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.

Spoiler: earlier editions

a favoured game style that might have become less common in recent times, skills one might have learned or honed because of a game, games on the PS4 and Xbone that will stand the test of time, games that got better after launch, cancelled games and shuttered devs, and story canon in games.

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.

 

[chrisrlink]

Generally don't care for online play. Most games with online play have a shit community or structure their game so that you are entirely dependent on other players to progress as a means to draw out content artificially. I don't care about competing as there will always be someone out there with more hours of their day that they can devote to learning the game and all the exploits. I play games to have fun and relax, not to try and prove something.

Nevermind the part where switch voice chat is just a phone app instead of being part of the service.

yeah as in the case of Pokemon.....there's that god awful smogon so i see your point when you say "shit community"

 

[DinohScene]

I only play multiplayer on private servers.
Usually with the boyfriend.

 

[nikeymikey]

I've sat and read through the first few pages of this thread and do you what, i'm actually quite surprised. I honestly thought that it would be mostly people bigging up online play and saying they couldn't live without it and that me as someone who really could care about online play would be an outsider. I'm actually glad that it seems the majority of people here would rather sit down on a couch with some family/friends and play, than go online and play with strangers.
My kids, Me and the Mrs have been playing multiplayer games together for years since my eldest (19) was about 6/7 years old and those games were Mario Party and Bomberman Generation and we still pull out the Gamecube every now and then and play those over again. Lets face it Mario Party kind of lost its way since the 5/6/7 on the GC and me for one is just glad that the Switch version seems to be getting back to basics and screw online play

 

[Deleted User]

Cared about online play when I was younger, now couldn‘t care less.