15 ms·

Most gamers prefer single-player games

171 points by omnibrain 2y ago

GaryNumanVevo 2y ago
I have a crippling addiction to competitive FPS games unfortunately.
ddmf 2y ago
I'm actually considering going back to world of warcraft because some of the new features allow you to experience the previously multiplayer required portions on your own.
senectus1 2y ago
I dont often have time for multiplayer games.. they require time at the same time as others, they are also not the sort of thing you can pause while you go stir dinner or take the bins out or whatever is actually more important.
olliej 2y ago
My feeling is that there are basically three reasons for the focus on multiplayer: * cheap out on development: essentially just have a few low detail maps that people play constantly * people want to look “unique” so you can charge them for near-zero-cost assets * people don’t complain when you say “must have an internet connection” All of which are garbage reasons to me and just mean fewer good games, and less reason to buy them (I’m uninterested in buying a game if it is just going to stop working in a year because they’re no longer selling it). If I want to be subject to swearing and shitty behavior is just become a high school teacher.
- The_Stone 2y ago
  Add to this the appeal of a live service model: * Committed playerbase that stays around for a long time * Dev time focused on making new assets and gamemodes etc. rather than needing to develop entire new games * Designed with an intentional grind (leveling systems, battle passes, random drop chances) which slows down player progression to acquire before-mentioned aesthetic items or even mechanically important upgrades, can provide shortcuts via payment Of course, new live services are sinking now because each one depends on attention economy. If potential players are already committed to a different live service, they don't have the time or interest to re-commit to some other new one. We've been watching for years now as major companies sink millions into games that are DOA because they never actually had an audience willing to commit to yet another major continuing time investment that these games represent.
- cdchn 2y ago
  I think the real reason for focus on multiplayer is that it keeps the game fresh without things that are really half-baked like procedural world gen. That drives engagement- keeping people playing- which gives companies more opportunities to sell microtransactions, skins, etc.
GiorgioG 2y ago
I'm probably in the minority, as I've gotten older, I no longer enjoy single player games. I'd say most gamers have gotten pretty pissed off that we're paying for AAA titles and then still being bombarded on a game-by-game basis for battle passes (basically add-on subscriptions).
- SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
  Stop playing AAA. Subnautica, Outer Wilds, Hollow Knight, Hades, Tunic / Death’s Door… Indie is where it’s at man. The only AAA I’ve loved in years was Red Dead 2… my horse :(
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    You don't even have to go full indie. There are plenty of amazing games that are maybe best described as AA instead of AAA. Let me start by recommending most of Nintendo's catalog.
    - Narhem 2y ago
      Quicker games that can be easily put down and picked back up and don’t break the bank. Nintendo catered to their audience as the company grew.
    - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
      This is a my-taste thing more than a their-quality thing, but it's been literal years since I've enjoyed a Nintendo-platform-exclusive title if you exclude any that were from a famous franchise that's old enough to drink good scotch. I don't have that same problem with PlayStation - there are loads of great games in between the Horizon/GOW/etc. prestige releases.
      - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
        I've tried, but I just don't enjoy the PS-style "prestige" games. I want my games to above all be fun, and I just don't find the gameplay loop of the Horizons/GoWs/etc. to be very engaging. It always seems like there is more emphasis on the production values than in making sure the player is having a good time. I own a PS5, and the absolute most fun I've had on the system is Astro Bot, followed closely by Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart. Everything else I've enjoyed has either been a PS4 game or an indie game.
Ensorceled 2y ago
I think a lot of players are also tired of games that are only fun with in-app purchases. I avoid any game now that has in-app purchases because it might be a great game where you can buy fancy hats but why would I waste any time trying to find that rare gem amidst all the pay-2-win sewage out there.
- behringer 2y ago
  "But it's only cosmetics!" Is the cry of the developer. Nope. I nope out of any of that. No DMing, no chats? No thanks. Why play a social game you can't socialize in? Hackers and trolls? There's zero tools for fighting them and you can't host yourself. It's no wonder most gamers prefer single player, there's hardly any fun multi-player games.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    TBF, most mobile games do indeed have chat/dm's. I'm guessing the console games don't do that because it's a logistical nightmare. A sentiment much rarer in Eastern cultures for whatever reason.
- reginald78 2y ago
  Real life is pay2win so I have no idea why I would want more of that as an escape. The worst part is with constant updates you can buy a game and then have it changed into pay2win later. At least with single player you might be able to keep playing the old version.
  - swores 2y ago
    > Real life is pay2win so I have no idea why I would want more of that as an escape. I dislike pay2win, but the logic behind that sentence could be used to rule out lots, maybe even the majority, of games.., Not just things like Eurotruck Simulator or Farming Sim or whatever, but games in general tend to be "more of what yo get in real life, but altered". From sports games to car racing to battles fought with weapons... people do find simulated reality to be a good escape.
jderick 2y ago
It's a lot harder to make a single player game have depth and complexity than it is for a multi player game, since you don't have human opponents.
- Semaphor 2y ago
  I’d say it’s the opposite. But you are probably talking about depth of combat skill, while I’m talking about depth of writing and story.
- wbobeirne 2y ago
  I think it's highly dependent on the type of game. Games that involve planning and strategy like Slay the Spire or Factorio have enormous depth despite being single player. But I think that it's hard to make the actual execution of mechanics as fun or deep against computer opponents.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  Single player is a different kind of experience, and no less valuable. You might as well say > It's a lot harder to make a book have depth and complexity than it is for going to a party, since you don't have human conversation partners. It depends on the book and the party. Similarly, maybe there is more depth and complexity to Dwarf Fortress than there is to Rocket League. (Not to pick on RL in particular, it is just the first thing that came to mind.)
- al_borland 2y ago
  I'd say Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom had a lot of depth. There was a ton of stuff to do. I have 340 hours into Tears of the Kingdom and hit 100% on the map, but there are still things I haven't done and stuff to explore and try. I find they also have a high replay value, since they are so open and there are nearly infinite ways to solve the various puzzles, traverse the world, or engage in the various battles... or don't. I once started up a new BotW game to see how far I could get without actually fighting anything.
ahartmetz 2y ago
Almost all multi-player gaming is competitive and involves dealing with occasional (or frequent, depending on the game) jerks. If I want stress and occasional jerks, I can just do things in the real world. Single-player gaming is more comfy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jsheard 2y ago
