Slashdot Mirror
On The Failure Of Online Console Gaming
Thanks to GamesAreFun for their editorial discussing why online console gaming isn't ready for the masses. The author pinpoints his set of reasons for this alleged "niche" appeal, including not enough broadband penetration ("the fact remains that gaming on dial-up is excruciatingly slow"), lack of online titles with mass-market appeal (citing "a pattern that precludes the more casual gamer from caring about online console gaming"), and limited modding abilities for console titles ("players will become bored... playing the same maps over and over and over again.")
console online games generally need you to own a pc(who buys a broadband connection just for the console?) and when you have a pc you're more probable to play the online games on the pc. not to mention that you have to be a bit geeky to arrange to get the console to hooked up(which goes against the basic premise of that you just "hook up the console and play"). not to mention pay extra for the (unnamed) console maker just to play online.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'll use Civ3 Play the World for example. It was terrible out of the box. Multiplayer didn't even really work. But several patches later and while not perfect is much, much better than it was on release. If PtW had been released for play online with a console Firaxis would have had plenty of pissed off people.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Since I don't have a console, I'll throw in an assumption - feel free to prove me wrong.
As I see it, consoles are already multiplayer-enabled. Plug in a second controller (or more), and you're ready to go. Any time I see a console, I see two or three kids sitting in front of it. Local multiplay. Why do you need to go online? Just so your friends don't have to come over to your house, exchanging a 5 minute walk for a couple of bucks on the phone bill (and removing the social factor)?
The way I see it, there is no real need to go online for a multiplayer experience. Yes, it's a nice thing to have, granted, but it's not really required. Try to plug in a second controller into a PC. Completely different story (yes, it's possible...).
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
The way I see it, computer gaming isn't ready for the masses either. Since aftermarket patches are possible, intial releases are frequently of just-barely-playable quality. Drivers for your computer have to be carefully controlled and balanced, or everything will explode. And the system upgrade cycle is much more frequent, and vastly more expensive.
I'll stick to consoles, thank you.
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viqsi - See "vixen"
If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.
This is where the Xbox has the advantage over the PS2. Games like Mechassault and Return to Castle Wolfenstein have DLC, and it's helped extend the longevity of the games tremendously. (Mechassault's multiplayer game has almost more than doubled in size just because of DLC) Perhaps the PS2 Hard Drive will change this. Perhaps...
But really, how is this any different than gaming online on the PC? Example: Counter-Strike. Almost everyone plays the maps that are built into CS, reguardless of how many custom maps out there are made. Sure, the server can allow downloading of new maps, but it's really slow. (Unless the file size is really small, a la iceworld2k) This changes as soon as maps are included in new updates, but then, this isn't any different than DLC, is it?
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
Maybe people are smarter than all that?
I know that without content, sites and magazines don't get readers, to whom they can sell advertising. But, the point here is, do the masses really need game consoles? Is this such an important thing that we should subsidize consoles for those who can't afford them?
Why do businesses think that they need to dominate the entire population with their product to be successful? What's wrong with being one of three or four players in a niche market, and having a strong share of revenue from that market? Isn't the gaming industry worth about $4 billion / year? If everything is equal, that's $1.33 billion / year each for Sony, Nintendo, and MS. I don't think you'll find a business out there that would turn down $1 billion a year in revenue.
Bottom line, not everyone needs or wants a gaming console. End of story. Move on. Get over it.
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
I call BS. I had a Tandy 1000 back in the mid 80's. It was an 8088 4.77 Mhz processor and could be expanded to a max of 640k RAM (IIRC).
Doom required at least a 386SX to run, in fact I think it was the first major game ever to require a 32-bit processor. There is no way you could even get Doom running on a Tandy 1000, even poorly!
The difference between XBox Live and Counterstrike is that Counterstrike was a player-made mod, and didn't "go pro" until it was already a smashing success. People may play mostly stock Counter-Strike maps, but those maps are the cream of the crop of Counter Strike maps that were created over the years and added to the distribution. If the players themselves didn't have access to modifying the game, people would still be playing Half-Life.
