gaming in person VS online gaming

[wip3outguy7]

So Kotaku has a review on the new Scott Pilgrim game. As most of you probably already know, the game does not support online multiplayer. Coop play is local only. Whether or not this was to remain true to the roots the game so desperately is trying to tap into or if it is due to budget constraints is unknown. In the comments section under the Kotaku review, almost every 3rd post was a complaint about the lack of online multiplayer. Some of these people claimed they had no friends in real life/in person to play locally and that the lack of online play prevented them from experiencing the full game.

This got Hobie and I talking about the subject of online vs in person and I decided to make a thread.

It's painfully obvious that online play has completely replaced some peoples' need to get together and interact with friends or acquaintances in person. We aren't just talking about the current generation of gamers (though, they are usually the first to whine). I know plenty of people - who grew up with Saturday nights around the NES, taking turns playing the many 2 player coop titles that dominated the market then - now refuse to pull themselves away from Xbox Live for a few hours to hang out at a friend's place to play something in person.

Now people don't even play fighting games offline unless it's a tournament.

The inclusion of online coop and vs play isn't anything new. High speed internet connections have been widely available for the better part of 10 years. Yet, 10 years ago, when all of my friends had broadband connections, powerful, custom built PCs and were addicted to every FPS imaginable - we would still pack everything up once a week and haul everything over to a generous host's house and LAN for 24 hours straight. We would have a Dreamcast in the corner, running 'round the clock with games like 3rd Strike, Mark of the Wolves, Cannon Spike or Marvel VS Capcom 2. It was a regular occurrence and no one thought anything of it, even though we could have easily stayed at home and played Counter Strike on a server together.

This begs the question, "What is so different now?" Nothing really. Well, the internet is more widely accepted (I would say too accepted) and online play is made easier with the internet dependent consoles we game on now. The price of gas is higher than it was 10 years ago... that may make some think twice about travel. But to claim you don't have any friends in person? I don't buy it.

You have to make time to game together. At work, I have a small group of friends who gets together at least twice a month to game. We get together on mutual days off and play everything from fighting games to shoot em' ups. We game on systems as old as the Genesis and as new as the PS3. We drink and talk about work. We make it happen. Sometimes things don't fall into place and we will have to postpone, but we make up for it. We persist and meet up again the next week. We aren't alone in this ideal. There are other small groups at work who get together even more often for heated Super Street Fighter IV matches.

So it can be done. Does this mean gamers have become agoraphobic? Has online play made people so lazy and withdrawn that they have honestly convinced themselves that 2 hours of Modern Warfare 2 a night are better than 4 hours a week of random games and drinks with friends in person?

Another side effect I have experienced from these get-togethers is how much more enjoyable they are than the usual "every night online gaming matches", even though they are fewer and further between. They feel more fresh. We get to surprise each other with moves and strategies we learned over the weeks leading up to the next game night. Things feel less stagnant because we aren't doing this every day.

And before you complain with, "some people just don't have a circle of friends like that or the time to get together and game like that" think about this: neither did we. Our circle of gamers reached out to each other in random conversations about other things non game related. We found that we had common interests and did something about it. This is something you have to make happen.


Discuss.

[Hobie-wan]

I miss LAN parties. Yeah carting your PC is a pain, but if I were to go to one now I'd have a nice thin LCD to take instead of my old heavy CRT. It's just more fun in person and then everyone can take a break at the same time when pizza or whatever happens. Thinking about it I realized I'm a dumbass and there's a game center near me that's partially owned or run by someone I even know. I bet they'd let me take old consoles up there too and hook them up. As a further experiment it occurred to me that if I can find a little hole in the wall coffee place that's cool with it I might take a small screen, an old console, and set up shop some evening with a sign encouraging people to join in. Maybe something interesting will happen.

[ZeroAX]

1) Me and my friends who played WoW preferred to pay 1€ per hour to go play in an internet cafe so we could be sitting next to each other and talking in real life, than playing from our comfy houses and talking over ventrilo.


