Hello all and welcome to another installment of Shogun Showdown! In this installment Aaron R. and a friend of his argue about multiplayer and it’s importance in video games today. It’s been some time since the last Shogun Showdown, so time has come. Stay tuned each week as we discuss a different topic in the gaming medium.
At some time in our gaming lives all of us have experienced a multiplayer game that has taken up a considerable amount of our time. Whether it be an FPS, MMORPG or even a fighting game, multiplayer is an aspect of video games that seems, to many a gamer, as important as the single player portion of the game. While some games are completely multiplayer many single player games have turned focus away from the single player and put more effort into the multiplayer. However a question must be asked; Is it the solution to increasing a games a longevity? I had this discussion with a friend of mine (who chooses to remain anonymous), and this is basically what we had to say to concerning the matter. I preferred single player and my friend prefers multiplayer. Sit back and enjoy!
No It Isn’t The Answer.
While it is true that a higher percentage of gamers today have a semi decent internet connection there are still a lot of gamers who unfortunately can’t get on the net. After spending upwards of $300 for a console then add games, extra peripherals and other assortments of goodies internet can be a problem. If you own a 360 then the extra cost of Xbox Live is another element one must consider. As a gamer who has focused primarily on JRPG’s, Fighting Games and the Occasional Action Adventure Game I must say I fall into the single player category. Games driven by a story, a compelling orchestra, or even by gameplay that introduces new elements every so often to keep it interesting are what I enjoy.
It’s the reason why during the PS1 era I enjoyed the abundance of fantastic JRPG’s, perhaps the greatest era of JRPG’s. These were games that were story driven and were guaranteed a bare minimum of 25 hours gameplay, increased significantly if one was to attempt all the side quests. During the PS1 era games had amazing depth to them, simply because the multiplayer was generally limited to the amount of controllers a console was able to house. However look at these games and they are still some of the most remarkable games ever released; Resident Evil 1,2 and 3, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7,8 and 9 had only one player and yet offered experiences few, if any, games today have equaled. Multiplayer is a very fun addition however it shouldn’t be made mandatory to a games release.
Look at games like Metal Gear Solid 4 (not Metal Gear Online), Fallout 3, Borderlands, Star Ocean 4, Lost Odyssey, Valkyria Chronicles. While Borderlands offers a multiplayer the single player offers a very lengthy and enjoyable campaign. All of the games mentioned offer a fantastic storylines that drive the game on and on. The Call Of Duty series offer great games with weak and at times laughable storylines. It makes me wonder how good the games would be of they had a more lengthy, compelling single player. As someone who can do without all the loud, foul mouthed people using headsets online to abuse others and boast of their superiority I enjoy the opportunity to just relax after a hard days work. I hear enough from idiots at work, so the last thing I want to do is jump online and listen to more idiots.
I’m not saying scrap mutliplayer, just that making a game focused primarily on multiplayer is the wrong way to go. If we take a quick look at Fat Princess we see a very very fun concept ruined by a laggy and disappointing online multiplayer, which leads me to ask what it could have been if it focused more on the single player element.
A decent, lengthy campaign with a solid multiplayer is the way to go. Uncharted 2 won countless Game Of The Year Awards not because it had the best multiplayer component out, but because it packed a fantastic single player campaign in with a solid fun multiplayer, and not the other way around.
MULTIPLAYER! MULTIPLAYER! MULTIPLAYER!
Lets get one thing straight, Comptetive Multiplayer has potential to make my dream come true; to get paid to play video games. If it wasn’t for multiplayer there would be no interest in professional video gaming whatsoever. Multiplayer is the reason I play games, it is the one thing I have a talent for. I enjoy playing online with fellow gamers, they share a common passion with me. Of course there are ones you won’t like but the fact of the matter is not everyone you meet is going to like you, so who cares what they think? Just play games and make the most of it.
Also a little point I would like to make concerning the games you mentioned, nearly all of those games are boring with a capital B. Half the time you spend on Fallout 3 involves finding obscure little places on a giant map, and running around in a FPS is not the most exciting thing to do.
Not An Enemy To Be Seen...
