In case you didn’t realize it — there is a revolution happening today. A revolution that affects just about every video game obsessed boy that I know and even some grown up boys too. Today is the launch of Minecraft 1.3 — the sandbox video game played on your PC in single or multiplayer modes. What? You haven’t heard of Minecraft and are wondering why this is such a big deal? Well, as of this morning, there are 36,141,718 registered users of Minecraft. It’s so popular in fact, that an Xbox version has been released, apparently bringing in about $20M in sales in just the first five days.In the online gaming world — the one issue that will not be tolerated? Latency. It is the cardinal sin. My tween terms this as “lag”, and his screams of frustration during Minecraft sessions with his cousins on the opposite coast have less to do with Creepers and Endermen and more to do with this ever-present aggravation. Gaming online brings the issue of latency right out of the data center and directly into our home.
To learn more about gaming and the effects of latency, check out some of these articles:
- Low Latency Networks Aren’t Just for Wall Street Anymore
- The Lag Effect: PSN and Xbox Live Analysed
- Doing the Jitterbug: Lag, Latency, Jitter and Throughput and How They Affect Online Gaming
No doubt this Halloween will have my neighborhood swarming with Creepers, but if there was a way to dress up as “lag”, that would be my son’s pick for scariest costume. And I’m sure his Christmas list will have Lego® Minecraft at the top along with a plea for a low-latency Internet connection.
Check out our online gaming solutions sheet for more information on how to avoid lag with web acceleration technologies.
