In Defense of the Single-Player Gamer..

[Hazerd]

What bothers me is when Diablo 3 comes out, 90% of the player-base is going to get online and rush through the game so they can start farming boss's, forming guilds, gearing up their pvp characters, and trying to make real $$$ on the new auction house.

but all i want to do is sit back play some Single Player and enjoy the story and lore that Blizzard has put into this game, but by the time i get online ill be in the dust and no one to level with, itll all be rush rush rush, screw you people that do this!


when Diablo 2 came out, i beat the Single Player before even thinking about going online, i wish this was almost a requirement to start playing multi-player, it would filter out the people who just want to jump on and not care what has actually gone into the game.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

I love single player games but a multiplayer focused game can be just as good or even more enjoyable. 423 hours into TF2 and I still find it a lot of fun. I can't really think of many single player games you can sink that much time in to. Sim City, The Sims, maybe some arcade games too.

What gets me mad is when a developer releases a multiplayer focused game with a half assed 4 hour single player campaign. Seriously, at that point, why waste the resources? Just put that money into making your multiplayer experience stand out.

It goes the other way around too. I can't stand when they put a terrible multiplayer mode into a single player focused game. Why not instead focus that money on expanding your game a little more, maybe to polish it up a little bit better?

[Dakinggamer87]

I like your first quote there Rurouni_Fencer. Single player gives us a sense of satisfaction, reward, that you more than often can't find in multiplayer stuff nowadays. There's no real "completing" things in a lot of multiplayer, it's just another match, another day. Maybe you unlocked some new stuff or whatever, but it's not like defeating some final boss or conquering all the levels.

A decent article. I like this point a lot too:

"I remember the days when every game had a multiplayer component bundled in with it, something to keep the children happy while the adults played the proper game. But this has now swung the other way, with single-player modes often a bot-based version of the multiplayer nothingness. This absolutely has to stop. The yobs cannot be allowed to dominate, or I would argue all of society can only be minutes from collapse."

Sup Capcom. Lost Planet 2, Resident Evil 5 (A MAIN ENTRY IN THE SERIES), etc are some good examples, and other games... Army of Two, Gears of Wars to an extent, etc, these games rely completely on the co-op experience. Without it, you've got nothing or some horrendous AI that makes the game unbearable or broken.

I HATE THIS TREND.

Anyways yeah, it's awkward nowadays that I smirk or get a little excited when developers or the director comes out and specifically states "We have no plans for multiplayer", some more recent examples would be Batman Arkham City, or Bioshock Infinite. To me it's just like, well awesome... more time and development put into single player that'll probably last more than 5-10 hours, I hope! I still love my multiplayer, co-op, and the likes myself, but it really is as the author kind of says... thesedays, single-palyer is almost the secondary focus now rather than the primary. As someone who grew up with gaming since 1990 I can't say I'm a huge fan of that kind of change.

Epic post, I do feel that co-op or multi-player should be regarded as a bonus, not a focus of a game. It's like a cherry on a cake, nice, but not necessary. I was fine with that back in the old days. Now co-op and multi-player has been made into such a huge focus of game development that it gets on my nerves. If you want a game to have a heavy focus on multi-player, then the whole game should revolve around it like Team Fortress 2 or Unreal or whatever. Now, it's like you buy a game for the single player and you're still EXPECTED to play co-op or multi-player if you'd like to get the all trophies or achievements. Fuck that! Honestly, I would love to see a clear divide. A game is either single player or multi-player PERIOD. If I had things my way, you'd NEVER see the two mix

There is truly nothing I HATE more about the current state of gaming than the focus on multi-player and co-op gameplay. Thankfully, I can still find some games that place all the focus on single player like recent titles I've been playing including Catherine, Heavy Rain, Shadows of the Damned, Dishwasher Vampire Smiles(which I applaud for actually DISABLING co-op on Samurai difficulty)and the Beyond Good and Evil HD remake

I totally agree well said.

I do enjoy multi-player to an extent but will always be a single player games first.

[BoringSupreez]

I have always preferred singleplayer to multiplayer, even local multiplayer. And gaming's trend towards becoming more multiplayer focused than singleplayer focused is part of why I'm mainly a retrogamer. I remember back when I got my first console, the PSone, unless a game was a party game or something, it would feature the single player component as either the main or only portion of the game. Then, in the 128 bit generation, multiplayer began to grow and grow in size, until some of the games later in that era such as Halo 2 actually had a larger multiplayer component than singleplayer. Today, the majority of games are like Halo 2 was. "Hey, here's a great game for you and you buds to experience together! And as a bonus, we included a small singleplayer game for when your internet is out!"

My dislike of games that focus on the multiplayer may be fueled in part by the fact that I have always had "retro" internet speeds, rendering the online portion of any game except stuff like online checkers unplayable. But during the few times I've gotten to experience online multiplayer, I found I hated playing with the weirdos and jerks that frequent the servers. I think even if I had cable internet, I would still prefer singleplayer games.

[NintendoLegend]

A-fucking-men!

Hey, the article already put it better than I could, so all I can do is wholeheartedly agree.

+1.

I abhor the day when players no longer long for escapism. Give me my escape. If I want to randomly carous around with chaotic swearing losers, I'll step outside and start a riot.