I don't even agree with the idea that this should be limited by gametype. Imagine a world where every game you know had online capability. Would this reduce the amount of times had with friends bonding over a 1v1 or a LAN. For some maybe but a lot of it depends on the type of game. For example I would never play mario party online... or by myself really, but one of my greatest memories was playing with three of my buds at the end of a b-day celebration at 4am with a round of that game and a round of other things....
The arcade issue was brought up in the initial article. Typically when you think arcade you think fighting games and dancing games. Im sorry but even with internet play available those two are still genres I will be playing with my friends side by side. It's cool practicing vs AI but internet play? Some people prefer it but it's not my cup of tea.
Next topic, first person shooters. I'm not sure if everyone has had a group of friends all interested in something like a party purely for Team vs Team but the LAN parties I had with HALO were amazing. We actually had a group of sixteen that would meet up, tvs, xbox's and all, and have all night team battles with bar type for galore. And for this I will say the availability to have quick matches online has cut into the amount of LAN parties I've had or haven't had in the past, but I can't completely say that was due to the availability of high speed internet vs everyone moving on with their lives. Most probably more of the latter.
Rock band/guitar hero: Internet is fun, doing a 6 hour rockathon with buddies more fun. Nuff said.
MMORPG... or just rpg. Yeah... id much rather play any game in this genre online than with friends... though i have done it with friends in the same room. Me and my college room-mate were the healers in Wow for a solid 10man guild group. He threw a pringles can at my head once for something I said... I can't remember what it was but the rest of the guild laughed at me for a while after that as it was during a raid... and on vent. All they heard was like "****, sals bleeding, that can got him good".
Social community. A lot of people go different ways on this but I have always thought a guild was like a family. Sadly all my previous ones have slowly disbanded but I still have memories of the good times, even met a few members in person. For me, i've never worried too much about internet security. This is due to both my faith in other people (probably misdirected most the time) and the fact that I am physically intemidating. Seriously, most people are skittish when they meet me. Though afterwards im the friend that the big ginormous cuddly teddy bear. Anywho, because of my tendancy to not care, I would be more relaxed and myself in the online world. I got to say, if it wasn't for my online guildmated I had through high school and college, I don't think I would be here today. I think the trick to that was me finding not just a guild, but a family.
Anywho, that got more in depth than I wanted to originally so in closing i'll sum up my long drawn out point. Internet gaming is a thing. For some games are worse for it and some better. But its the person that makes the social difference. That sentence sound dumb but hopefully y'all get what im trying to say.
You stay classy Gaiscioch