On Single-Player Competition

Via Ars Technica, a post on the Major League Gaming site about the return of single-player competition (ala arcade games) with the likes of Xbox Live Arcade. From the article: "Once it stops being really enjoyable and just becomes work, you move on to another game and rarely come back. But imagining myself playing Resident Evil 4 with online leaderboards showing high scores in the missionary mode or a timed 'kill as many bad guys as you can' mini-game brings a smile to my face. I know for a fact I would be playing Super Mario Sunshine every now and then to try to get the fastest time for beating a certain level if there were leaderboards that everyone could plainly see after they beat a level."

Comments

Wait 'til you see my pong scores

[farker haiku]

I'll OWN you at single player pong. I can't wait!

Not only the worldwide leaderboards...

[wedgewu]

Your friends list leaderboard is even more compelling. It's easy to say "I can't compete with those guys, they spend all their time playing games." However, when you're faced with your friend whom you KNOW is around the same level as you... well, you're even more compelled to beat the snot out of their score so that you can rub it in their faces later.

Being able to filter the leaderboard by your friends is pure genius...

Online Websites

[AKAImBatman]

Indie games have been doing this for a LONG time. Most of their games have built-in highscore routines to sync up scores with the server. Sites like AtariAge run online competitions for high scores. Heck, even the game I linked to in my sig solicits high scores.

The biggest problem is that it's no longer an arcade rivalry. You're not fighting with that one other guy who comes into the arcade every day. You're fighting with everyone in the world. And no matter how good you are, there's almost always someone way better out there. Which means that you're already defeated before you even start. There's no way you can touch some of those high scores.

At least with the Indies, some of them develop small communities around the game, keeping the competition intense. As soon as the floodgates are open, though, there's no real point in competing.

Cheating problems

[mightypenguin]

The main issue here is that cheating is so much easier with single player. Traditionally, single player games haven't had near the cheating protections of multi-player online games. It's also easier to catch people cheating when all the action is happening live on a server, then when it's all happening on someone's personal computer and they'd just upload score info :) This idea will only work for server hosted games. Otherwise you'll have people hacking the data upload or the game itself and have scores like "13371337" all over the place.

Project Gotham Racing

[djohnsto]

Probably one of the first (and best) examples of comprehensive leaderboard support was Project Gotham Racing 2 for the Xbox. When connected to Xbox Live, every event you completed was uploaded to the leaderboard. I was extremely happy to crack the top 1000 on most boards. The top 10 entries on each board had their "ghost" uploaded so that you could view their record setting run and/or race against it. While there were some issues (they should have created leaderboards for each medal class), on the whole it was extremely well done and contributed greatly to the replayability of the game.

Gamer tastes have not changed, games have

[rAiNsT0rm]

Gaming lately has been dancing around this issue lately and it is an area no one wants to tap into in the media. Gamers tastes have not really ever changed, games and game makers have forcefed things on us with varying levels of success but the core concept of fun has remained the same.

Geometry wars I would say has sold as much or more than most launch titles for the 360. This "resurgence" in single player/leaderboard gaming. Simple, quick, easy to pick up and play games have always been the favorite, no matter the level of technology or the era. It always comes back to a simple idea, executed perfectly, and accessible to most any player.

The forced transition to 3D and the denial of 2D games is another instance. Still to this day the "sleeper" hits are always some form of 2D gameplay, yet no game maker wants to admit this and produce 2D games.

FPS and RTS games have been being pushed more and more BY THE GAME DEVELOPERS/PUBLISHERS, not by gamer demand. They are easy and cheap to produce and stick to a basic formula that has been beat to death many times over. Gamers demand new and exciting games, look at the interest in upcoming games like Spore... yet there is only 1 Spore to every 100 FPS/RTS games. The developers keep shoveling out GTA clones, FPS games, and RTS titles by the bucketful and the returns are finally diminishing. Just like MMO's the developer/publisher are the ones pushing them so hard because they are easy to produce and rake in tons of cash, but they are all still basically the same formula as EQ1 over and over with minor tweaks and changes. Sure, they sell tons.. but if you would have asked before WoW if gamers wanted yet another fantasy MMO, most would have said "NO!" But it gets hyped, and marketed, and people buy into it and no matter how many folks complain about long wait times and boredom after lvl 60 the subscription numbers keep climbing.

People really want innovative, unique, games and the cult followings that otherwise unknown games garner (like Katamari Damacy, Guitar Hero, DDR, Odama, Ikaruga, etc.) prove that true game design, gameplay, and innovation still hold the highest regard in gamers minds. Game makers would (and do) have you believe otherwise, but the proof is there.

Re:Gamer tastes have not changed, games have

[Zangief]

FPSs are what "jump and run" games were in the NES, SNES era. Something that everybody understands and knows how to do well, and there were a lot of games in the genre that did well in the past, so, why don't we do another one?