  Multiplayer has also been taken over by free2play skinner box design, so if you want games that aren't designed to waste your time with unfun but addictive gameplay loops and/or nickel-and-dime you to death then singleplayer is the last bastion.
  - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
    nickel-and-dime you to death then singleplayer is the last bastion. We still get our fair share of season passes and day one DLCs, so it's not total immunity.
- huevosabio 2y ago
  It also removes a lot of the immersion. For example, I love Civ but playing with people shatters a lot of the day-dreaming.
- acomjean 2y ago
  There are some which are more casual. My partner plays fornite. She's got a group she games with, and half the talking is about the game the other half is basically a catch up session with a game in the background. there was a game called "Journey" where there where other players in the world, but you couldn't interact directly. They'd help you. I think elden ring did something similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(2012_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(2012_video_game)
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
lispisok 2y ago
Maybe I'm just old and washed but it seems like kids these days take multiplayer games way more seriously. Instead of hopping on and playing a few games after school/work people act more like they are trying to make the college sports team. The amount of time and effort required to hold you own has gone up dramatically.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Because they are, at least some of them. E-sports has opportunity for making money in ways that some people are never going to have. There's also the entire ability of streaming and earning by doing that stuff. Game promoters paying out to have IAPs pushed as well. All of this never existed in mine or your days when our parents just knew that video games would ruin us with no way of making money in them. Even the dream of becoming a game developer wasn't even a thing.
  - spondylosaurus 2y ago
    You know those after-school math tutoring academies that pop up in American strip malls? One of those opened up near me, but instead of grilling your kids in calc or trig to improve their SAT scores, it's an "esports academy" for young hopefuls.
  - nonameiguess 2y ago
    I think there's more going on culturally than just that. Regular sports got more competitive at a younger age, too, and there has always been the possibility of going pro and earning money from it, plus college scholarships.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      That's just progression of the world. The first video game was a simple thing like Pong. Now, we have entire immersive 3D worlds. Someone/something is always the first, but those that come after will/can be bigger, better, faster. The first mass produced car was a Model-T, now we have Mustangs, GTXs, Porsches, blah blah.
- 2y ago
mattw2121 2y ago
I love playing multi-player games when there is a well built economy. Frankly, that economy doesn't even need to be built into the game. I've played multi-player games where the marketplace was outside the game (but still all done with in-game items). What I hate about multi-player is when you have to play the game with others to be successful (exceptions made for those very few big bosses). I'm mostly a MMORPG player. I don't want to be in a clan or guild. I don't want to find other people to play with. I just want to log on whenever I want and play for as long or as little as I want. But, I want to be able to buy stuff in an economy.
Semaphor 2y ago
I played MP when I was younger (even MMOs, played WoW in the first year), but nowadays, it’s all single player. Stellaris, Civ V, and the two Owlcat Pathfinder Games (Wrath of the Righteous, which I was playing when I saw the link, and Kingmaker) are my main games where I have over 1k hours each, but I also play many other single player games. I don’t like always having to push myself to the max, or interacting with random internet people when I want to enjoy myself.
dwighttk 2y ago
Multi player co op or single player in that order… there is no 3
mway 2y ago
As a lifelong and avid gamer, multiplayer games - in my experience, at least - typically trend toward highly toxic, abusive, sometimes degenerate behavior. Communities in which this does not happen seem to be quite rare (I can't recall one offhand). Trolling is rampant, cheating/exploitation is normal, and elitism is pervasive. It really takes the fun out of games. These days, I generally avoid games that are multiplayer-only, and for games with multiplayer elements, I try to avoid those and focus on single-player elements instead. It could be selection bias based on my gaming preferences, of course, but based on feedback I've heard from others who play games that I do not, it seems to be largely the same everywhere multiplayer is involved.
- Borg3 2y ago
  You can also add DDoS to the list too. Ive been long DooM player but I stepped back due to above crap and DDoSes on my servers. Now I play mostly offline, ocassioanlly spawning server for friends only.
- 3np 2y ago
  > It could be selection bias based on my gaming preferences Major factor IME. If you're playing any AAA or one of the top-10-or so FPSes or MOBAs, sure. Hanging out with friends when they're playing online multiplayer less in-fashion older and indie games: Very little of that if any, there. I'm with you, but to make a (competely arbitrary) parallel: It's possible to love R&B music but still have a miserable time when you go to a concert with The Weeknd because you don't vibe with the crowd and you think the party sucks. That doesn't mean you can't have a good time going out to live shows in general and find parties you enjoy with people you vibe with. Similarly, I love clubbing but have absolutely 0 interest going to any of the major couple of venues that catch the bigger crowds in town. Doesn't mean the party scene is dead.
- maltyr 2y ago
  In my experience, ONE thing will cause a game to trend towards toxicity - higher stakes. The more "important" the win or loss feels to the player, the more toxicity shows up. It's pretty easy to filter out "toxic" games if you filter out anything which has a ranked mode and is not designed to be played infinitely. Unfortunately, games in the online era have trended in that direction, because they are the most profitable. For example, some variables that affect toxicity: - competitiveness, often implemented by sort of ranked system, but also just any sort of head-to-head competition. Tournaments and betting will do this as well. - longer investment (via playtimes, either of a single "run" or in total) - people won't get mad at a 5-10 minute game as much as a 1 hour game. Games as a service like MMOs where people have 1000s of hours of playtime are the extreme end of this. - punishing gameplay, where a mistake can cause you to lose a lot of progress (Hardcore modes where dying means you have to restart your character, for example) - tone (casual vs serious tone, e.g. Fall Guys vs Call of Duty) - More serious generally results in more toxicity. Adjusting these variables can even turn a single player game into a toxic one (e.g. self-imposed challenges/achievements, Dark Souls, Jump King or Getting Over It). Similarly, you can lower the stakes so that the gameplay doesn't devolve into toxicity, even with multiplayer (e.g. Animal Crossing)
jauntywundrkind 2y ago
Small squad coop is a pretty excellent option. Helldivers 2 was super popular for a good reason; all the upsides of hanging out with a couple others folks and having a ridiculous time, facing absurd monsters. Warhammer Vermintide & Darktide lack the open level design but have similar upsides. I do think multiplayer is super hard to make broadly rewarding. High skill players quickly come to dominate, often in brutal ways. I enjoyed some Star Wars: Battlefront 2 but man, a couple players who knows what they are doing rack up kills quick to earn a hero character respawn, & can often just own the heck out of most players quite well. Figuring out how you can drop good experiences for medium & low skill players is super hard.
ryandrake 2y ago
