As high-speed internet usage spread across the globe, online gaming skyrocketed in popularity. Yet, with all the good that resulted from this transition, there were a few gaming elements left behind, including split-screen gaming. Ask any gamer, and they’ll tell you the golden age of split-screen gaming, which facilitated a unique interaction between players as, unlike chat rooms, they were in the same room, was between 2004 and 2009. What was once the default in gaming has been replaced by single-player modes, or so people think.
Split-Screen Gaming Is Still Around
It’s no secret that, in recent years, big-budget games have actively chosen not to explore split-screen features. However, just because video games don’t focus on it anymore doesn’t mean there aren’t any games on the market that utilize this feature.
A prime example of one online gaming market that has successfully adopted split-screen features is the online gambling industry. For instance, some online casinos let individuals play bingo for real money via split-screen software. What this means is that, through split-screen software, simultaneously to their bingo games, players can also enjoy bingo slot games. Through developers optimizing this feature, users can benefit from ludicrous advantages like competitive welcome bonuses and incentives on a variety of online gambling products. Also, with the split-screen feature, players have more control over the style of gameplay and can easily opt between the faster pace of a live bingo room and the more relaxed atmosphere of a bingo slot game.
In addition, it’s clear that online casino games have drawn inspiration from the video game market in other ways: many sites now provide live chat options. Games like Call Of Duty made features like live chat the norm in the console gaming industry, which, in 2020, experienced its slowest growth rates in five years, while the online gambling market reached $64.13 billion in 2020. In recent years, online casino sites have adopted live chat options in the context of live, real-time games. For instance, when you are playing live blackjack on an online casino platform, there’s a real human dealer rather than a random number generator that you can interact with.
Of course, these developments are hardly akin to the classic gaming experiences on old consoles such as the Nintendo 64, which were known for providing both features: a multi-player split-screen option that enables you to communicate within the same “room” as friends. Nonetheless, it’s evidence that split-screen gaming options are still very much around and has just been put to work in another branch of the gaming industry.
However, that is the good side of the industry. When game developers stopped including split-screen features, the gaming community became visibly upset and expressed, on numerous blogs, that this is a trend that has to come back. Luckily for them, it never actually went away: split-screening just moved from video games to online casino games, like bingo slots.