With all due credit to Penny Arcade for the image that defines not only Gabe, but Steerpike as well.
This comes up because Dave Perry, formerly sort of still of Shiny Entertainment, opined at D.I.C.E. that “the days of single player gaming are numbered.” He goes on to say that “without question, our focus is entirely on multiplayer.” Dave, you’re a frickin’ genius… of course, everyone knew that, since you drove Shiny into the ground, singlehandedly transforming it from one of the most innovative and clever powerhouses of the industry into That Place That Made Enter the Matrix. Complaints continue below.
In college, I studied Roman History. And one of my TAs consistently graded me down for making what he called “sweeping, generalized statements” about a culture or event. In fairness, he was right. Careless historians say things like “Christianity caused the Roman Empire to fall,” or “Caesar was murdered because people feared he had too much power,” when in fact any event is really a perfect storm of smaller occurrences collaborating to effect a large change. So while I still make sweeping, generalized statements, I do so now knowing that it’s wrong, and I feel suitably shamed.
Saying that the days of single player gaming are numbered is a sweeping, generalized statement. Perry, who knows he’s responsible for the ruination of what was once considered a truly great studio, is now saying crap like this for attention. (which I guess I’m giving him, but hey). Incidentally, while we’re being mean, Perry is a very outspoken advocate against quality of life reform in the industry, which makes him one of my arch-foes. He’s also really tall and I don’t like super-tall people.
Anyone who makes a remark like this is ignoring the general misanthropy of the gaming world, and the inherent privateness of video game play. While multiplay is huge, and will get huger, it is not going to fully eclipse the world of single player any more than television eliminated radio. “Play” as an entity has long been communal – you “go out and play” as a child, usually because your Mom kicked you off the videogames and told you to go outside; you “have friends over to play,” etc. etc. etc. But videogames, part of the larger whole, started as individual experiences and have a long and successful life as such. The advent of multiplay has, in some ways, increased the level of isolation.
Think about it. In the case of MMOs and even group-based shooters like Left 4 Dead and Team Fortress 2, most of the time the physical players are miles apart. The age of the LAN party is over. The only true multiplay is when people get together to enjoy games – something I like to do with friends, but each time we bemoan the shortage of really excellent split-screen titles out there. I tell you, there’s no fun like pummeling your best friend with a chair in Smackdown vs. Raw as two of your other best friends pound one another with sledgehammers, especially when you just rented the game from Blockbuster and no one knows what the controls are. But year after year, when we get together for a weekend of this, we find ourselves playing the same games, despite the fact that titles like Crackdown and Dead Rising have same-room, co-op multiplay written all over them.
Multiplayer games, particularly MMOs, are a dangerous proposition. They cost much more to make, are much harder to balance, tend to be much more vulnerable to attacks, and often crash and burn. If I had a nickel for every developer that in the past two years insisted its MMO was going to bring down World of Warcraft, I’d have like sixty cents. Now the millions spent on each of those games is money up in smoke, as the litany of failures batter themselves to pieces against the bulwark of WoW. It’s the game equivalent of the walls of Constantinople, and I have clear advice when studios ask my opinion about their building a World of Warcraft killer – don’t even try.
Furthermore, a lot of people, myself included, prefer single player games, always have, and always will. This is partly because I loathe most people and would much rather be in my own company, but also because the single player experience is, to me, revelatory in ways that multiplay never is. Single player games can tell stories, present themes, and hook the player with emotive narrative in ways that multiplay simply can’t. So Dave Perry, my advice to you is this: you’ve already made an ass of yourself creatively; you’re on record stating that working 16-20 hour days with no overtime is a sign of “passion” and to be expected; don’t put your foot any further into your mouth. Sweeping, generalized statements make for good conference fodder, but in the real world you’ll get a bad grade every time.
Working 18 hours a day with no overtime has very little to do with passion and much to do with fear. Fear of a deranged boss. Fear of losing a job and income. Fear of actually facing up to the fact that you don’t really have a life. The law of diminishing returns usually kicks in hard at about 12 hours. Anything after that is pretty much undoing good work and replacing it with crap work. Which will have to be re worked the next day anyway.