Same with Borderlands, fantastic art direction, but felt like very similar to Fallout. Anyway my point is none of the games mentioned keep you on your toes quite like the CoD series does. Sure it could drag on for another 15 hours, but then it would fall into the boring and repetitive nature of Fallout 3 and Borderlands. At least the multiplayer component allows that excitement to continue a little longer than 20 hours. Which brings up my main argument; Once you get everything in Single Player what is there to do after that?
Or what about games like Forza 3? Though lag can ruin it some times, it’s a hell of a lot of fun! It’s not just shooters that are multiplayer focused nowadays, many genres are focusing on multiplayer because they know it significantly increases the longevity of a game.
Times are changing, and more and more games will eventually go down the multiplayer path. It’s inevitable, and though it may be unfortunate for some who don’t have internet it’s time they get with the program. Online and multiplayer is the way of the future so get onto it now. Single player won’t go the way of the dinosaurs but it’s emphasis isn’t as strong as it use to be.
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i can’t agree with either side 100% because gamers perceive value differently. i think the future has to have a balance of both. but if i had to choose, i would not pay $65.24 on a pure mp experience. you have to have an offline component. most genre’s wouldn’t survive without it. i’m sorry but as much as i love fps, i DON’T WANT THAT TO BE THE ONLY GENRE in video games. btw….the sp games he mentioned, are NOT boring. ur baditude adrenaline extreme point of view might be getting in the way of your judgement…mgs4 is a classic. valkyria is the best rpg out this gen…fallout 3 is engaging…
No, games do not need multiplayer to have longevity. A good single – player campaign is more than enough. I put over 92 hours into the single – player of GTA: IV, well over 45 hours into MGS4 and currently more than 23 hours into Uncharted 2 (Which i’m far from fully complete). Some of the best games this generation didn’t even have an online mode at all (Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Ratchet & Clank, Assassin’s Creed).
Many games nowadays are able to compensate for no online mode by adding in simple RPG mechanics, like the ability to boost your stats or upgrade your weapons (Ratchet & Clank, Sonic Unleashed) or adding in a load of side missions (Infamous) or by giving you hidden things to collect (Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed). Those, coupled with a lengthy story mode, can give many hours of replayability to a game.
As far as i’m concerned, multiplayer is a nice bonus, nothing more. The single – player part of the game is what’s important. Would anyone think Uncharted 2 was anything less than perfect if Naughty Dog hadn’t bothered putting the multiplayer mode in?
Fallout 3 was boring? You’re doing it wrong.
I agree with you big time, the only reason I bought MW2 was for the multiplayer, I haven’t even played the single player as yet! lol
Multiplayer FTW.
You need to use “its” instead of “it’s” if it’s possessive. Weird but correct.
What the heck is so bad about multiplayer? It’s not hurting anyone to have extra playability and it’s much more fun to be social and play games with other real live people. Single player is good but not great if that’s the only thing offered.
This made me think of the release of EA’s BF2. I saw the BF2 pack on steam, and I once played the core version of this series. I’m not sure if anyone still plays, but I remember the single player being one of the worst afterthoughts in a SP/MP FPS. I would never buy that pack because the single player was horrid.
All I want is an updated version of Soldner!
I must say I really enjoyed the pro multiplayer is not necessary to make a good game section. It came out and approached the problem, followed by a well rounded set of reasons why it is right.
Now the second analysis was weak if not well… to quote “boring with a capital B.” There are very good reasons why games should approach the possibility of multiplayer, I just don’t see anything to show this point other than it creates competitive gameplay. While a good point, it is by far not the only point to be made about adding multiplayer.
Now that aside I must point out that multiplayer is a good addition to a game. It can be the sole point of a game and be good, but the game being multiplayer is not the reason the game is good. The game is good because, well it was a good game. I think that fact gets lost when the singleplayer vs multiplayer debate comes up. No one cares about the single or multi mode of a crappy game, they just want to sell it back as quick as possible and hopefully purge their head of that *shudder* horrible gameplay.
I like to refer to a good multiplayer addition to a game as bonus material. Games that are solely about multiplayer I approach it the same as I do the singleplayer, if its the main focus of the game it better be fun. Otherwise double thumbs down.