I used to like multi-player shooters, when I was young and had infinite time to devote to "git gud." I also played games for the challenge back then. Now that I'm old, I don't have infinite time to upskill, and I mostly play games to relax and unwind after work. I specifically don't want a challenge. Unfortunately, every multi-player first person shooter seems to be geared towards (and infested with) sweaty professional gamers who do nothing but practice, and of course they wipe the floor with me. Game companies try to solve this with so-called "skill based matchmaking[1]" which purports to match you with other players of similar skill, but I've never seen it actually work. Every game is full of sweats who somehow have cracked SBMM so that they get into games with less-skilled players like me and punch way below their weight. I wish games would just go back to letting the user choose their own difficulty level. Sad that that's kind of gone out of fashion. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill-based_matchmaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill-based_matchmaking
- solardev 2y ago
  Are you only interested in PVP? The PVE shooters can be a lot more chill (Destiny, Division, Borderlands, Remnant, etc.) If you get a friend or two together who don't mind oldies, the old Tom Clancy games (Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell) are a blast to play through in coop too.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Will have to try them. I like shooters, but I prefer to play against push-over AI bots instead of 13 year old pro humans. I guess that's what PVE means.
    - solardev 2y ago
      > I guess that's what PVE means. Well, sort of. PvE just means "player vs environment", a holdover/loan word from MMOs where that was the default, vs being able to attack other players in PvP areas. When applied to shooters, though, typically it means that the game was designed around asymmetric battles between players and AI enemies. Asymmetric means that the enemies aren't just bots taking the place of humans, with the same rules, weapons, health, etc. Instead, they are usually a mix of different enemy types... easy to kill grunts, the occasional sniper, the melee berserker, and of course the "bullet sponge" bosses that take forever to kill and feel more like old MMO raids than a normal opponent in a shooter. They're not meant to simulate real players (even shitty ones), but to give more of a feel of a traditional video game campaign. For like the super-boiled-down version of this, Serious Sam is just endless hordes of enemy types running at you. A more modern take would be the roguelite shooter genre, like Risk of Rain 2 or Gunfire Reborn, which offers only endless combat and not much else. The other titles I mentioned usually have some sort of story and some form of permanent progression in the form of new weapons, abilities, etc. If that isn't what you want, then yeah, it's bots in regular PvP shooters that you'll have to look for :( I think they are relatively rare these days, but you can still play the old Unreal Tournaments, Quakes, Doom, etc.
cool_dude85 2y ago
While I don't doubt that this is true, it also seems like the very biggest games at a given time tend to be multi-player. DOTA, Fortnite, WoW were all so genre-definingly huge that there are lists of copycats a mile long. Maybe the only comparable single-player-only game I can think of, in the last 20 or so years at least, is Dead Souls / Dark Souls.
jerjerjer 2y ago
Can an apparent preference for Online PvP amongst 16-19 age cohort be explained by a lack of disposable income? Online PvP games are often free (with different monetization schemes), so that removes one large barrier to entry?
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  It's certainly possible. We're approaching a generation of gamers that may have never actually had to spend on games, nor ask their parents to get them GTA for Christmas. That kind of market may never even consider the idea of buying a game outright, even when they do get dispoable income.
barnabee 2y ago
Multiplayer games are fun with people you already know. (In person LAN party optional but recommended.) Though so are plenty of single player games.
fourfour3 2y ago
I really enjoyed PvP and PvE shooters with my friend group in secondary school (that's 11 to 18 or so), but I don't get the same feeling with people I don't know. I do some occasionally with other friends but it's just not the same as it was then. My taste in games has changed too as I've gotten older - I find myself mostly playing a mix of older games, story rich RPGs and indie titles - eg things like Tyranny, Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, OpenTTD, Rimworld, Slay the Spire... twitchy FPS games just don't do it for me any more. So this article's main findings (the splits by age) definitely fits with me - I'm out of the <25 age group and have been for a while ;)
markx2 2y ago
This sums it up for me. "I Don't Want To Be A Product Of My Environment. I Want My Environment To Be A Product Of Me." Frank Costello - The Departed.
- mdp2021 2y ago
  Don't we all, here? Don't we (most of us) engineer? Is this still "Hacker" news? (Although I do not quite grasp the intended relation of the idea to gaming. I would say it's a matter of one's own private time with oneself, one's own rhythm...)
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >I do not quite grasp the intended relation of the idea to gaming MP games play on a server that updates to its desire. you like that cool gun? it can be nerfed tomorrow. Like this strategy? well, competitive gamers can hard counter it and kill you every time. you can "take a break" by getting a good night's rest and fall in rankings overnight. Single player games can be played on your time, your way, and (most) glitches/exploits you may find won't be patched out one day. Some games even added back in some glitches on behalf of speedrunners' requests. Even linear games can have you craft your own experience on what you did when and how you reacted. It's "your" experience. But a shared enough experience that everyone can relate and talk about it. a year 1 pvp meta may be ancient history to a year 3 meta. That's what I took out of it.
dfxm12 2y ago
My gaming time is split between online PVP fighting games (Street Fighter 6, Guilty Gear Strive) and single-player games (Elden Ring, Yakuza). If I had to pick one, I'd go with single player. The online experience is great compared to even a few years ago (when it wasn't acceptable), but not perfect in terms of loading times and lag.
- Novosell 2y ago
  A few years ago? People have been playing Counter Strike professionally for like 20 years.
  - dfxm12 2y ago
    I said I play Street Fighter, not Counter Strike. Netcode (needs and implementation) is actually not the same between all games.
    - Novosell 2y ago
      Seems the first Street Fighter game with rollback netcode was in 2008, another in 2011.[1] But perhaps the implementation was poor? I'm not a fighting game expert. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GGPO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GGPO
      - dfxm12 2y ago
        These were rereleases of fairly old games (i.e. niche titles, where most of the people were just playing on emulators). It's also not enough to have rollback netcode, it still needs to be implemented properly, the game needs to have good matchmaking, etc. These weren't new, mainstream releases.
        Novosell 2y ago
        Yeah that's fair. I've been playing some GG Strive recently and compared to how it used to be playing fighting games online, 50/50 you're either against a pleb or Leffen, it's been nice to have somewhat consistent matchmaking in terms of skill. It does fuck it up from time to time though.
thebeardisred 2y ago
IMHO because of toxic online interactions and a lack of couch co-op titles.
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
I wonder to what degree the business and bureaucratic dynamics of big-budget failed live-service games are similar to big-budget Hollywood flops. The people working on it day to day know that it's crap and will not succeed, but someone in the background[0] keeps pushing the project forward anyway. What's the disconnect? If dozens or hundreds of people intimately familiar with the project say it's no good, why don't you listen to them? [0] in my mind's eye, mustachioed, smoking a cigar, and fanning himself with hundred-dollar bills
