Single Player Gaming is a "Gimmick"

[Strength]

You, see what happens when to much FPS and CODE!.

oopsys I meant COD!.

 

[suppow]

I disagree, I think the quality of games nowadays has gone down because attention has shifted towards multiplayer. It's rather difficult to drive an immersive and engaging experience when the developer cares more about the "arcade styled" multiplayer than they do the single player. It'd be fine if they put equal emphasis on both, but thanks to the success of games like the recent Call of Duty games and Battlefield 3 (I use these because they are the most popular examples), where the story's are often half-assed afterthoughts rather than engaging experiences (even the fans attest to this), less and less game designers actually care about single player.

not just multiplayer, but multiplayer and visuals. (yes, that makes for 'superficial social' games, yay videogame highschool!)

The reason I find this to be such a bad thing is first because it seems to shift the view of games as being "art", an idea that was spreading quickly for a while, but now we seem to be regressing. It seems that, as time goes on, all the effort that was and is made to make video games be seen as art is regressing to the early days, when people rarely took games and their messages seriously because, well, they were games.

i think of video games as an inter-active art form. (good games that is - CoD are as much art as Rambo movies are)
like how movies and music are an active art form, and books and paintings are passive ones.
the same struggle for recognition happened for movies and music,
and artists in general have always been looked down upon.

At the time all they cared about was the effects gaming had on the psyche and how much money it could net people to get into the business. More and more people are going into games for the instant gratification rather than the experience, and similarly, more games are created for the purpose of instant gratification than they are for a satisfying experience (or both, really). In recent years things seem to be the same, the only difference being that games, as a whole, are far more well known even to those who don't play them, as they're not nearly as underground as they used to be.

same applies to films and music i think

The second reason stems from the fact that it has had such a large impact on the Western market (and the Eastern market, on a lesser scale). I'm fine with multiplayer, and I enjoy it when it's well done, but the real problem is that the emphasis of a strong multiplayer with a weak single player, an idea that has been incredibly popular in practical use, sends ripple effects throughout the industry, showing that one can make a successful game so long as they have a strong multiplayer, even if that game isn't a multiplayer oriented game itself. Though, I'm not so sure if it is simply the developers that are affected by this. I see quite a few core gamers (by "core" I'm referring to those who are the biggest crowd in gaming, in other words, the average teen or young adult male) who actually avoid single player games. More often than not, if I were to ask a core gamer about a game that didn't have guns, multiplayer, or wasn't Skyrim, they'd have no idea what I was talking about. The core gamer is becoming less and less interested in engaging single player modes and stories, which saddens me, honestly.

when you come to think of it, the 'hardcore' gamers are actually 'casual' gamers (and very so indeed)
not to mention casual casual players.
or you could say that i'm elitist and only consider 'retro' (or maybe indie) gamers 'real gamers'. lol

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I disagree, I think the quality of games nowadays has gone down because attention has shifted towards multiplayer. It's rather difficult to drive an immersive and engaging experience when the developer cares more about the "arcade styled" multiplayer than they do the single player. It'd be fine if they put equal emphasis on both, but thanks to the success of games like the recent Call of Duty games and Battlefield 3 (I use these because they are the most popular examples), where the story's are often half-assed afterthoughts rather than engaging experiences (even the fans attest to this), less and less game designers actually care about single player.

The reason I find this to be such a bad thing is first because it seems to shift the view of games as being "art", an idea that was spreading quickly for a while, but now we seem to be regressing. It seems that, as time goes on, all the effort that was and is made to make video games be seen as art is regressing to the early days, when people rarely took games and their messages seriously because, well, they were games. At the time all they cared about was the effects gaming had on the psyche and how much money it could net people to get into the business. More and more people are going into games for the instant gratification rather than the experience, and similarly, more games are created for the purpose of instant gratification than they are for a satisfying experience (or both, really). In recent years things seem to be the same, the only difference being that games, as a whole, are far more well known even to those who don't play them, as they're not nearly as underground as they used to be.

The second reason stems from the fact that it has had such a large impact on the Western market (and the Eastern market, on a lesser scale). I'm fine with multiplayer, and I enjoy it when it's well done, but the real problem is that the emphasis of a strong multiplayer with a weak single player, an idea that has been incredibly popular in practical use, sends ripple effects throughout the industry, showing that one can make a successful game so long as they have a strong multiplayer, even if that game isn't a multiplayer oriented game itself. Though, I'm not so sure if it is simply the developers that are affected by this. I see quite a few core gamers (by "core" I'm referring to those who are the biggest crowd in gaming, in other words, the average teen or young adult male) who actually avoid single player games. More often than not, if I were to ask a core gamer about a game that didn't have guns, multiplayer, or wasn't Skyrim, they'd have no idea what I was talking about. The core gamer is becoming less and less interested in engaging single player modes and stories, which saddens me, honestly.