Its a shame “multiplayer” now seems to be only a refrence to Internet Multiplayer. I couldnt give a damn for playing games against clowns across the net, but I love hooking up for LAN’s or even playing multiplayer games against my friends in my loungeroom. Imagine if Grand theft auto let two players play in the same world co-operativly? and how cool would Fallout 3 have been with a few mates either co-operating with you, or competing with you in real time for the missions?
The success of the Wii sports and games such as Guitar hero clearly indicate that there is a massive market for people who want to play games with real people in the same room.. Not over the net. Bring back real multiplayer!!
To give another perspective (highly subjective as the author’s): I don’t think that multiplayer is that great. As a casual gamer I feel a bit frustrated by people killing me as soon as I respawn (or take off in IL-2), but that’s just one thing. I just don’t want to spend my life perfecting skills in a game to be competitive against people who do. (I dare you to try a skirmish in DoW… those people know where to put each and every one points to win. It’s not fun; it’s a job.) Not to mention joining guilds/groups/flight squadrons means I’d have to make commitments in my free time to fly/fight/whatever with them -and that’s just not fun for me.
The other problem is I really don’t want to listen to adolescent idiots screaming obscenities.
A great game really does not necessarily need a multiplayer pack -look at Bioshock. Like Bioshock, Fallout 3 is one of the most incredible games out there with all it’s failings, despite of the lack of multiplayer. I still keep going back, though I give you that: most of the missions are pretty repetitive the second time, so I don’t even bother with them (and don’t hunt for bobbleheads, either). Sure, it’d be great if it had multiplayer, but think about all the morons you would have to deal with besides the supermutants and raiders.
10 years after counter strike, quake, etc. does people still play them? hell yeah.
read the title to the article again. well?
Also, the Super Nintendo was far superior to the Genesis
I’m, I need to stop taking up article space on my interweb screen.
Multiplayer is a great answer to it. It doesn’t need to be online. Mario Kart 64 and Goldeneye proved this point strongly in the past. Every system picked up its’ pace and image once it got a good multiplayer game.
Arcades would have never thrived and became a greater social phenomena for gamers without them. Online will be something that’s much more integrated and important in the future of gaming, but it’s not necessary.
Why do so many people ignore or diss the local experience? It’s gotten to the point that companies are neglecting it or ignoring it horribly. Look at Mario Kart Wii. It’s local multiplayer is crippled greatly. 100cc only with 30 frames per second gameplay with constant slowdown. Even Mario Kart 64 kept things good. It killed the music, but the core game was still there and very fun. Double Dash’s multi-player is many times better than Mario Kart Wii’s. Mario Kart Wii was made on a more powerful system and came from the same company!
Local multi-player in anything but hand helds, racing and fighting games has largely become a joke. I strongly dislike this change.
Is Multiplayer the answer to longevity? Technically, yes, but it is not the only answer. Having a good singleplayer campaign can do the same or adding a fun co-op mode to the singleplayer campaign.
The thing is though that a simple MP will boost a games longevity while you really need a stellar SP to boost longevity. Personally, I’m primarily a SP gamer but I enjoy sessions of MP with friends in games like SSBM or Halo 2/3.
Ironically, the original Halo captivated me with its solid campaign. I rarely touched the MP, but I have played the campaign over and over again. I’ve pretty much played Halo CE’s campaign more than any other game SP or MP this decade.
It all essentially comes down to the fact that gamers are a diverse group. Some like SP, some like MP, others like Co-op, some like shooters, others like rpgs.
I want to like this website, but you guys really need an editor. The grammar and punctuation are uniformly atrocious across all articles I’ve read here. If you want to start playing with the big boys in the gaming blogspace, you’re gonna have to up your game.
This “showdown” was nothing more than one person saying, “I grew up playing single-player games and they’re my favorite kind of game,” which was followed by “I like multiplayer in games, and I want to play games for a living.” This is just an awkward and boring exchange of gaming preferences – where are the arguments? I think a compelling argument can be made on both sides of this debate, but neither of the writers have really put any thought into the question other than to say what style of gaming they prefer. I don’t really care which style of gaming you happen prefer – I want to hear why you do. Convince me.
This website has potential, but you’ll need to produce better content than this to grow your audience.