On the other hand, for Mechassault and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, the publishing company has to create and approve the content. There may be a lot of maps that ID can create, but they can't compete with the thousands of maps, skins, and mods available for Quake 3 made by gamers for gamers.
Player-generated content really separates a fun game with a normal life from a fun game which manages to grab hold of you and not let go for years.
The ______ Agenda
Biggest problem I have with online gaming? Other people. Everybody I bump into on X-Box Live tends to fall under two categories.
One: People who really get off on acting like complete jerks, ruining your gameplay experience with abusive behavior and cheating. These are the punks who 'pull' on Capcom vs. SNK 2 (quitting the game at the last possible second, thus giving you BOTH a loss in the rankings) and trash-talk endlessly. I have a factor I call the 'Zero to Cocksucker' factor for an online game, which is exactly how long after connecting for the first time it takes for someone to call me a 'fag'. Record is currently 45 seconds for the bundled motorcycle racer on the XBL demo disk.
Two: People who are absolute masters at the game you've selected to play. You die five seconds after respawning, you're beaten down with endless combos you have no hope of countering, you generally get utterly annihilated with no hope whatsoever of getting a single frag/hit/point in, much less winning. Yes, the answer to this is "Get skillz" but it's hard to get skills when you can't find anybody on your level to practice with beyond the useless computer AI.
So in the end, I'm either so annoyed or so frustrated that I go play a single player game or I find something else to do with my time.
Solution? Better matching services to ensure reasonable skill level mixes (and attracting a stream of newbies to keep the population as a whole from being too advanced), making the player feedback actually mean something so you can tell ahead of time if sixty thousand people have branded someone a jerk, etc. There are means to reducing these problems, even if they can't be eliminated. Most games just aren't designed with that in mind yet.
Consider that, without LANs and online gaming, computers are pretty much inherantly one-player animals, whereas consoles have almost universally had 2-4 player possibilities since the 1970s.
Console gamers are used to being able to play multiplayer games without all that messy setting up a network or getting your console online. I'm not saying these things are complex, just that Joe Average is going to percieve them as being so.
I personally hate online multiplayer gaming in just about every form, for pretty much the same reason I hated group assignments in school. That, and I object to the idea of continuing to pay for a game I've already bought.
Yes, yes. I've heard the comparison of buying fuel for your car, or paying for electricity, but those don't hold up as comparisons: All cars require fuel, and all electronics require electricity, but not all video games require continuous subscriptions.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
I'm with you 99%.
This article reads oh so similar to my rant on the same topic. But the last time I quoted my main points from my rant (which are nearly identical to this article) I got modded as flamebait! So my belief that console gaming is inferior to PC gaming goes from Slashdot flamebait to Slashdot article? How ironic. [/end_irony]
You're right, I wouldn't steal a car. But if it were possible, I sure as hell would download one!
There aren't any killer broadband titles for the consoles which appeal to console gamers, which is why online gaming hasn't taken off yet on the consoles.
Traditionally, the PC has been good in certain genres of games that translate well to multiplayer action. RPG's, FPS, RTS, and Simulation games are usually better on the PC than on the console.
Consoles are usually have better sports games, adventure/platform games, and fighting games.
So you would think that the consoles would take the games they are good at, and try to put them online. With the exception of sports games, the other two genres haven't been well represented. When they were done (ie, Capcom vs SNK EO) they were done poorly.
When you look at what the consoles have focused on, they have taken online games that are better on the PC (ie, FPS games) and tried to make them work on consoles. I saw no reason to play halo, even though I have x-box live because I'd rather play a FPS on the PC with a mouse and keyboard. Plus I knew I could just wait for the PC version while I played UT2003, UT, CS, etc. If the consoles want to get people to play online, they need to focus on what they are good at. Getting GTA online would have been big for sony playstation, as was discussed here
I would venture to say, most people that have x-box live or a ps2 online adapter are also PC gamers, or have the ability to play PC games online if they want to. The consoles have to stop trying to beat the PC at what the PC does well and offer console players an experence they can't find on the PC or anywhere else.