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jayd16 2y ago
Does what the article is arguing make any sense? AAA studios cancelled some live service games and that means fewer single player games made. But it doesn't follow that the live service aspect is what killed the games. Games are cancelled all the time. And then saying there's an industry trend but what's brought up is how those games were cancelled, not brought down by the user sentiment of live services. And their data point is a 53% preference? It just seems poorly argued to me.
- calf 2y ago
  It's consultant bullshit research, not even doing proper science. For example it talks about the popularity of PvP--the actual argument it wants to say is, companies should develop single-player games because existing PvP games are locked in to an audience already. Which makes the title completely misleading and a clever/unscrupulous consultant might say such a sweeping statement to get access to companies' interest.
- Triphibian 2y ago
  The headline is a bit of a dogwhistle, capitalizing on deep held sentiment among gamers, that unfortunately doesn't bear out in the market. I think many have pointed out that there are excellent smaller single player indies, but the risk to create an expensive single-player only game has become too great for most developers. It is very similar to the current state of cinema -- where people say they prefer different kinds of or better movies, but they only reliably turn out for sequels and superhero movies. I think the mistake being made is instead of opting to build a cheaper, higher quality single player games they opt to created an expensive, AAA live service (for a minute they were calling them Destiny killers) -- which is a tough landing to stick. You'll notice that the success stories took long investments Fortnite's pivot from a grindy co-op game to a genre defining battle royale or maybe even Apex's stealth development and launch. Not long ago the consultancy GameDiscoverCo released a study that most people were playing OLD games. So the toughest competition for new single player games are classics like Skyrim. So the question these studios have to ask is "can I make a game that will get people to put down Skyrim or Civ V." That's a big ask.
  - 2y ago
oramit 2y ago
"Hitting a few singles and doubles beats trying to hit a home run and striking out." As game developers and publishers have consolidated into mega corps this line just isn't true anymore. You need a billion dollar game to move the corporate needle these days. It's a very similar dynamic to what has happened in Hollywood. All the mid-budget projects are being squeezed out and you either go very low budget/indie or you go huge budget and swing for the fences. There is no career reward in the current corporate marketplace for modest wins.
Terretta 2y ago
We prefer same/shared screen co-op (Diablo 3 and 4, A Way Out, etc.), and story campaign PvE co-op (e.g. Wildlands, BG3). Shared screen co-op is annoyingly difficult to find since "couch co-op" doesn't differentiate split screen versus shared screen and we strongly dislike split screen. Story co-op is increasingly difficult to find. When you do find them, they tend to be less campaign or story and more "repeated encounter" scenarios (e.g., Insurgent). There is nothing like the strategically deliberate plan and work together pace of Wildlands since Wildlands. Worse, recent co-op campaign games tend to be add-on modes to PvP, meaning you have to contend with ridiculous "balance" boosts and nerfs so nothing works like it should if it was a single player game. PvE should not be "balanced" this way.
- solardev 2y ago
  If you liked BG3, have you tried the Divinity Original Sin series by the same studio? They're even better in co-op IMO and not being limited to the D&D rules makes combat more fun and dynamic.
- xnorswap 2y ago
  If you didn't already try "It Takes Two" then you owe it to yourselves to try, although I don't know off the top of my head if it's playable as shared-screen. It definitely ticks the "co-op story" game box though, and is overall a great game.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  Some co-ops are very confusing to me. Like for Pikmin where in the later editions there were multiple main characters on the field that you could switch between. How was there not a local co-op where each player could use a main character?
tombert 2y ago
Most of my gaming now is honestly FreeCell on my phone, but if we want to talk about what "gamers" would consider games, the only time I really enjoy multiplayer is if I'm playing with actual friends. I never really had much enjoyment with playing with strangers on the internet. Most of them are much better at these games than I am, and it's just way too stressful. I also have some hesitation trash-talking total strangers, but I'm perfectly fine doing that with close friends.
al_borland 2y ago
I think the push for multiplayer games made me quit gaming about 10-15 years ago. It was only in the last couple years that the new Zelda games got me back into it, which are single player. I will sometimes play multiplayer games with my nephews, but would always prefer to play by myself. If I'm playing a game I want it to be fun and not stressful. When everything is a competition, it's stressful. There's not letting up, no lazy laps... you have to try to win. They often want me to play Minecraft with them. I "forget" to bring my laptop a lot. When I played Minecraft in the past it was always on peaceful and I'd just build stuff. It was a giant sandbox of digital legos for me, or I'd try and make weird stuff with redstone. They have all these monsters turned on, want to go into these boss battles, and they never give me any weapons (and disable my ability to get my own) so I just die over and over again trying to run from things with no defenses. It's awful. Half the time I just stop playing and stare the the screen, like wtf do you want me to do here... I'm sure the industry hates the idea that most people prefer single players games, because then they can't justify their online services, so they are incentivized to push multiplayer games and make people think that's what they like.
- spacecadet 2y ago
  LOL your nephews are trolls.
  - al_borland 2y ago
    For sure... The one was being a jerk, so I was just threw it right back at him and started destroying the whole settlement he built. Emptying his chests into lava breaking down walls... to see how he likes playing with a griefer. It was somewhat effective.
    - jerf 2y ago
      Minecraft has the distinction of being the only game I've played with my kids where I still felt like a parent even in the game. It wasn't even just policing "bad behavior", sometimes I had to run around covering over the ravines so they wouldn't fall in, because then I had to go rescue them. Now they're older and I still had to sometimes go rescue them after they made an ill-considered journey without supplying well enough in advance. I'm not complaining per se. It's just interesting that the game is able to have that dynamic in it. They're older now, it's much less of an issue, but I still mandate that PvP stays off at all times. Though it is a useful lesson in the mechanics of escalation, I suppose. (Specifically, you always value harm to yourself more than you value harm to others, even your family, so when someone does "1" damage to you, you perceive it as "2", then you try to retaliate with "2" damage but they perceive it as "4" damage for the same reason, and now you're stuck in an escalating loop. There are ways out of this loop, of course, but it takes time. This rather simple model explains a rather distressing amount of international politics and history....)
bitfilped 2y ago
Something else I haven't seen mentioned in the comments yet is the rapid pace of AAA title acquisitions by players. I never played as many games as my "gamer" friends, but over the last several years the pace that people pick up and put down games is staggering. Most of my friends will have acquired, played and stopped playing 4-6 games in the time it takes me to get to the oldest one in the current cycle (at which point there are no friends left who are willing to play with.)
