Online games are transformed by speedier connections

A new report by Ericsson, the world's largest mobile broadband provider, says games-playing is being transformed, driven by a wave of new devices like smartphones and tablets, faster Internet connections and the rising interest of players of varied demographics.

Cathaya Xu, head of Ericsson Consumer-Lab for the northeastern Asian region, briefed on March 27 a packed press conference in Beijing that the rising torrent of online data traffic is partially contributed by games. Gaming has become more socially acceptable as a mainstream form of culture, and more people are looking for game immersion and socialization.

The report?- New Way to Play Games?- surveyed a wide variety of consumers in the United States, Brazil, Korea and elsewhere. It found that the introduction of personalized, app-based, multi-purpose devices has enabled gaming to reach a much wider audience.

Nevertheless, game lovers are increasingly complaining about the poor quality of Internet connections, naming disruption of a seamless experience as their No. 1 grievance. In China, up to 60 percent of smartphones sold are pre-stalled with different types of gaming applications. Among all game players, females make up 43 percent of the total.

As online gaming is becoming a mainstream source of profits for many internet companies, operators could leverage the market by investing more in better networks and developing a reasonable billing system for charging data traffic, Xu said.