In Defense of the Single-Player Gamer..

[Rurouni_Fencer]

http://kotaku.com/5826946/look-single+player-people-are-just-better

I rarely read editorials on Kotaku, mainly because I can just never feel a connection with the writers for some reason..
But this article made me want to throw my fist in the air and say "Fuck yeah!"
Because in this day and age of Call of Duty's, Madden's, and World of Warcrafts, I feel like the odd-man out when my friends want to play some shooter and I pass to continue my quest for 100% titles in my Street Fighter. Or even the times when I would rather pop in Madden 2010, (because I don't buy EVERY damn year that EA milks you $60 for,) grab a few beers, and take my Philadelphia Eagles through an entire 15-min quarter a game season than spend a week playing online leagues, or team up in Halo.

"The worth of single-player comes in the form of narrative. As with any good novel, or a finely crafted film. It is the equivalent to literature. While multiplayer is an ill-informed argument. It has no direction, no beginning nor end, no meaning."

While I may hold me typical Kotaku-reservations about the multiplayer part, I whole-heartily agree that the single-player experience in a video game is practically no different from reading a good book by yourself, or catching up on some old episodes of Trigun or Naruto. Imagine if Shakespeare released Macbeth, and half the book contained the story in the first 600 pages, and then there was an Ad-Lib section for the remaining 1200 pages.. It would be insane! NOW - imagine that your high school-age teenager is assigned the book for a senior English Lit class, and 75% of their grade is determined upon how well they can psychoanalyze and interpret the Ad-Lib scenarios and possible outcomes. That is how I feel about the state of gaming today!

Look - I love playing games with other people! I loved it when I was 10 years old playing Marble Madness and Super Mario Bros. 3 for late hours on end with my best friend as a kid! But it saddens me to see that the "single-player" aspect of games today are beginning to take the passenger seat to the multiplayer modes. A good game does NOT define itself with multiplayer alone.

[CFFJR]

A-fucking-men!

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

[Erik_Twice]

I rarely read editorials on Kotaku, mainly because I can just never feel a connection with the writers for some reason..
But this article made me want to throw my fist in the air and say "Fuck yeah!"

Not to blow your bubble but the article is satirical.

When the writer compares himself to a prophet and says people who prefer single games are better than those who play multiplayer...

A good game does NOT define itself with multiplayer alone.

Team Fortress 2.
Counter-Strike
Quake III Arena
Magic: The Gathering
Football
Basketball
Motoracing

All bad games on your opinion.

[CFFJR]

He didn't say they were bad. All he meant was that a game doesn't NEED multiplayer to be good, as some people seem to believe now.

And the article is not satirical, he's just being a smartass. Its from Rock Paper Shotgun, they're known for it.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

I realize the satire the author was going for in the article, (as well as the faux-elitist statements.) - I was just conveying my personal thoughts about the state of the single-player experience in video games in this modern generation.

A good game does NOT define itself with multiplayer alone.

Team Fortress 2.
Counter-Strike
Quake III Arena
Magic: The Gathering
Football
Basketball
Motoracing

All bad games on your opinion.

To be technical, those last four games you mentioned are entirely dependent on the necessity for multiple players to be participating - much unlike, say, Super Mario Bros., or Pac-Man.
As for the other three - again: what you ultimately get out of those experiences is completely determined by the amount of other players willing to put in the same time and effort as you are. Those were NOT bad games, by any stretch - however good luck trying to sit down and effortlessly fire up Quake III: Arena's single-player mode in the hopes of enjoying the game as you did in 1999 on your Dreamcast.. It just won't be the same! Meanwhile, I can throw in Perfect Dark into my N64 and play it exactly the same way it did in 1998 without worrying about server availability, (gotta love games that include CPU-controlled multiplayer bots!)

[Xeogred]

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.

[alienjesus]

I'm just gonna throw in my opinion and say that I don't believe the book analogy used fits at all. Games of any sort are about participation and performance, single player or otherwise. The story can be beneficial to play but it's not essential (see: sports, chess, tetris). The idea of a multiplayer game being like a story where half way through it becomes ad lib is just wrong, because a competitive multiplayer game was never meant to be a linear narrative - it resembles sport more than literature. By it's very nature as a competitive game, it requires a different focus, there's nothing wrong with that. Games aren't meant to be literature, they're meant to be games.

The idea that multiplayer focused games aren't created with intent like single player games are is completely laughable. The intent is to create a magic circle of game space, set out the rules, and make it fun to play the game they've created. That's a pretty solid intent if you ask me, even if it might not always work.

That said, I get the sentiment. I too would rather play through a single player game a lot of the time than play multiplayer online. Thats just because I feel theres nothing quite like local multiplayer, thats how games should be played imo. Sure, some games having a focusd on multiplayer can be annoying, but there's just as many which have strong single player campaigns, so I fail to see the problem.

[Hatta]

"The worth of single-player comes in the form of narrative.

I can't agree with that. So many good single player games with no narrative whatsoever. e.g. Pac-Man. The appeal of single player comes from taking on a challenge yourself, and beating it at your own pace.

[Xeogred]

"Narrative" can be pretty subjective though. With games like Doom or whatnot, I'm sure many people can apply their own kind of imaginative narrative based off the atmosphere, experience, and other thoughts to give it some meaning.

[Gamerforlife]

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