Final Fantasy Online
Then we'll talk.
You can't take the sky from me...
players will become bored... playing the same maps over and over and over again
This is bullshit. Some poeple have been playing Starcraft, Quake3, Half-Life in SINGLE PLAYER for years, on the SAME MAPS! Why should multiplayer be any different?
When you're older than 20 and working 40 hours a week, you sometimes don't have the time to drive over to a friend's house and back. Meeting up on Xbox Live! via one of the games is a lot better, especially since you don't have to share screen real estate.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
It's mostly uneducated opinion based on anecdotal evidence. Hell, if we are going that route I will toss in my $0.02 and add that all the people that I know on Live use it fairly often and love it. It was easy to set up and easy to use. The latest features make it even more appealing. I will be renewing my Live in November for sure.
Its total BS. They guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
IIRC, DWANGO required at least a 14,400 modem to play online. (and no, there weren't any Tandys running Doom then)
These pretzels are making me thirsty.
This person has obviously not had his article peer reviewed by someone familiar with Microsoft's online offerings. If he'd bothered to go te the Xbox Live! calendar he'd see that there's more Mech Assalt content listed as coming, contrary to the claim: "In fact, just about all the games with downloadable content on Xbox Live released to date, have released their last known downloads, with no known plans to release any more. This includes Microsoft with MechAssault."
I find it odd that this person mentions Counter Strike as the best online game recently, yet doesn't mention that it's coming to Xbox in November -- Live! enabled. They also decry the best features of the live service, persistant stats and friends lists, as "not worth the money." Later on in the same article, the author states, "While the anonymity factor can be fun, sometimes, it's always more fun when you get a groove on with people you know. Team based games are more fun when you know your teammate(s). Even one-on-one games against each other are more fun when you know your opponent."
So which is it? Is it worth it to have an online identity that follows you, or is it not? If it wasn't worth the money, why would you say that having persistant friends and less anonymity was great?
The most obvious typo is "Midnight Run II" in the list of sports/racing games. I'm assuming they meant Midnight Club II, but this is just another example of some poor fact checking and peer reviewing going on with the article. Yes, it's good to have fresh content on your website, but you should resist the urge to post it before the content is actually fact-checked and complete.
The entire piece comes off as more on a reason why the author things PC online gaming should be the only way to go, yet it does not address the much higher rate of cheating with PC online games (and other PC online gaming cons), while contradicting itself in several places.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
He doesn't say it was Doom he was playing, he says "as early as". Almost everyone into gaming knows Doom and knows it's about 9 years old or so or at least has a general idea - so it's a good thing to use to indicate where gaming was back then.
Personally I used to play muds using my 1200 baud modem (I had a 300 baud earlier, but I only ever used that for bbs stuff) which was way before Doom. The first graphical online games I played were around the age of Doom (actually a bit earlier IRC) and I was using a 2400 by that point. The big one that sticks in my mind is Neverwinter Nights, which was early 90's and you basically played an AD&D gold box game online with other people able to be characters (limit was 250 players in the world at once or something like that). AOL got hundreds of dollars off me playing that game since there was no unlimited plan back then.
So it's entirely possible he meant MUDs and even if not there were graphical online games back then as well. I admit oNWN is IBM PC, but it did run on pathetic hardware.
Oh how many times have I seen or heard about attempts to make online console gaming successful.
