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The Growing Illusion of Single Player Gaming
An anonymous reader writes: Multiplayer modes used to be an extra part of most games — an optional addition that the developers could build (or not) as they saw fit. These days, it's different: many games are marketed under the illusion of being single-player, when their focus has shifted to an almost mandatory multiplayer mode. (Think always-online DRM, and games as services.) It's not that this is necessarily bad for gameplay — it's that design patterns are shifting, and if you don't like multiplayer, you're going to have a harder time finding games you do like.
The article's author uses a couple recent major titles as backdrop for the discussion: "With both Diablo III and Destiny, I'm not sure where and how to attribute my enjoyment. Yes, the mechanics of both are sound, but given the resounding emptiness felt when played solo, perhaps the co-op element is compensating. I'd go so far as to argue games can be less mechanically compelling, so long as the multiplayer element is engaging. The thrill of barking orders at friends can, in a way, cover design flaws. I hem and haw on the quality of each game's mechanics because the co-op aspect literally distracted me from engaging with them to some degree."
The article's author uses a couple recent major titles as backdrop for the discussion: "With both Diablo III and Destiny, I'm not sure where and how to attribute my enjoyment. Yes, the mechanics of both are sound, but given the resounding emptiness felt when played solo, perhaps the co-op element is compensating. I'd go so far as to argue games can be less mechanically compelling, so long as the multiplayer element is engaging. The thrill of barking orders at friends can, in a way, cover design flaws. I hem and haw on the quality of each game's mechanics because the co-op aspect literally distracted me from engaging with them to some degree."
Hard-core gamers will laugh, but I bought Titanfall for Xbox One thinking 'Hey, cool, what a great looking first-person game." I get home with the disc and find out (a) there is no way to play alone, and (b) I needed an Xbox Gold account to even go online and play with others. Apparently I'm the only one on earth who doesn't like multi-player and has zero interest in playing a game with a bunch of random strangers on the Internet, so for me the game is effectively useless. And what really bugged me was that it was not at all clear on the game packaging that it was mutli-player ONLY and absolutely required Xbox Gold to play. Even reviews I read online didn't make that explicitly clear - I assumed Titanfall would be like Halo or Call of Duty: sure there's mutli-player, but you also get a game to play yourself. Now I see something like Destiny and I fear the same thing happening (and from reading the linked article it sounds like single player is there, but not well thought out). Is the first-person shooter market really so heavily focused on multi-player that those of us with no interest in that feature will eventually be shut out of playing the latest games?
My first online multiplayer game was Diablo. I have avoided every online multiplayer RPG since, and generally avoid multiplayer "experiences".
Multiplayer video games are a cesspool of the worst elements of society. You have to be relatively well-off to afford everything you need to play. In fact, the more well-off you are, the more time you have to spend in the game, the more likely you're going to be an asshole.
You're anonymous. You're being competitive. You are (mostly) rewarded for being a complete asshole (loot, loot, precious loot! loot the newb corpse!)
At least before voice chat you could close the text box or put it out of your mind. Now, if I decided to partake, I'd have to deal with 8-year-olds telling me how they fucked my mother in the ass and how she moaned (when they don't have to tell me, I could hear it just fine).
Fuck multiplayer. Other people are too shitty to play with.
Maybe I'm dating myself here, but multiplayer games are still newfangled and weird to me, and I don't know if that will ever change.
When I used to play games, I played to get away from social interaction and enjoy myself in isolation. It was a kind of recuperation. A world of gaming in which you have to face social interaction once again as part of gameplay was unattractive enough to me that I stopped playing games altogether. These days I mainly do crossword puzzles and read e-books for the respite that I used to get from gaming.
Well you're not alone, when I was much younger I enjoyed competitive FPS's, multiplayer, LAN's, and all that. But as I've gotten older I enjoy single player games more so than anything else because as you put it, it's a form of recuperation and you can decide "how" you want to enjoy yourself.
But as a point, there were articles back in hmm 2004 or 2005ish declaring the "end of single player" as well. Strangely enough, single player games are still going strong. And when developers shovel multiplayer into single player content many don't like it. One of the better examples of this would be Mass Effect 3, where they attempted to shove you into MP so you could get the best possible ending. It didn't take long before it was patched out, and the amount required reduced. I expect that the new Dragon Age game will suffer the same fate if they try to shovel something in that "makes it a requirement for a good ending."
Om, nomnomnom...
Overall the video game industry is dying
The industry isn't dying; it's just facing many of the same problems that the movie industry faced in the late '60s through the early '80s.
During the so-called "New Hollywood" period, there was a shift as many commonly-loved genres (westerns, musicals, big epics) started to fall out of favor, with a resultant loss of profitability. The big studios started floundering, especially as the increasingly lost control of the theaters. The independent auteurs took up the slack, and now-famous names like Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg and Lucas made their debuts. Giant epics fell from grace and smaller (and cheaper) movies became more popular. New technologies - often created by the independents, who didn't have the cash to do things the old - and expensive - way, brought new options to moviemakers. Old genres were reinvented and new ones created, reinvigorating the industry, leading to the era of summer blockbusters. Meanwhile, the old studios had to open themselves up to buy-outs from outside investors, and take on new lessons about proper corporate governance.
It is easy to see parallels with the game industry of today. Customers no longer find the popular genres of yesterday quite as fulfilling as they did a few years back and the big developers seem to be having trouble offering new options. Fortunately, the "indie" game developer is reinvigorating the market, and these days there seems to be more excitement about the indie games than big-name titles like Destiny or Call of Duty XXIV. The publishers are also struggling as their traditional means of distribution is changing from retail sales to digital. The indies are also proving it is no longer necessary to spend $100 million on a game, utilizing new technologies like procedural generation to create worlds as grand as those made expensively by hand.
The game industry is not dying, it is just in transition. And like the Hollywood Renaissance of the '80s, I hope the game industry will rebound to bring us bigger and better experiences in the next decade.