The value of online play to you.
Recently we have seen various Switches belonging to hackers, a device without many well developed public hacks at time of writing, be banned from Nintendo's online offerings. Such a thing then became the subject of much discussion, not only because all of Nintendo's previous efforts in the last decade or so have had next to no proper security and at the same time were often barely functional.
One thing that came up more than once was the notion that a banned Switch is if not worthless then worth a whole lot less. It is not a new concept as games go; see also the xbox 360 and its various banwaves last generation wherein banned ones could be seen at points to go for sometimes less than half that of a new charting game, at the same time equivalent setups that were unbanned would still go for more than a charting game and maybe even two.
Related to this is the notion some developers and publishers have that single player only games are at least untenable from a financial perspective. Such a thing has seen many a game have a multiplayer mode tacked on, almost invariably at a cost of development focus or budget for the single player.
For myself then local multiplayer and co-op were much enjoyed staples of my pre online days, single player was almost always where it was at though. Then they started wanting me to pay for online, something I have never done unless you count dial up costs on my dreamcast. I never once had an online 360 of my own or one readily accessible and would maintain it was probably one of the best periods of gaming ever for me. The idea that a banned device is worthless is then very odd, though I am of course more than happy to pay the pittance some consider them worth to get such a banned device if it still allows single player.
This is part of a series on GBAtemp where we consider game design, aspects of play and game industry concepts. Previously we discussed emulation vs hardware.
To that end you are invited once more to talk about the ideas raised in the text above and anything related to it you feel warrants mention.