Slashdot Mirror
Gearbox Boss Bemoans Superfluous Multiplayer Modes
Speaking with Edge magazine, Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford lamented the tendency of game publishers to force multiplayer modes into games that don't need them. Quoting:
"Pitchford points to the likes of Dead Space 2 as evidence that decisions are often motivated by the desire to tick boxes on a feature list, rather than for the good of the game itself. 'Let’s forget about what the actual promise of a game is and whether it’s suited to a narrative or competitive experience,' he tells us. 'Take that off the table for a minute and just think about the concept-free feature list: campaign, co-op, how many players? How many guns? How long is the campaign? 'When you boil it down to that, you take the ability to make good decisions out of the picture. And the reason they do it is because they notice that the biggest blockbusters offer a little bit for every kind of consumer. You have people that want co-op and competitive, and players who want to immerse themselves in deep fiction. But the concept has to speak to that automatically; it can’t be forced. That’s the problem.'"
Oh god yes, I couldn't agree more. The real problem I have with multiplayer modes forced into games that don't need them is that they often end up forcing the game design down particular pathways, which don't always improve the experience.
Take weapon balance, for example. Multiplayer gamers these days being too lazy to actually find and pick up weapons like we had do back in the days of Doom and Quake (yes, yes, get off my lawn etc), the trend is for game designers to try to make sure that all of the weapons in first and third person shooters are "balanced". And yet for me, part of the appeal of a decent first person shooter is upgrading my arsenal as I go along; picking up better weapons and managing the limited ammo available for them. Remember the first time you found a BFG in Doom? You don't get feelings like that too often any more, as there's an absolute terror of allowing one weapon to be "better" than any of the others. I suspect that similar considerations force the adoption of my least favorite trope of modern action gaming ever - the 2 weapons limit. This absolutely ruined the campaign in Resistance 2 (sequel to what I still maintain is the best console fps ever) by making it far riskier to actually experiment with all the weird and wacky weapons that are Insomniac's speciality - if you can only carry two weapons at a time, you're going to stick with the rifle+shotgun combo 95% of the time and trust the game to put a sniper rifle in your path if you come up on one of the obligatory sniping sections.
Then there's the ridiculously short campaigns that are often justified on the basis of multiplayer. Look at something like Homefront; a game which is ostensibly all about its plot and setting has a ludicrous campaign that I beat in less than 4 and a half hours, which doesn't do anything to actually delve into the world they've created. And the excuse - there's multiplayer. It's noticable that Bulletstorm, which de-emphasises multiplayer as far as a modern marketing department will allow, bucks this trend and actually has a pretty decent campaign length (I brought my first playthrough home in a little under 11 hours).
I know there are people out there who really dig multiplayer in these things. But there are a lot of us who don't; after being very, very heavily into the Counter-Strike scene 8-10 years ago, I have had enough experience of being sworn at in German by 14 year olds for this lifetime. Multiplayer these days is limited to occasional co-op with real-life friends - and that doesn't require absolutely every game to have a tagged on multiplayer modes. Besides - pick a random "yesterday's big thing" shooter - 6 months old or greater - that wasn't a massive multiplayer phenomenon like a CoD or Halo and then try to find a server with more than 2 people on it. I did this with a few games on my steam list and in most cases, it just wasn't happening.
It's not just games. Everything is ruined by bullet-points; from software to politics to porn. I don't know how we can solve this problem as a society. People want quick summaries, sound bytes, standardized tests, but they never tell the whole story. It's easier to produce to the bullet points, just like it's easier to teach students to the test.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
How many games these days really do offer co-op gaming? I mean, so far I haven't seen a SINGLE game in years that offers the ability for you to play through the story mode with a friend/spouse/etc. No, they're all just rehashes of CTF or deathmatch, and those are stuffed in every single god damn game, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. But why, oh, why no co-op, ever?
Some of us aren't interested in competitive gaming against random *sshats, instead some of us wish to be able to share the story campaing with a close person. There's plenty of games that actually would offer huge amounts of fun if there was co-op included. A great, deep and insightful story is all the more worth it if you can share the tale with someone, but you don't always even need that; I remember back in the days when Unreal 1 was still new. The story was nothing too fancy or epic, it was mostly just a straight-forward FPS game. But when you set the difficulty level up a notch and joined in a co-op game it felt like a totally new experience compared to single-player. I think we eventually played it through something like 5 or 6 times, simply because it was fun every time.
Or am I just the odd one in the bunch again for wishing for good ol' co-op mode in games?
* Teach critical thinking, starting at a young age.
* Actively promote deep and creative behaviors.
* Promote your ideas through subtle irony.
Back in the VGA gaming days, games were all single-player. We had modems that could talk to other players, and if you had access to an office you could use a network to play. That is, if any dang games ever had multiplayer capability. Game designers didn't like the idea of multiplayer and said it would never sell. One famous game designer stated, quite bluntly, that his customers didn't have friends. Now, the idea that gamers would play alone is heresy and gamers are complaining about the lack of good single-player games. One thing hasn't changed: game companies are usually moronic and 95% of games are still crap.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Waiting for Thi4f...
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
...but I hate the recent trend of having different game mechanics and controls for single player and multiplayer. Off the top of my head I'm thinking of Starcraft 2, Medal of Honor, and I know there's others.
All I can think when I play those kinds of games is that the game was cobbled together from a broken set of priorities. It ruins the experience for me, I expect the single player be training for multiplayer. I would never dream of playing the multiplayer first, even in a game series I was intimately familiar with.
And I definitely agree with Randy, games should be built with a purpose and intent. When you start tacking on features last minute, or adding game play mechanics that don't fit with the world of the game, you're telling your customers that you really don't care about them.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist" -I guess I should leave then
Purely conjecture, but I believe it's less to do with "checking off a feature" and more to do with the following:
- Save time & money on content generation, since people who play multiplayer will use the same map over and over.
- Form of DRM / Piracy Protection, if there is 'server validation' then there's an indirect 'purchase validation'
Personally, I don't buy a game for multiplayer unless it's split screen, and those are few and far between. I'd play an older game like Goldeneye 64 with 3 buds long before playing any shooter over xbox live.
Nearly every game for the Xbox 360 is single-player (or online frag fest).
Damn, where the hell are the Baldur's Gates, the Dungeon Heroes, the multi-player co-op dungeon crawlers. The platform has been out for years and there's practically nada for it.
Seriously, I am sick of single-player + fragfest. Why? Well, I'm married. I've got kids. I can't find the time to play through a super long campaign. And I sure as heck can't find the time to hone my death match skills. So not much fun there to be had.
I want a game I can play the campaign through in a a day or two of being sick. Better yet, I want a game with a good co-op campaign that my wife and I can play and that doesn't immediately become super-repetitive and boring.
When I look at the shelves....90% of the games on the shelf are single-player + online deathmatch or online co-op. Of the few remaining games with co-op, it's basically sports, racing, or crap.
I WANT BALDUR'S GATE III