- sandspar 2y ago
  Microsoft at least is heading towards a "Netflix for games" streaming model, which gives players very low switching costs between games in the Xbox GamePass market. I pay ~$20 per month and have rental access to a group of AAA games that would cost $1,000's to purchase.
asdff 2y ago
Single player games are always how they were, you are running local software after all. If anything they get better with time with bug fixes and community mod ecosystems that continue to improve and overhaul the experience. Multiplayer games are of course not strictly local software, but their experience extends beyond software itself into forming an abstract community of people. You might come on to a multiplayer game and enjoy it for a time, but its in its nature that this community will shift. The casuals move on to newer titles that have all the other casuals on it now. The greybeards left playing halo 3 today are total sweats now who stomp you every time you have a happy memory of getting a killstreak 15 years ago and foolishly open master chief collection.
- falcolas 2y ago
  > Single player games are always how they were, you are running local software after all. Balance fixes (yes, in single player games) show that this is not always the case. Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring have both had several gameplay tactics nerfed.
  - asdff 2y ago
    That sometimes happens but at the end of the day its on you to actually patch the single player game. No one forces your hand except on console, you can still earn steam achievements on old game versions i believe.
haunter 2y ago
Interestingly they don't mention singleplayer online games which are my favorites. MTG, Hearthstone, Street Fighter, Tekken etc
- recursive 2y ago
  All the games in your list are multiplayer games though.
  - haunter 2y ago
    In my mind a multiplayer game is where I need other players to play together. WoW, Counter Strike, League of Legends etc. In Hearthstone, MTG, SF etc I play alone, single player, against someone who might as well be a bot
    - recursive 2y ago
      If it was really single player, you could pause it. That's the easiest way to tell the difference. I prefer single player games. By which I mean games with a single player. Redefining it to mean something else just makes it harder to communicate IMO.
charlie0 2y ago
I just really miss split screen.
koshergweilo 2y ago
An obvious explanation for why publishers overwhelming focus on multiplayer titles despite consumer demand is that multiplayer games are much harder to pirate
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Maybe? Seems like more and more publishers are trying to sneak in a required internet connection for single player.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Everyone is trying to build AAAA "live service" games because fortnite and friends made a gazillion dollars. They did that by essentially being a very new experience (no, shitty arma mods do not count, they were so clunky you have to be a special kind of patient and weird to enjoy them), so everyone tried it, and that meant they could capture almost any whale, and Epic eventually figured out you could milk literal children and whales for all of their money, because kids will bully each other into buying freaking character skins that used to be just an unlockable or option in multiplayer gaming The problem is that, to properly milk the whales, you have to follow specific strategies that encourage their "I'm better than you because I paid $100 instead of wasting 100 hours" mentality, which means you have to make it suck to not be a whale so that the whales can feel so superior, and to help drive potential whales into entering their payment info and becoming milkable whales. That means that non-whale players, the majority, have to treat the game as a part time job just to keep up with released content (which is partially enforced by the game or community) or else just not get to experience the majority of the game. The game requires more effort per unit of "fun" you want to experience because it has to in order to trigger the whale catching effects. However, most people only have time in their life for one of these part time jobs, including the whales, which means the market is fixed. There's only enough player time and whale money to support a small, fixed number of these games. That's why they keep failing, there are strong network effects, and nobody wants to "invest" in a new game.
emilfihlman 2y ago
I mean yeah, when you make multiplayer too clean it becomes less fun.
jkubicek 2y ago
I want to start, pause and stop my game at any point and this isn't compatible with a real-time multiplayer game.
- drdaeman 2y ago
  That's not even compatible with a lot of single-player games that only allow to stop at checkpoints (because developers are lazy).
  - scruple 2y ago
    FWIW, the Switch has this and so does the SteamDeck. I'm a father of 3, 5 year old twins and a 3 year old, so it's the killer feature for me on my SteamDeck.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    depends on the game, to be honest. Resident's Evil tension would be demolished if you could save in the middle of battle, or right before you turn a corner. But also yes, modern consoles do have a suspend feature. PC's can't do it as easily because of various Windows API issues, I assume.
    - indrora 2y ago
      Apathy by developers, really. The Xbox One and above are a really funny shaped Windows machine with HyperV underneath.
    - drdaeman 2y ago
      Well, anything can be ruined by a pause at a bad moment, but it’s great when each individual player can decide for themselves whenever their circumstances require interruption at the cost of potential experience disruption, or not. I think it’s less about player experience, though, but more about save system complexity (how much data needs to be persisted), aka lower dev costs.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
rasse 2y ago
The problem with most perpetual multiplayer games is that they are potentially limitless time sinks. They are often inherently addictive with no natural end or resolution to them. Of course there are single player games that do this too, so it's not the only differentiator. In contrast, single player campaigns (or co-op campaigns for that matter) are often story driven. They have a beginning and an end. They offer catharsis. If it's good, you may play through it again, but it will end eventually.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Yeah, different taste. You can see a few here argue that $60 for a single player game is not worth the value. Some want that sink to come back to and sink a few hours into. Some are pretty free upfront, so their monetary investment can even be $0, amortized by whales.
skizm 2y ago
My brain has a switch. I either want to try-hard or I want to relax. Try hard mode means I'm playing competitive multiplayer (cs2 is my current poison). Relax mode means I'm playing something single-player and easy. Unfortunately, this makes it so I pretty much can't play dark souls, souls-likes, or any other single player games that advertise as "hard". When I'm in relax mode, I have zero desire to run my head against a wall over and over just to continue a story or world exploration. I wish more games had a mode like "Another Crab's Treasure" where you can simply press a button to kill the boss (there's an option to "give Kril a gun" in the settings).
- ryandrake 2y ago
  > When I'm in relax mode, I have zero desire to run my head against a wall over and over just to continue a story or world exploration. Exactly. Real life has enough "repeated failure despite best effort." Why would I want more of it in a video game I play for enjoyment?
throw7 2y ago
