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Variety, Social Aspects More Important To Game Success Than Graphics, Plot
proslack writes "In a study presented at the Human-Computer Interaction conference in Cambridge, England, British researchers Beale and Bond found that plot and graphics are not critical to the success of video games; price and the inclusion of social aspects (e.g. multiplayer or chat) were found to be more important."
An unfinished version of the paper (PDF) is available from the researchers' web site. They said, "One of the most unexpected findings was that gameplay was not featured as one of the most important categories to fulfill," though they acknowledge that variety and cohesion were measured separately from gameplay, which past studies have not done.
In other news fun is more important to a games success than graphics, plot.
Bull, as far as I am concerned:
1) Plot
2) Price
3) Graphics
.
.
.
374) Social
Are you telling me that in an industry where most of the products don't even have a plot that a statistical study would suggest plot has little to do with sales! That's... entirely expected I should hope, good thing this story comes from a blog and not a respected university, or I might be worried.
I think we are thinking too deep into this. I wonder how we ever got by before multiplayer.
The findings might be true for certain markets, but huge hits recently such as Bioshock and Mass Effect show pretty clearly that a good plot, solid setting, and good graphics are key to a blockbuster game. The study is based on reviews made by gamers, and thus tends to have a skewed sampling population. Certain segments of the market enjoy variety and social games. Other parts enjoy plot driven RPGs or gorgeous and engaging FPS games. Without doing an economic or financial analysis, judging what factors correlate most strongly to success is a rather large leap for this study.
Signatures are the new names.
This may be true for the teeny-boppers who've probably never played a game with a real plot and great game play. Most modern console games have pretty similar graphics and tend to have the same lack of plot or original thought - so yes, I'd believe that being able to chat with friends would be "important" to them because it allows them to be distracted from how boring the game is.
However, with older gamers, it is normally universal that plot and game play come before graphics and most of us couldn't give a rats ass if you can chat with your friends in-game. We already have a great way to chat with friends while playing if we need to - it's called a phone.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
So the best selling game should be IRC Hero?
even more proof that games are becoming more of a social group than a way to escape the norm and waste time. wait, is there a difference?
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
In other words: "We didn't like the result we got, so we massaged the data until we got something we liked, and called that our method."
One of the first multiplayer games we played was 'grid' by Peter S. Langston - it came with a USENIX archive tape. The game itself was an ASCII rendering of 'grid war' in first person perspective, but it supported inter-player communication. Other mainframe multi-user-dungeon games were also popular as they also had the multi-player capability.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
I can really appreciate the technology that has evolved to make modern games what they are. It has changed the way we play games, but at a cost. I miss the old days of 70+ hours of a great story. You just can't do that any more. Good writing just doesn't pay off any more. Back in the days of lousy graphics and limited features, a story had to draw you in. Now there are so many other components that a good story isn't important. I am no exception. I used to tolerate a whole lot to get to the juicy ending, but now if the game doesn't hold me with other aspects, I end up ditching it. Likewise, if a game has quality visuals and novel game play, I won't care that the writing is crap. Oh the old day. Oh by the way, I also used to haul rocks to school in the snow uphill both ways.
Agreed on points one and three.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Look there are good movies with car chases, a rouge cop and one liners, and there are bad movies with such things. Any kind of list of 'qualities' is useless because it's not what it has it's /how it has them/. I think these researchers time would be better spent dusting books at the library of congress personally. I'm sure you could study a selection of successful literature, come up with a list of "whats most important in a work"
and not only realize it doesn't apply to 90% of the masterpieces out there but also is completely useless in predicting future successes. Honestly this is just a few steps better then voodoo predictions.
What the hell do you think kept me playing WoW for all those years? Finding Old Blanchey's blanket?
The best selling video game of 2009 is............... facebook?
Quake had no plot, at least not one that made any sense or was original in any way. It was the multiplayer which made it such an incredibly successful phenomenon. Folks these days might forget what the old days before the Intertubes were really like; being able to blow your friends up for the first time was just awesome.
Cantankerous old coot since 1957.
I feel like in an ideal world, this could certainly be correct. Everyone likes a fun, social game, right?
Except this isn't always the case.
As seen in another recent posting, you tend to get pushed to the 'indie' section of gaming if you don't have the visuals that people want. People like looking at pretty screen-candy, and game makers know to indulge people in this. You can certainly have good games without amazing visuals, but they won't ever be mainstream.