2) Those people who diss the game about non online play are idiots, cause when I complain about no local multiplayer in some games that support online MP (see most FPS games on modern consoles) they tell me to STFU and that I shouldn't be asking for something that only I'd use, cause it would cost the company money (even though it won't cost those people making the comments anything, they just want to see other people not get what they want. ah the internet)


3) Yes it's super sad. Me and my friends got together and played single player games in turns. And there is nothing, NOTHING more fun than local multiplayer. I have SSBBrawl and Mario Kart Wii, and even though both play online multiplayer, I always prefer local play with 1 or more friends of mine.



and I'm sorry but playing with someone over the internet feels like playing with the AI, or in some cases the AS

[wip3outguy7]

1) Me and my friends who played WoW preferred to pay 1€ per hour to go play in an internet cafe so we could be sitting next to each other and talking in real life, than playing from our comfy houses and talking over ventrilo.

Haha, that's awesome!

[Pulsar_t]

Does this mean gamers have become agoraphobic?

Gamers, schmamers.. Online has made it convenient and even in the same house with WLAN I'd find myself playing on my desktop with each participant in a different room on their laptops. It takes a lot of effort to convince most people to play coop on the xbox 360, let alone sharing a computer screen.

[Ack]

Nearly every day of college I played a game with someone or discussed gaming with someone. Every Friday for four years I was in the computer lab for the weekly meeting of the Auburn University Computer Gaming Club, where 20 guys would get together and spend time slaughtering each other in a flurry of witty banter. Gamers and the relationships that spawned around the club gave us classic lines like "fruity dwarf" and "peaceful agrarian battlecruisers." To me there is no substitute for the entertainment and joy of playing games with your best friends while in the same room, and if any of you are ever in Auburn on a Friday night and interested in playing some computer games, I highly suggest you make the trip.

Online is a nice way for me to get together with those guys, though even with a team speak server running in the background, it just isn't the same as being in the room as my best friends.

[lisalover1]

The only reason I would like online multiplayer for this game is because I don't want to pay $60 for a second Dualshock 3 controller. But, I'm glad the game has multiplayer at all. I completely agree that the atmosphere created by local multiplayer is very special, and is something that can't be replicated online.

playing with someone over the internet feels like playing with the AI

I couldn't have put it better myself.

[kgcarini]

I'm a high school teacher that has noticed how different X-Box 360/PS3 kids are different compared to the Wii kids. I host video game tournaments as fundraisers and a lot of the kids that are used to playing online don't even seem to like the idea of playing with friends...that is of course until they are together playing in separate rooms like Call of Duty and yelling at each other about who just got crushed! Its really funny when these online kids play the Wii and suck because they hated the Wii until I bring one in and we have a Mario Kart tournament during class the last three days of school! I love the last week of school.

[lisalover1]

I'm a high school teacher that has noticed how different X-Box 360/PS3 kids are different compared to the Wii kids. I host video game tournaments as fundraisers and a lot of the kids that are used to playing online don't even seem to like the idea of playing with friends...that is of course until they are together playing in separate rooms like Call of Duty and yelling at each other about who just got crushed! Its really funny when these online kids play the Wii and suck because they hated the Wii until I bring one in and we have a Mario Kart tournament during class the last three days of school! I love the last week of school.

I would have loved to have you as my teacher. Most of my teachers think electronics are evil, and the cause of all wrongdoing in the world, so we're not even allowed to bring in cellphones. I've been busted for playing my Neo Geo Pocket Color before during break.

[ZeroAX]

I would have loved to have you as my teacher. Most of my teachers think electronics are evil, and the cause of all wrongdoing in the world, so we're not even allowed to bring in cellphones. I've been busted for playing my Neo Geo Pocket Color before during break.

how exactly do they punish something that isn't illegal?