When I got Batman Arkham Asylum it had Games for Windows Live required. I didn't want an account online or "live" scoreboard, at the time you could choose local only as an option. Imagine my surpise when GfWL lost all my save games halfway through. Why? Who knows. Maybe an GfWL update? Maybe a game update? I severely reduced my gaming after that and have been adamant for true standalone games only (thank you GOG games). Note: I do not mind multiplayer online games. I have been known to play DDO (Dungeons & Dragons Online) off and on.
cpersona 2y ago
I've spent a lot of time lately playing a game called Ravenfield. It has replaced CS2 as my main game. The graphics are bad, it's purely single player, the AI is not great, but it allows for large scale battles with none of the pain of playing against other people. Mods are free and there are tons, with new ones created weekly. No need to pay for upgrades or game packs or seasons or crates.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Ravenfield is silly fun. The slowmo is so great for power fantasies. An extremely old build (that still demonstrates the core gameplay) is available on itch.io if anyone is unsure that they might like it. The dev is doing some weird anime campaign that they seem to be heavily invested in, but I don't really care. I paid for the game I wanted long ago.
- nine_k 2y ago
  What do you mean "graphics are bad" in Ravenfield? It's not photorealistic, but it's a game. Tetris is also not photorealistic. But it's a great game about plastic soldier figures using plastic toy battle gear to play an actual plastic war.
tonymet 2y ago
multi-player is more competitive. single-player is more about the story & mechanics. they are complimentary and distinct genres of games. I'm in my 40s and don't put in the effort to be competitive in multiplayer games. I have great admiration for the developers and the players who participate.
wiradikusuma 2y ago
Maybe because I'm old (and have a job and a family), but I don't like online games because of availability issues. If I'm playing online, I prefer to play with my friends (not strangers). Arranging time so everyone is available is very difficult. I do miss LAN parties.
atum47 2y ago
Hey, if I wanted to socialize I'd go outside, am I right?!
lencastre 2y ago
I find turn based board games on BGA to be the best compromise.
pjmlp 2y ago
Indeed, at max I would go for a split screen in some games, but that is about it.
physicsguy 2y ago
Most gamers are casual and are over the age of 20 and can’t dedicate hours of their lives to maintaining a decent standard in online play
misiek08 2y ago
Funny, because 70-80% of my friends prefer multiplayer, because you just can spend time together, talking and playing.
flashgordon 2y ago
Please just give me back my OG mass effect, og warcraft, StarCraft, monkey islands, kings quests that I can play on my own and has a good story. I don't want of the crappy mmo nonsense. One can dream!
- xanathar 2y ago
  ... There are plenty of those kind of games being sold and developed, though. I only play single player stuff and have a backlog that just keeps increasing, I can't keep with the pace. They aren't the most publicized AAA titles though (BG3 probably bring an exception given its popularity, and the Zeldas thanks to Nintendo). It's just like music, where there's plenty of good one being made, but can't be found anywhere close to the top 10 hits or on radio (at least, for the kind of music I like). So yeah... One can dream, but the dream is, for once, alive (mostly thanks to GoG, Steam and Humble).
medvezhenok 2y ago
I'm an early-internet player, but I used to really enjoy games like KingsOfChaos, Outwar, Neopets and Runescape (OG version, or 2007 reboot). It sounds weird, and not what most people would consider as "gaming" but all of those were a mix of solo & coop since they had a social aspect but totally playable alone (well, KingsOfChaos would be kind of silly to play alone). It seems like only the OG runescape still has some sort of following, the other ones died out (there was a different one with space ships and planets and power levels, but I forget the name - same principle as Outwar and KingsOfChaos). There was also a Russian one based on the Dozory universe (Night Watch) by Sergey Lukianenko (one of my favorite authors), but that mostly turned into a cash grab which is a bummer because it's one of the coolest game concepts out there - it has been my dream that someone actually makes that game.
BigParm 2y ago
The competitive shooters have been destroyed by cheaters. In the long term, and even the short term, cheats beat anticheat. That's why co-ops like Helldivers 2 are popular now.
dcchambers 2y ago
Many reasons for this: Online gaming used to be about having fun. And while those communities definitely still exist, the landscape is dominated by "competitive" gaming that brings out the worst in people. The relentless pushing of "battle passes," in-gaming loot crate gambling, and in-game upgrades using real-life money from game publishers. There's also the whole "you can't pause real life" thing. Much easier to play online when you're young and don't have real responsibilities - but that's not a luxury most adults have.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  and sadly many reasons industry will continue to chase multiplayer. - higher spending cap. for minimal effort you can refresh battle passes and other monetization post launch. Making DLC for a single player game still takes effort to design and polish. And despite online protest, a lot of people clearly buy these. - longevity. Single player games have the same curves as ever where they make big sales in the first few months and peter out to a trickle by the time it's out for a year. And these are games that take multiple years to make at the AAA level.a successful MP game can run for years and merely iterate instead of re-invent entire campaigns and character designs. - external events/ads. some top games try to do an e-sports gauntlet to engage people and further cement their brand. they can release 3rd party skins to bring up player numbers. They can benefit more from streamers. At best, a SP game can try some collaboration content, which is much larger scale and may not create much buzz.
lucasfdacunha 2y ago
Since this became a big topic here about gaming which is rare, I'll plug side project of mine. I publish a weekly gaming newsletter called The Gaming Pub (https://www.thegamingpub.com/ https://www.thegamingpub.com/) similar to the Hacker Newsletter. I curated an assortment of links with the most important news and other topics from the gaming world (I'll include this link in tomorrow's issue). If you are interested and don't have the time to catch up with a bunch of gaming-related content (news, reviews, articles, etc) take a look at my newsletter, it might be something that is a good fit for you. https://www.thegamingpub.com/ https://www.thegamingpub.com/ Thanks!
valbaca 2y ago
No, we prefer single-player games that also have couch-coop but couch-coop games died.
spacemadness 2y ago
And almost all single-player games have a loud and obnoxious crowd demanding multi-player.
decafninja 2y ago
I don’t game at all these days. I think the last games I played were Overwatch and LoL around 2018. Speaking as my 2018 self, I grew quickly bored of single player games and felt most were not worth the money. Pay $60 and maybe get a week or two’s worth of entertainment. I was never into replaying static content or grinding for meaningless badges or trophies. Meanwhile multiplayer games have significantly more dynamic playtime for the money. I can’t speak for the state of gaming in 2024 though.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Yeah, nowadays people like you are amortized by people paying hundreds for skins. So it's basically a win-win if you aren't tempted to spend on battle passes or skins or whatnot. But that causes more outrage on social media, even though the wisdom statistics state that the top 10% spenders can make up half the revenue of a game.
t0bia_s 2y ago
Online games are like DRM. You need third party servers and internet connection to run it. You can lose your profile if provider/developer choose it. You are forced to accept every updates. Chances, that you'll deal with problems and unwilling changes are higher than just start an offline single-player game. That's why I buy games exclusively on gog.com.