Most people love their graphics, even if they'll then claim 'gameplay' is important on some survey.
I'd like to see a more thorough investigation with this method. The paper says they used 33 reviews from Gamespot UK to collect the data, and while I don't disagree with its findings (Gotta have good controls, bad plot doesn't matter), I wouldn't turn Table 5 (categories by importance) into a Game Design Bible. Then again, the paper does say "This paper is primarily intended to inspire further work in the field."
Video games are now mainstream, just another Hollywood, and what we can learn from movies and apply to our preferred entertainment is that unmitigated mediocrity is no obstacle to making money. How many cookie cutter romantic comedies come out each year? There's no innovation, no surprises, but they keep making them so the money's coming from somewhere. OMG, he travels through time, but he still loves her and she loves him back? Shit bitch, no way! How about generic action movies? Three Transporters, Two Cranked's and Death Race, and I'm sure they're making Death Race 2 right now... in case we forget Jason Statham is awesome. The examples go on. If these movies are making money somehow that means there's enough people out there who are buying, for who those movies offer enough. And yay, look out, the same is true for games. We're measuring different things here, and we even have a study for some reason, but it's no surprise that the average person's demands are for something that's "good enough" in a few basic areas.
Even as you read this, your pants are strangling your loins! Aaa!
So being able to call someone else Noob in a shitty Flash game is fun! Yay!
This study is akin to throwing your poop at a wall and sifting through it, in an attempt to remember what you had for dinner.
Nowhere in the paper could I find the various games they used in this study. Would be a nice addition. As someone said above, Multi-User Dungeons (MUD's) back in the late 80's/early 90's were highly addictive, and I would say that the social interaction definitely had a large part in the 'flow', and enjoyment. Many of us would just stay connected to the world, even when not at play, idle, and able to chat with the people we befriended within. The clan or gang structure, also a social aspect, also made for more fun. Interesting to see where price fell into this as well. It does make sense, social aspects and variety being the heaviest factors, seeing as MUD's, still based upon text, are to this day played. Also lok at how wildly popular MMORPG's are. Good job on the first draft there.
The PBS special, titled "The Brain's Big Bang", suggested gossip accounts for 2/3 of our speech activity. The episode went on to offer the now widely touted conjecture that social networking may have been one of the prime movers behind development of our comparatively big brains. Idle conjecture can take it to a simpler, more fundamental level. Apoptosis or programmed cell death is thought to be initiated by lack of inter cellular communication. Cells programme themselves to die when they no longer receive communications requiring them to live. It's easy to extrapolate from those findings to an individual's need to socially interact.
ideopath @ play
people complain bugs and cheats. Yet according to this research paper, we should not be worry about bugs/ cheats as they are not considered an important factor.
The thing is people will leave (Rage quit) and will not paying any money to a game when it is maintained poorly. That is why in many places, "myg0ts" are banned on sight even though they provide a hospitality to a game community. Many admins still want to keep myg0ts out from their game even though they will provide a thoughtful discussion.
Just like the movie industry and so many other: Most of the target consumers will buy whatever you tell them they should buy as long as you have a well known logo, enough money for advertising and don't screw up too badly with cultural context.
I've spent hours and hours playing Hearts of Iron 2. Can't play HoI3 because the graphics engine is too bloated and won't run on my laptop. I like the depth they added, but in this case increasing graphical quality actually makes the game unplayable. And I'm not alone, a lot of people complained about the system reqs.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
So in other words, you are telling me that people do not like to do the same thing again and again in isolation? I love it when people make entire reports out of something that is common sense to everyone else.
First of all, you need to have the game constantly change. If it does not, people get bored. There are two ways to switch the game up. You can either (a.) spend time and money making a game that has many different ways to play it or (b.) add other players. When you add other players, even if you do not let them communicate, you are adding variety. Sometimes you are playing against good people, sometimes not. People act in unpredictable ways making it fun for much longer.
How often do you play Call of Duty 4 (or 5) in single player mode? Halo?
Now I will go back to my exciting game of breakout.
Now let me rephrase what the article says: "plot and graphics are not critical to the success of SOME video games". There. I added one word and it starts to make a lot more sense.
...and so on. There are lots of categories, and any study trying to get all under one umbrella will yield 42 as the ultimate answer :)
There are games and games, and also there are genres and genres. One study can't get an universal conclusion for ALL games (some tried but abandoned all hope after repeatedly getting 42 as the answer).
