Online gaming began on PCs with Quake in 1996. Since then it has been at the forefront of allowing gamers to connect and play together over the internet. Everything that you love about Xbox Live, such as friend lists, parties and voice chat, are available through services like Steam or Origin. However there are some improvements to online gaming on PCs compared to consoles. The same communities that build mods and release fixes are the same types of people who set up their own online lobbies. People running games on private servers which you can join provide and welcome and friendly environment for you to play. Most games allow hosts to customise their multiplayer matches so that there is a far greater variety in the game modes available to play. While MMO's like Eve Online allow for battles involving hundreds of opponents at once Theres also the fact that developers can update their products whenever they want. You wont have to worry about Microsoft approving an update or restricting the number of patches that can be released.