Online Gaming for the 2600 (Circa 1983)
Yeah i don't understand why those who enjy pc gaming are so ignorant too the Xbox. Not only is there downloadable content, it's on the OXM disc when you buy the magazine. I have barely found anyone rude or who cheats. if i do, i on't play with them. i have tons of online Xbox live friends in my list. when i play with them we get great speeds. there is built in chat in every Xbox live game. no seperate program too configure.... no games too have too install, configure, download new patches. update drivers etc. abd the graphics, although not as good as a high end new pc, are really nice. games like Rainbow Six 3 are looking nice. when it comes out later this month I m getting it. A xbox live game. chat, teamplay. over 80 voice commands too help control the computer ai.... there are tons of cool reasons too play online console games. and like the other guy said, counterstrike is coming out for Xbox as well
Also it is very hard to mod any console game. Why? You need either the source code, a thing that you will get from devs when you pry it from their cold, dead fingers, or a level editor, which most devs don't release. Also, to make a kick-ass mod like counterstrike, you need to use a code editor, and they are only on PCs. Why would anyone want to mod a console game? Its like wanting to run Linux on an X-box.
I have Xbox (and Xbox Live). Sorry if this sounds like a commercial, but there is a point at the end.
One of the upcoming games I am most excited about is Project Gotham Racing 2. This is a street racing game that is going to make full use of xbox live.
PGR2 is going to be always on the internet. While you are playing in offline singleplayer mode, your lap times/scores will be uploaded to a server. When you play a track you can see the worldwide best times. You can also race against other users.
The coolest thing is you can download other racer's ghosts (ie: a replay of their race) and race against them.
I think it is those kinds of feaures that introduce gamers to online gaming. I wish MS would have allowed a modem though. Modem connections would be fine for uploading and dowlonading in the background. The only place a modem would suck would be on FPS type games.
When you get destroyed by a 'master', call him a fag and pull
1) Your analysis is based on bad assumptions so your result is way off. 2) You're a sick bastard for fucking a horse.
nuff said.
Counterstrike is a great example of that not being the case.. There's a handful of frequently played maps that have stook the test of time. (5 years?) -n
http://www.remix.net/
Console game on the otherhand are for me aimed at the opposite, even the SP games are games I can play with friends around, and it gets even better when we play a MP game and the party really starts. On the otherhand I don't play console games when I'm alone (besides a few gems) - and I would never play them online.
This is not only because of the games, or the machine directly, but how I play them - in my comfy alone corner for the PC or in the big sofa for the consoles. So I have no intention to sit in my corner when friends are over, but I'll be there when they ain't, and the opposite for the consoles.
so to sum it up, the culture around the systems benifits the PC for the online games, while the consoles suffer in this department - now I'm more or less never alone, wich makes the PC games suffer even more, but thats beyond online gaming.
"the fact remains that gaming on dial-up is excruciatingly slow"
This is a software problem, not a hardware one. I'm sure many of us can remember a time when 14.4 kbps was more than fast enough to play games on to your heart's content. So long as game writers are letting their code bloat to the point of requiring broadband, they'll still be screwing themselves out of the vast majority of the people on-line.
-- The WIPO Avenger
I would disagree that online CONSOLE (PS2, XBox) gaming is excruciatingly slow. In fact, the only lag I've ever had is a tiny skip in PS2's THPS4, and that's on a 44kbps connection.
Now, to convey my point, here's a little story:
I have a computer hooked up to the Internet as well, and when I play most PC games (with a lot less detail than PS2 games), I have to wait 5 seconds to see if I hit someone in CS or WC3. I hear the hard drive groaning in my computer whenever I move a large army into an enemy base or throw a grenade. I get dropped constantly.
And that's with every non-essential thing (read: everything except Explorer and, in some cases, my Keyboard control system if the sound gets too loud.) turned off.
Now, on the PS2, I've only had momentary glitches or skips, even with more detailed graphics than CS/WC3. Why?
Simple. The PS2 is dedicated to gaming, and gaming alone! It doesn't have Windows applications/background processes. to worry about. It only has the game to process and display. Not being that much of a tech-junkie (yet), that's about as indepth as I can explain it.
So, it boils down to (before all of the other valid statements about patching/etc): PCs have more to do in the background than consoles, so if you're lagging on a console on a dial-up connection, I'd consider telling your ISP to get off their asses and into the 21st century and 56k.