Now I didn't conduct any study, but as a personal opinion, I think that:
- For pure FPS games like Quake, Unreal Tournament, Counterstrike, what matters is the "boom" experience. throw in countless killing methods and some big ass guns and you're through.
- For Single Player RPGs, whether they feature First Person, Third Person or isometric views, it's the background/story/immersion level that counts.
- For browser-based MMOs, their success heavily depends on speed. Any such game where it takes 5 seconds to get from one page/view to the next one is doomed.
- Client/Server MMOs are wanted if they fit YOU, the gamer. There is no specific gold-paved road to success here. Maybe, maybe it's the amount of metagaming available.
To conclude: Plot and graphics ARE critical to a game's success if it doesn't excel in other categories (see Assassin's Creed, Fallout 3, The Witcher); but again, people won't give a shit about plot and graphics sometimes (see Earthworm Jim 2, Worms, OGame.org, Counterstrike).
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
At least for me, it always was gameplay -> graphics/sound -> plot. Unless the plot is really, *really* good.
Maybe the question the article really should be asking is: "Why are so many people buying and playing games without when they could just as well watch a movie or chew bubble gum, and how can gamers be protected from the resulting degradation of their environment and aspirations?" ^^
If the social component exists (and in equal measure) in many games, what is the next most important feature?
If the social component does not exist in many games, what is the most important feature?
Can you still call it a game if you remove all the of the graphics and/or plot?
Authors of TFA defined "Variety" as "non-linearity, choice, dynamic combat, varied AI, emergent tactic". That is what's usually called "Gameplay". What they are calling "Gameplay" - "Engaging, fair, balanced, innovative..." is mostly a pile of marketspeak.
I got old MS-DOS formatted floppy disks that have my old DOS games on it. I am finding new use with them via DOSBox.
Modern games, mostly Windows based DirectX memory eating and bloated but full of 3D graphics and surround sound audio aren't as good to play as the old DOS games. The old DOS games had a limited memory system and most were written in assembly or C and had to fit in under 12M of RAM using XMS or EMS etc RAM that extended over the 640K of DOS. They didn't have gigabyte hard drives back then and had to fit games on 120M hard drives or lower. They only had 640x480 VGA graphics and Sound Blaster 16 Pro audio.
How many remember Syndicate, XCOM, Dune II, Master of Orion 1 and 2, Master of Magic, Bard's Tale (EGA graphics and no sound card support but the Bard's Tale Construction set fixed that with VGA and Sound Blaster support), and other classic DOS games?
I heard a rumor that the classic DOS games are coming back via online services for $5 each because modern games don't have that enjoyability that the old 1990's DOS games had, plus people are learning how to run old games via DOSBOX or emulators that run DOS operating systems. The online services allows a DOSBox type DOS emulator/environment to run the DOS video game in it.
Almost every gaming company is trying to get the best graphics and sound effects, and it seems like they followed the Doom first person shooter model too closely with variations and modifications to it and forgot to make it entertaining and mean something via those social aspects of it. Not just chatting with other players, but the social aspects of going up against a computer controlled AI opponent(s). One of the few modern games that does that is Civilization IV, but it is basically the same game since Civilization II (or the original Civilization for DOS and the SNES) with more graphics and sounds added to it with movies and animation and then some bonus features but still plays the same as the original pretty much. Send settlers to build cities, take your civilization from the stone age to modern times without an enemy civilization taking yours out and develop technology for stronger military units and improvements to cities and world wonders. But in order to bring it to video game console units they had to dumb it down to Civilization Revolutions.
People want a game that is challenging, but they can set the level of difficulty. Sometimes the turns based game is better than the first person shooter realtime game that eats up lots of RAM and hard drive space for all of the animation and sound. Think of Tetris and other innovative games that did something different from all of the rest, and didn't need the animation graphics and sound effects to win over gamers. Just have an easy to use interface that doesn't require a user manual to be read in order to play it. Some of the best video games the player just clicked the start button and then just joined in the game learning as they went along. Which is what saved games are for, if you mess up, load a saved game before you messed up so you can avoid it.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Now me, I AM a racist and I freely admit that. I frequently state my dislike of people due to their race (ie. blacks, Mexicans, Chinese, Indians, English and Australians) because I deem them to be low-class, unintelligent, unhygienic, sub-humans who should be wiped from the face of the planet.