@ Dennis,
Thanks for the feedback, we’ll keep it in mind.
MODS are the answer to longevity.
Fan-made mods, not DLC. A company will stop producing DLC once they start on The Next Project, and looking at recent trends, the value of DLC is far less than the price.
Fans will keep making mods for years, and mods can turn an okay game into a fantastic one (Oblivion + Francesco’s Oblivion Overhaul, for example).
For me, you can’t really have one and not the other. However spectacular I think my XBox360 is, it’s cpu simply CANNOT replicate authentically the behaviour of another human-being…yet. Even in the most tension-filled, atmospheric moments of SP gaming, there’s nothing quite like a sweaty-palmed encounter with a skilled human opponent, especially when the trash-talk starts flowing.
So I tend to outgrow the SP mode and then, if I still want to play the game after this (I often don’t) I’ll gravitate towards MP.
But, I want to make a point (and others may have already made it, apologies if this is the case). Firstly, there are 2 main types of multiplayer; Co-op & adversarial. Great examples of each are found in Left4Dead for co-op & the likes of Modern Warfare & Halo for advers.
Left4Dead is a fantastic game, built from the ground up for online play, and it DOES feature non co-op play too, but it is clearly dominated by it’s co-op mode. It’s so good because of very clever design features which basically force players to work together to survive the level. If you play for no one but yourself, you will probably die. Since everyone works together, the games noobs get to feel useful & powerful because although they’ll constantly be getting bailed out by more experienced players, the level design is such that even the better players will get grabbed by a Smoker at some point, leaving said noob to repay the favour. So now you have a noob who is happy to keep on coming back to this game until he reaches a point when it is HE who is the better gamer and HE bails the new noob out.
MW2 is almost at a complete polar opposite. It rewards you for killing other players and the easiest way to rack up easy kills is to identify the noobs among the party, and exterminate them as many times as possible. So the noob tends to not want to come back to THIS game.
When I say noob, I don’t mean a generally experienced gamer who is new to these 2 games, I’m talking about Dad of 3 or Auntie Betty who is thinking about buying a Nintendo Wii but thinks gaming is really for nerds.
It is on Dad of 3 & Auntie Betty that the continued success & growth of the gaming medium depends. Without them, gamers eventually die out, developers no longer make games & humanity loses one of it’s greatest arts right at the time it starts to come of age.
If the only experience of gaming that Aunty Betty ever has is a 0 – 48 whitewash, at the hands of greasy & abusive teenagers on MW2, what is the liklihood of her EVER buying that Nintendo Wii and becoming a ‘casual gamer’ on which all console manufacturers rely so heavily?
But Dad of 3, after having such a great time with total strangers on Left4Dead as his 1st proper experience of gaming, is FAR more likely to go on & become a casual gamer.
I believe that as much as games like MW2 & Halo are attracting people to buy them, and in many cases also to buy a console to play these games on, the adversarial modes found within these modes are, with the other hand, slowly choking the life out of the industry.
So, I guess to say in closing, that while MP modes definitely add (in some cases) years onto a games life when done really well, the longevity of gaming IN GENERAL may be taking a serious hit at the hands of some of the most popular games out there. Co-op gaming needs, and I believe ultimately WILL recieve a much higher priority in the coming 10 or more years, so that it is THIS which is seen as the games main draw, rather than packets of 10 minutes of mayhem, in which potential future gamers are well & truly unimpressed with what they experience.
I believe that if developers & publishers really push for their games to be (and equally importantly to APPEAR) as accessible to gamers of ALL skill levels, and for them to have a way of playing together without diminishing the enjoyment of the game for ANYONE, then we will be talking about games with serious longevity and an entire industry which will just grow & grow & grow. Thanks to the success of Nintendo Wii, games on ALL platforms are now being forced to conform to this simple fact of commercial life.
I realise I went to to answer a question that was not really asked, but I feel it was worth saying anyway.
Theres a market in gaming that caters to everyones needs in my opinion. however the games with mp and sp DO tend to last longer. like someone already said counterstrike , quake, unreal, warcraft3, starcraft, age of empires/mythology all old games but still massively played by a large online audience.