171 points by omnibrain 2y ago

I have a crippling addiction to competitive FPS games unfortunately.

ddmf 2y ago

I'm actually considering going back to world of warcraft because some of the new features allow you to experience the previously multiplayer required portions on your own.

senectus1 2y ago

I dont often have time for multiplayer games.. they require time at the same time as others, they are also not the sort of thing you can pause while you go stir dinner or take the bins out or whatever is actually more important.

olliej 2y ago

My feeling is that there are basically three reasons for the focus on multiplayer: * cheap out on development: essentially just have a few low detail maps that people play constantly * people want to look “unique” so you can charge them for near-zero-cost assets * people don’t complain when you say “must have an internet connection” All of which are garbage reasons to me and just mean fewer good games, and less reason to buy them (I’m uninterested in buying a game if it is just going to stop working in a year because they’re no longer selling it). If I want to be subject to swearing and shitty behavior is just become a high school teacher.

The_Stone 2y ago
Add to this the appeal of a live service model: * Committed playerbase that stays around for a long time * Dev time focused on making new assets and gamemodes etc. rather than needing to develop entire new games * Designed with an intentional grind (leveling systems, battle passes, random drop chances) which slows down player progression to acquire before-mentioned aesthetic items or even mechanically important upgrades, can provide shortcuts via payment Of course, new live services are sinking now because each one depends on attention economy. If potential players are already committed to a different live service, they don't have the time or interest to re-commit to some other new one. We've been watching for years now as major companies sink millions into games that are DOA because they never actually had an audience willing to commit to yet another major continuing time investment that these games represent.
cdchn 2y ago
I think the real reason for focus on multiplayer is that it keeps the game fresh without things that are really half-baked like procedural world gen. That drives engagement- keeping people playing- which gives companies more opportunities to sell microtransactions, skins, etc.

GiorgioG 2y ago

I'm probably in the minority, as I've gotten older, I no longer enjoy single player games. I'd say most gamers have gotten pretty pissed off that we're paying for AAA titles and then still being bombarded on a game-by-game basis for battle passes (basically add-on subscriptions).

SV_BubbleTime 2y ago
Stop playing AAA. Subnautica, Outer Wilds, Hollow Knight, Hades, Tunic / Death’s Door… Indie is where it’s at man. The only AAA I’ve loved in years was Red Dead 2… my horse :(
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  You don't even have to go full indie. There are plenty of amazing games that are maybe best described as AA instead of AAA. Let me start by recommending most of Nintendo's catalog.
  - Narhem 2y ago
    Quicker games that can be easily put down and picked back up and don’t break the bank. Nintendo catered to their audience as the company grew.
  - mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
    This is a my-taste thing more than a their-quality thing, but it's been literal years since I've enjoyed a Nintendo-platform-exclusive title if you exclude any that were from a famous franchise that's old enough to drink good scotch. I don't have that same problem with PlayStation - there are loads of great games in between the Horizon/GOW/etc. prestige releases.
    - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
      I've tried, but I just don't enjoy the PS-style "prestige" games. I want my games to above all be fun, and I just don't find the gameplay loop of the Horizons/GoWs/etc. to be very engaging. It always seems like there is more emphasis on the production values than in making sure the player is having a good time. I own a PS5, and the absolute most fun I've had on the system is Astro Bot, followed closely by Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart. Everything else I've enjoyed has either been a PS4 game or an indie game.

Ensorceled 2y ago

I think a lot of players are also tired of games that are only fun with in-app purchases. I avoid any game now that has in-app purchases because it might be a great game where you can buy fancy hats but why would I waste any time trying to find that rare gem amidst all the pay-2-win sewage out there.

behringer 2y ago
"But it's only cosmetics!" Is the cry of the developer. Nope. I nope out of any of that. No DMing, no chats? No thanks. Why play a social game you can't socialize in? Hackers and trolls? There's zero tools for fighting them and you can't host yourself. It's no wonder most gamers prefer single player, there's hardly any fun multi-player games.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  TBF, most mobile games do indeed have chat/dm's. I'm guessing the console games don't do that because it's a logistical nightmare. A sentiment much rarer in Eastern cultures for whatever reason.
reginald78 2y ago
Real life is pay2win so I have no idea why I would want more of that as an escape. The worst part is with constant updates you can buy a game and then have it changed into pay2win later. At least with single player you might be able to keep playing the old version.
- swores 2y ago
  > Real life is pay2win so I have no idea why I would want more of that as an escape. I dislike pay2win, but the logic behind that sentence could be used to rule out lots, maybe even the majority, of games.., Not just things like Eurotruck Simulator or Farming Sim or whatever, but games in general tend to be "more of what yo get in real life, but altered". From sports games to car racing to battles fought with weapons... people do find simulated reality to be a good escape.

jderick 2y ago

It's a lot harder to make a single player game have depth and complexity than it is for a multi player game, since you don't have human opponents.