Only those groups? Why not go all the way? :)
Is McDonald's the most successful restaurant?
Perhaps fiscally.
But not in my book.
"Bull, as far as I am concerned:
... 374) Social"
1) Plot
2) Price
3) Graphics
Just give us a heads up if you intend to buy a van and a whole bunch of fertilizer.
I agree on point 4, my mom is a slut really is a slut.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Holy $DIETY. That site made my brain bleed.
If you disagree on point two, please tell us what color you think they are if not black. Also explain why point one is acceptable to you and point two is not, without contradicting yourself. Thanks.
Okay, a few points [note: I'm not any of the ACs here, I'm a Pseudonymous Coward instead ;)].
Firstly, I have heard the word 'nigger' used to refer to white/brown/black/yellow/blue people (yeah, those smurfs on welfare!).
nigga, niggah etc. al.(noun)1.describes an ignorant, uneducated, foolish individual regardless of race, color, religion, sexual orientation, etc.
2. endearing term between two or more individual to describe a friendship or bond.
1. Shut up, you nigger
2. Chris, you my nigga. - Urban Dictionary (definition #4)
Secondly, most people who call themselves 'black' are brown. Yes, BROWN. As in, what you get if you use the HTML color code 'brown' (produces #802A2A). I have met many brown people but only several people who were truly black - and they were Sudanese, not 'African-American' - which is also a BS term ("Oh, you have dual citizenship? May I see your passport?") - but I'll stop that rant right there.
Third, his statement was posed in the form of "A is B", and seemingly you took it upon yourself to extrapolate "All B's are A" from it, which is a logical fallacy. I would personally discount his implication that "All A's are B", but your objection appears to reject the notion that "Some B's are A", which is most definitely a true assertion which makes your outright rejection obviously incorrect.
Finally, what the frack does this have to do with online gaming? If I knew there were a bunch of brown-o-phobes in a particular server, I would join up with a decidedly over-tanned avatar just to laugh at their reactions when they get pwned by a pseudonigger. Idiots with ridiculous bigotries are fun to abuse :)
From the linked article, "Ever since the introduction of online gaming 10 years ago with the Dreamcast (Yes, I still love it) it has become a staple of many games on consoles, and PCs."
wait, what?
"We're gonna need a bigger boat"
if you put a bunch of people in a room together and ask them to play a game, that's called a lan party.
If there's no multiplay aka (social aspects) then it would be pretty boring pretty quick.
Games were always plot and gameplay driven. Then the japanese started making random gameplay simulators and the graphics were a toddler feast and people who had no attention span anyway started playing them and thought they were fun because those people lacked the higher brain function to realize that performing a mundane task over and over with catchy music is still a waste of time.
Then the Internet allowed netplay. That was the social aspect of the game. Geeks and well, geeks played for hours a night.
When technology started catching up and Carmack made games into something badass, more people wanted to play. When G4 started up, mainstream started catching on and that's when the corporate fat cats decided to exploit it. Now for developers, games are just like movies are for actors. It's like Favreau said to Affleck: First you make the money picture, then you make the art picture. Well now it's the same for games. Only, the games that are art are a bit lacking these days. For me, 90% of a game is plot.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Gameplay and multiplayer features are on my top list, ever. Followed by re-playability and the existence of modding tools and patches to enhance the experience with the game. The plot and the elements that makes you re-play the game countless times differ from genre to genre, but all of them share at least one thing in common: good gameplay. Baldurs Gate, Diablo, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Warcraft, Half life, Counter-Strike, Quake, Unreal Tournament, Chronno Trigger, Final Fantasy, and the list goes on...
This conclusions of this study don't apply to me at all: I'm not human, at least not precisely the same variety of Homo sp. that these researchers put under the microscope. I prefer to avoid games with social components, particularly those that are multiplayer but even those solo games that include elements like diplomacy and spying. Truth be told, I prefer games that have endless replayability (*without* other human players), total immersion, and a focus on non-abstract strategy and complexity (extra bonus points if I can indulge my love of symmetry and order). Price certainly is always a consideration, but decent realistic graphics (that aid the total immersion) can be a tie-breaker, all other thing equal. The things that are NOT important to me are precisely the things that their carefully selected subjects valued. Do they think evolution just stopped with the invention of language? Word up, guys: some of us aren't hardwired the same as those monkeys you studied. Some of us are wired more like cats than dogs, to use a very old but still apt comparison. Some of us aren't beholden to the rush of oxytocin, some of us don't have a social bone.