Mr Perry is an ass. I did the MMO thing long before it became fashionable (Sierra’s TSN/INN) and while it was entertaining (you have no idea of the hilarity that occurs while watching people get “married” to someone they’ve met only two weeks ago while slaying dragons!) it never really satisfied my gaming itch. Like Steerpike, I’m a single player ’cause 9 times outta 10 online people are raging idiots and I like to limit my daily idiot intake.
I love Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, and had great fun playing Myth and World in Conflict online. Although I probably enjoyed WiC more as a multiplayer game, Myth’s story and voice-acting weaved into the gameplay so as to make an incredible single-player experience.
So while I will eagerly await WiC Soviet Assault and the next L4D maps, I will also pray for more single-player orgasmic goodness a.k.a. System Shock, Thief, Bioshock (Ok, anything by LGS types), Fallout, Total War, Stalker).
MMOs are the reality TV of the game industry. They’re incredibly popular and probably won’t go away any time soon, but they generally suck and are responsible for dumbifying the population at large.
“This is partly because I loathe most people and would much rather be in my own company, but also because the single player experience is, to me, revelatory in ways that multiplay never is. ”
I could probably sign this statement because I made similar statements many times.
And of course I am more inclined to single play if nothing then simply through the virtue of having too little free time, too unevenly distributed that committing to playing a proper multiplayer game is a luxury I can seldom afford. Many of my gaming time is actually spent in bed with my DS or PSP, half an hour before I go to sleep (and while my wife chats up her friends on Facebook, yes, children, marriages are THAT poisonous to human souls) and while both machines can do online multiplayer, that would simply be too much to ask of me. Come to think of it, my current multiplayer game of choice is Left 4 Dead and I even haven’t played THAT for probably ten days, simply not being able to know whether I will have 60 uninterrupted minutes to commit myself to playing.
For the same reasons I don’t even dare play MMOs…
But that is not to say I dislike multiplayer, quite the contrary, I feel they offer excitement that you simply can not find in single play mostly because it’s very different. Human interraction always fundamentally changes gaming experience for me, even in games that are basically made to be played with humns and only offer some solitary fun. The freshest example: Street Fighter IV. After completing the arcade mode twice with two characters I finally talked my wife into playing against me and suddenly, all my tactics were out the window because she didn’t do any predictable patterns I got used to. Not saying I wasn’t winning, of course, but I was forced to observe, learn and think…
Either way, by saying single and multi play are very different I really mean that in many cases they shouldn’t even be compared. Put in greatly oversimplified terms, single play is to me is like reading a book: a solitary experience that I want to do alone and to later talk about it with other people. But the gameplay itself is unique, intimate etc. The multi play is similar to playing basketball with friends: I want to be competitive/ cooperative, I want to be part of the community working towards the same goal and so on.. It’s a shared expeience through and through. I like both but I don’t think that, given a choice, I’d want to replace reading with playing basketball or vice versa…
But speaking strictly in economical terms (and I am a mere amateur here, I guess Steerpike and other people more intimate with the industry can give us more insight on this) I believe that, WoW/ Halo aside, the industry by and large understands that single play is what actually drives the sales. Yes, Counter Strike was/ is immensely popular and Valve may have found a really good formula with TF2/ Left 4 Dead but looking at any list of the best selling games of any year actually shows that you’re better off making a SP experience. I am not saying this is a permanent status quo that never gets changedm but at he moment, Unreal Tournaments and Battlefields of this world just do not sell more copies than GTAs and Pokemons (games that have flirted with multi play but are by and large single player).
Also, while I believe co-op and good technology to ensure you can choose who you play with (matchmaking, friends lists) are working towards the goal of attracting people who have previously been put off multiplayer because it was so competitive and often downright hostile to newer/ weaker players, I think we’re some years away from the moment where single player games become unimaginable… Nintendo has really shown they understand how to pave the road to the future (and pave it in gold I might add) by focusing on non-gamers and casual gamers, giving them simple, easy to understand game concepts and multi play that actually feels like a real social experience (i.e. being in the same room and pissing yourselves with laughter) and I think that Perry’s thinking demonstrates that majority of the industry still feels comfortable being in the ghetto (or at least deep in the realms of subculture).
However, if I am right, the future of gaming might well be some cross between WoW and WiiSports and that sounds uncomfortably depressing (as opposed to comfortably deppressing idea of gaming future being more along the lines of… I dunno… Unreal Tournament).