster making Sri Lankan gamers much more competitive in the international arena.
Regionally, Sri Lanka has much better internet as well, with average speeds much higher than those of neighbouring India and Bangladesh. Increased 4G coverage also means gaming is not restricted to city areas. MMORPGs built for mobile devices can now be played on the go, with a mobile data connection. Mobile 4G provides better performance than the majority of fixed-line connections available now, while still being flexible enough to be used anywhere.
With e-sports growing at a phenomenal rate in Sri Lanka, it pays to stick to a network that provides players with the optimal gaming experience, and one that pays special attention to the gaming community. For example, last year, Dialog brought together gamers for the largest ever Clash Of The Clans mobile gaming competition in Sri Lanka. Dialog’s faster broadband speeds and better network infrastructure means quicker game load times, and no network congestion. Lower latency means better reaction speeds when competing with other players across the world. All these network advantages provide gamers with the competitive edge they need to stay ahead in the fast-paced gaming community.
Featured image courtesy getjar.com