There's really no "shift" to multiplayer. It's a separate sect almost. Call of Duty doesn't advertise itself as a single player game, even though the single player can be fun, but it's known and advertised for multiplayer. To say that Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 show a decline in the quality of single player is rather inaccurate when it's not meant to represent a single player-focused game. If you want a single player game, buy a single player game. If you want multiplayer, CoD or Battlefield are options.

Why is it that games with strong single player but weak multiplayer get a pass but vice versa gets criticized? It makes absolutely no sense. Spec Ops: The Line has thoroughly mediocre multiplayer but a strong single player. CoD doesn't even have "weak" single player, it's just focused. It doesn't seek to offer a twenty hour epic narrative, it's meant to be a joy ride. Like when you watch a movie like Rambo, you don't watch it to think, you watch it for fun. You won't talk about it as much as something with depth but you like watching it. CoD single player is meant to be littered with explosions and over-the-top action for a short-but-sweet experience. Sometimes you want candy, you don't always want a steak.

I don't even know why multiplayer is considered bad. It's the best evolution in gaming in years. Its something popularized by new tech. The ability to play with people across the world instantly is awesome. People put thousands of hours into multiplayer games, the same can't be said for single player. From multiplayer, my friend has easily over 1,000 hours in Dota 2 (an entirely multiplayer game), almost 4,000 hours in Garry's Mod, and many other friends have hundreds of hours in other games like TF2.

Gaming is just full of double standards. A game with weak single player but awesome multiplayer gets spat on but if its the reverse, its considered passable. CoD would get less flak if it just was sold as a multiplayer-only game. Gamers nowadays are so incredibly bitchy and self-entitled that a game would receive less criticism for cutting content. We don't criticize TF2 for a lack of single player, or Dota 2, or Counterstrike, so by this theory a game with a multiplayer-focus but with a single player on the side would be better received if they cut the single player.

 

[machomuu]

@Guild McCommunist - I agree, there, that gaming is indeed full of double standards, and I'm not saying that it's a good thing if games are given bad multiplayers but good stories. Heck, I've seen the latter criticized quite a bit (especially by critics), but there's a difference in having a single player-centric game with crappy multiplayer than there is a multiplayer game with no single player, and vice versa. For instance, games like TF2, Dota 2, and Counter Strike are the types of games I'm absolutely not talking about. Those games are multiplayer and have no single player modes to speak of, they are not part of the issue at all. Similarly, games like the Elder Scrolls series, Dishonored, and Mass Effect (1 and 2) are also not apart of the problem, those are purely single player games. Sure, both the former and latter do inspire developers to make more multiplayer and singleplayer experiences, but they also do not attempt to add the other into themselves. The two promote that a wholesome experience of one world can be fun and engaging as well.

The reason I bring up Call of Duty is for no other reason than the fact that what it does will almost always have an effect on the industry at large. They are definitely shoehorning the thought that stories can be an afterthought or a short story with a unimpressionable narrative and your game will sell well, and many gamers and developers take that to heart. Call of Duty doesn't offer a long story, and it doesn't offer much in the way of a narrative, and sure, that may be intentional. The problem stems from the fact that the there are quite a few fans who don't like it (the story mode) but, in a twist, still play it. It really would just be better if they completely eliminated the story component of Call of Duty and just released the game with the multiplayer and singleplayer components, it's not like less people would buy the game if it had none, and more, its not like there'd be many people who'd care. Its becoming more of a trend to have games be more about a good multiplayer rather than an engaging story or single player, which I don't think is a good thing. There needs to be more of a balance in the equation. A game can have a good story and a fun multiplayer, it's not impossible, but there's really no reason for developers to go through all of that if a multiplayer experience is enough to sell a game. I do feel that there is a shift from singleplayer to multiplayer, and it is because of the popularity of such multiplayer-centric games among the core gamer that really makes the balance between singleplayer and multiplayer experiences is becoming one-sided. People are having tougher and tougher times trying to get the core gamer to play their pure single-player experiences, and why waste money making something that may only get you a mild profit.

I'm not at all against multiplayer games, far from it. My personal interest in multiplayer has been waning, what with the "12 year olds" and "bro-gamers" that make the the games, but the idea that one can completely mute the others and only talk to your friends makes it far less of a problem. Hell, I've spent hundreds upon hundreds of hours on Monster Hunter, Unreal Tournament, and Garry's Mod, all of which are heavily multiplayer-centric games, and I've loved every minute. I do wish, however, that there would be a game that promoted single-player components as an engaging experience to the core gamer the way Call of Duty, Soldier of Fortune, and the original Medal of Honor games sold the world on the idea that multiplayer component could be fun online.

 

[no_chocobo]

I don't really play multiplayer games, due to my work situation. So I guess the hundreds of dollars I spend on games every couple of months is a "gimmick" too?