Sincerely,
the Vulcan Tourist
Holy $DIETY. That site made my brain bleed.
So you're already a convert? Let it all out, brother! ;)
"Most people love their graphics, even if they'll then claim 'gameplay' is important on some survey"
Graphics is a part of gameplay. They are not seperate, hence we call them VIDEO games and not "games mechanics that can't be seen", a game mechanic that is, control, animation systems and visual feedback are all tied together. You can't divorce them from one another in many games without losing something.
The video aspect of a game has always mattered. It's not that graphics DONT matter, it's that graphics have to have a certain standard before one considers it worth playing vs all the other games you could be playing or else the game itself has to compensate in the gameplay department. Remember every game has to compete with every other game released that one could be playing since the dawn of video games, there are lots of old commercial retro games that are STILL competitive in today's environment, truth is many developers suck at making games... that's the real problem.
Take Sins of a solare empire or galactic civilizations 2, two ugly'ish games by all accounts but a game I play now and then over other more graphically pretty games.
Graphical prettyness cannot compensate for lack of depth in genres like Civ4 and alpha centarui and other games in that vein.
Gamers often don't know what they want. Customers in general often don't know what they want. Just because someone says "This is what I want," doesn't mean you can take it at face value. They will claim to value something highly, and then put little to no value on that in actual purchasing. Basing your study on reviews is thus not a good idea.
You can witness this in terms of people who continually cry about wanting more "quality" electronics, yest consistently purchasing the cheapest crap they can get their hands on. When you talk to them, they claim that quality and reliability are things they value highly. However their consumption habits show that isn't the case, what they value is low cost an features.
Also it is likely that what people value depends on the kind of game. In some kinds of games, plot is unimportant. A good example would be an online shooter. Even if there was a fairly good plot, people would skip it to get to the game. The point is to get in with other people and play in a simple, non-persistent environment. However in RPGs, plot is often much more important. People play the game to experience the story. Likewise, in some RPGs multi-player might actually be a drawback. You don't want other people ruining your experience of the story.
So I agree it is silly to look at reviews and say "This is what is important to gamers." No, that may be what they claim is important, may not be what they actually buy on. Likewise it may be important only for certain types of games.
Social aspects are very important to my in TF2. The ability to play with others is what makes the game fun, and the ability to have lists of friends and to talk in game is very important to me enjoying it. Plot is not. I'm fine with the fact that there is no plot to speak of, I'd not bother with it if there were. I want to get in and shoot people.
Socials aspects are not important to Mass Effect. Frankly, I want to be left alone when I play that, it is like a good book where I wish to get enveloped in the story. Plot is highly important. The biggest reason I like that game is its amazing story. I find myself very drawn to it and, like a book, wanting to finish the "good parts" when I get to them.
Both games are good in different ways, both have received my money. Neither would be improved by trying to take what makes the other good.
The most important aspect of games is good AI, and world design/mechanics.
This just in... the story contained in a novel is more important it's choice of font.
is Atkins a Diety? Is the local Deli your temple?
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.
According to that study, IRC is the perfect game. Which obviously is wrong, because it is not a game at all. (Not even multiplayer notepad.)
Those "games" miss some essential elements of what's the definition of a game.
There is neither something to play with (except maybe other humans), nor are there defined goals. And there's especially no basic fun creating mechanism in it.
Also, graphics and plot are way too emphasized in TFS.
In reality, graphics are part of what is called "aesthetics". Something that also includes sound, UI design, and the whole feeling of the world you are in.
It is one of four main elements of a game. Those are story, aesthetics, mechanics and technology.
The point is, that they all work as a team, and have to support each other, for it to be a good game.
You can make a exciting game with mechanics only. (See filler for an example.)
But why leave out of the emergence-fostering aesthetics, the gripping story and the use of the latest technology, to make the game really great?
All in all, the study did not study which games are the most fun, but what actions all-in-all are most interesting to us. And it's obvious that human socialization is king here. It's also obvious that when money is scarce, that people prefer those rare games that are not way overpriced. :)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Therefore, socially networked games write their own plot by way of contributions by the players. The games are essentially chat rooms with awesome graphics.
Camping on quad since 1996.
While game makers might like the idea, I don't. Give me just games which I can play whenever I want without needing Internet connection. And don't worry, in the rare cases when I want to play online I'll do it, just don't try killing the offline gaming.
