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Community gaming is arguably the most popular way of playing, and the booming eSports industry that surpassed $1 billion in revenue in 2021 is a prime indicator of that. Competitive gaming doesn’t just encourage collaboration between players, but it also attracts spectators who can experience the games vicariously.

This booming sector could be traced back decades, and many would suggest that the shared experience of arcade gaming started it all. It could go back even further than that, however, to the days when bingo took the western world by storm.

Bingo is a Massive Industry

Bingo is one of the world’s most enduring industries, and it has been going strong for almost one hundred years in the UK and the USA. There was a lull in its prevalence around the turn of the millennium, but it was followed by a resurgence in the form of online bingo. In fact, the internet version of the game is bigger and better than everything that came before it. Along with themed bingo rooms, players can access other related games like slots and scratch cards.

The digital form of the famous ball draw has risen rapidly, and it continues to attract new players every year. It still offers the collaborative aspect that made the original form of the game so popular, but also includes some single-player elements to appeal to as diverse a demographic as possible.

Bingo Preceded Arcade Halls

Bingo spread around the western world way before the advent of video games, and it’s fair to say that this was one of the original forms of communal gaming. Part of the joy of going to the bingo hall was to hang around with like-minded people and socialize while playing the games. This is something that online bingo developers have tried to recreate, and they have achieved it through themed bingo rooms.

Arcade gaming entered its golden age in the 1980s, and this marked the start of people playing games together in a collaborative environment. Many classic games like Rampage, Gauntlet, and Joust were playable by two or more players, and it wasn’t strange to see crowds of people herding around whoever was controlling the buttons. It’s logical to think that this form of gaming was the ancestor of eSports, but there is evidence to suggest that bingo prepared players for this arcade scenario first.

Gaming is Ideal as a Communal Experience

There’s no denying now that gaming can be a communal experience, and this is supported by the sheer number of titles being made with an online element. The single-player story mode used to rule the roost, but now players want to buy titles that allow them to play with friends online as well.

This was highlighted by the Grand Theft Auto series, which consisted of predominantly single-player games until GTA V was released in 2013. The online mode of the Rockstar Games title was a revelation, and it has kept the game around the top of the charts for the best part of a decade. In the future, it’s wise to assume that developers will all place a greater focus on the collective experience in their games.

There were many stepping stones on the way to the thriving community gaming world we have today, and it’s important to recognize bingo’s role in that journey. Bingo halls were among the first settings that encouraged socializing while playing games.

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