Nethack would like to have a word with you.
plot and graphics are not critical to the success of video games; price and the inclusion of social aspects (e.g. multiplayer or chat) were found to be more important
This sounds awfully similar to today's Hollywood.
Catalin Braescu
Ofaly.com
'social aspects' matter greatly to me insofar as i enjoy games w/ a local multiplayer component
Does local-area-networked (LAN-party) multiplayer count as local multiplayer to you?
Hey now, don't be hatin' on the blue people. It's not right to harass them for being from Kentucky and being blue...
In case you don't know who I'm referring to, links regarding the blue Fugates and their disorder follow: http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kyperry3/Blue_Fugates_Troublesome_Creek.html http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1272/is-there-really-a-race-of-blue-people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methemoglobinemia
The things is, graphics are best measured abstractly as attractive or not, not based on mechanical things like resolution or framerate.
Sure, given the same graphic, higher framerates are better, and higher resolutions create the opportunity to create more attractive graphics, but it isn't a given that a game with faster, higher-res graphics will actually look better than another game.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Interesting to see where price fell into this as well.
The first MUD's ran on university mainframes, and were maintained by sysadmins. As access would either be through a system terminal they were essentially free for students. For other users, it required an annual 25 pound subscription. Here is a link to the original book describing the University of Essex's MUD game.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
In other words, classic games like subspace / continuum are what define fantastic games. This game is nearly 13 years old, and plays much like multiplayer asteroids, has an extensive chat system, nearly 30 different functioning zones, and I've always found it to have more replay value than any other game. It's also exclusively player run, so there's no big name company supporting it in any sense. And it's still heavily played by many the world over.
http://getcontinuum.com/
But not in my book.
You good sir have obviously not been going to the one with the play zone.
Graphics dominate the impulse buy (and the "non-gamer family member buying birthday/christmas present for gamer kid" buy). Because graphics directly fit on the box art, or the 10 second TV commercial, or the internet banner ad. That's why they get the front shelves. You can't really describe great gameplay through box art, so the other games end up in back, since no one was going to impulse buy them anyway; the people who buy those came into the store already knowing they wanted those specific games.
10 hours into playing the game, graphics fade into the background (as long as they're 'good enough' that they aren't actually a hindrance). 10 hours in is when gameplay dominates; it's when you know for sure that you got a bad game that you're only going to get $5 for trade-in next week, or when you know for sure you'll be playing it a lot longer because it's actually fun. 10 hours in, it's the gameplay that determines whether you start telling your friends to buy or borrow the game.
"Socialness" is even harder to advertise for. 10 hours into WoW, have you even had a taste of "social gaming"? Either you already had friends in game before you got the game (which is WHY you got the game), or you're still wandering around doing the quests solo.
On an RPG that allows modding (which just about every RPG these days does)
Then you wrote:
"consoles", the system that's not designed to allow modding.
Put these together, and you're claiming that "just about every RPG" is designed for the PC. I don't understand where you're getting this.
The two racial slurs used are equally offensive and equally correct (or incorrect depending on how you look at it) and to agree with one and not the other is somewhat racist. It's like a racist saying "Mexicans are wetbacks, Chinese are chinks, sky is blue" and the response is "agreed on points 1 and 3." The response is either racist or self-contradictory.
Anyway we shouldn't feed the trolls...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Don't know if anyone else mentioned this, but the Baldur's gate series anyone?
The plot in those games is what has made me keep playing it throughout the years.
...this has been an age old argument amongst gamers. I for one am someone who plays games for the graphics. There's a reason my fav games of all time are almost all FPS for the PC. These are the games that really pushed the technological/graphical envelope. I fully recognize that I'm in the minority. Luckily for me companies like id, Epic, Valve, Crytek and GSC Game Worlds are out there catoring to engine enthusiasts like myself.
That's nice and good, until you realize that the best selling game system out there is essentially single player: the Nintendo DS. Yes the DS has multiplayer capability, though it is very basic and heavily locked down. Add to it that about 95% of DS games are essentially single player, with multiplayer functionality just tacked on, I think it sort of brings down the idea that multiplayer functionality is somehow central to a game's success. Two of the most played games ever: Solitare and Tetris. These are not lonely examples either. GTA:IV was the top selling console game for a year, and practically every handheld game, are all single player and very successful. I don't know what their study is concentrating on, but the actual sales data doesn't match up.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.