Semaphor 2y ago
I’d say it’s the opposite. But you are probably talking about depth of combat skill, while I’m talking about depth of writing and story.
wbobeirne 2y ago
I think it's highly dependent on the type of game. Games that involve planning and strategy like Slay the Spire or Factorio have enormous depth despite being single player. But I think that it's hard to make the actual execution of mechanics as fun or deep against computer opponents.
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
Single player is a different kind of experience, and no less valuable. You might as well say > It's a lot harder to make a book have depth and complexity than it is for going to a party, since you don't have human conversation partners. It depends on the book and the party. Similarly, maybe there is more depth and complexity to Dwarf Fortress than there is to Rocket League. (Not to pick on RL in particular, it is just the first thing that came to mind.)
al_borland 2y ago
I'd say Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom had a lot of depth. There was a ton of stuff to do. I have 340 hours into Tears of the Kingdom and hit 100% on the map, but there are still things I haven't done and stuff to explore and try. I find they also have a high replay value, since they are so open and there are nearly infinite ways to solve the various puzzles, traverse the world, or engage in the various battles... or don't. I once started up a new BotW game to see how far I could get without actually fighting anything.

ahartmetz 2y ago

Almost all multi-player gaming is competitive and involves dealing with occasional (or frequent, depending on the game) jerks. If I want stress and occasional jerks, I can just do things in the real world. Single-player gaming is more comfy.

deleted 2y ago
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jsheard 2y ago
Multiplayer has also been taken over by free2play skinner box design, so if you want games that aren't designed to waste your time with unfun but addictive gameplay loops and/or nickel-and-dime you to death then singleplayer is the last bastion.
- mtndew4brkfst 2y ago
  nickel-and-dime you to death then singleplayer is the last bastion. We still get our fair share of season passes and day one DLCs, so it's not total immunity.
huevosabio 2y ago
It also removes a lot of the immersion. For example, I love Civ but playing with people shatters a lot of the day-dreaming.
acomjean 2y ago
There are some which are more casual. My partner plays fornite. She's got a group she games with, and half the talking is about the game the other half is basically a catch up session with a game in the background. there was a game called "Journey" where there where other players in the world, but you couldn't interact directly. They'd help you. I think elden ring did something similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(2012_video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_(2012_video_game)
- bobthepanda 2y ago

lispisok 2y ago

Maybe I'm just old and washed but it seems like kids these days take multiplayer games way more seriously. Instead of hopping on and playing a few games after school/work people act more like they are trying to make the college sports team. The amount of time and effort required to hold you own has gone up dramatically.

dylan604 2y ago
Because they are, at least some of them. E-sports has opportunity for making money in ways that some people are never going to have. There's also the entire ability of streaming and earning by doing that stuff. Game promoters paying out to have IAPs pushed as well. All of this never existed in mine or your days when our parents just knew that video games would ruin us with no way of making money in them. Even the dream of becoming a game developer wasn't even a thing.
- spondylosaurus 2y ago
  You know those after-school math tutoring academies that pop up in American strip malls? One of those opened up near me, but instead of grilling your kids in calc or trig to improve their SAT scores, it's an "esports academy" for young hopefuls.
- nonameiguess 2y ago
  I think there's more going on culturally than just that. Regular sports got more competitive at a younger age, too, and there has always been the possibility of going pro and earning money from it, plus college scholarships.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    That's just progression of the world. The first video game was a simple thing like Pong. Now, we have entire immersive 3D worlds. Someone/something is always the first, but those that come after will/can be bigger, better, faster. The first mass produced car was a Model-T, now we have Mustangs, GTXs, Porsches, blah blah.
2y ago

mattw2121 2y ago

I love playing multi-player games when there is a well built economy. Frankly, that economy doesn't even need to be built into the game. I've played multi-player games where the marketplace was outside the game (but still all done with in-game items). What I hate about multi-player is when you have to play the game with others to be successful (exceptions made for those very few big bosses). I'm mostly a MMORPG player. I don't want to be in a clan or guild. I don't want to find other people to play with. I just want to log on whenever I want and play for as long or as little as I want. But, I want to be able to buy stuff in an economy.

Semaphor 2y ago

I played MP when I was younger (even MMOs, played WoW in the first year), but nowadays, it’s all single player. Stellaris, Civ V, and the two Owlcat Pathfinder Games (Wrath of the Righteous, which I was playing when I saw the link, and Kingmaker) are my main games where I have over 1k hours each, but I also play many other single player games. I don’t like always having to push myself to the max, or interacting with random internet people when I want to enjoy myself.

dwighttk 2y ago

Multi player co op or single player in that order… there is no 3

mway 2y ago

As a lifelong and avid gamer, multiplayer games - in my experience, at least - typically trend toward highly toxic, abusive, sometimes degenerate behavior. Communities in which this does not happen seem to be quite rare (I can't recall one offhand). Trolling is rampant, cheating/exploitation is normal, and elitism is pervasive. It really takes the fun out of games. These days, I generally avoid games that are multiplayer-only, and for games with multiplayer elements, I try to avoid those and focus on single-player elements instead. It could be selection bias based on my gaming preferences, of course, but based on feedback I've heard from others who play games that I do not, it seems to be largely the same everywhere multiplayer is involved.

Borg3 2y ago
You can also add DDoS to the list too. Ive been long DooM player but I stepped back due to above crap and DDoSes on my servers. Now I play mostly offline, ocassioanlly spawning server for friends only.
3np 2y ago
> It could be selection bias based on my gaming preferences Major factor IME. If you're playing any AAA or one of the top-10-or so FPSes or MOBAs, sure. Hanging out with friends when they're playing online multiplayer less in-fashion older and indie games: Very little of that if any, there. I'm with you, but to make a (competely arbitrary) parallel: It's possible to love R&B music but still have a miserable time when you go to a concert with The Weeknd because you don't vibe with the crowd and you think the party sucks. That doesn't mean you can't have a good time going out to live shows in general and find parties you enjoy with people you vibe with. Similarly, I love clubbing but have absolutely 0 interest going to any of the major couple of venues that catch the bigger crowds in town. Doesn't mean the party scene is dead.
maltyr 2y ago
In my experience, ONE thing will cause a game to trend towards toxicity - higher stakes. The more "important" the win or loss feels to the player, the more toxicity shows up. It's pretty easy to filter out "toxic" games if you filter out anything which has a ranked mode and is not designed to be played infinitely. Unfortunately, games in the online era have trended in that direction, because they are the most profitable. For example, some variables that affect toxicity: - competitiveness, often implemented by sort of ranked system, but also just any sort of head-to-head competition. Tournaments and betting will do this as well. - longer investment (via playtimes, either of a single "run" or in total) - people won't get mad at a 5-10 minute game as much as a 1 hour game. Games as a service like MMOs where people have 1000s of hours of playtime are the extreme end of this. - punishing gameplay, where a mistake can cause you to lose a lot of progress (Hardcore modes where dying means you have to restart your character, for example) - tone (casual vs serious tone, e.g. Fall Guys vs Call of Duty) - More serious generally results in more toxicity. Adjusting these variables can even turn a single player game into a toxic one (e.g. self-imposed challenges/achievements, Dark Souls, Jump King or Getting Over It). Similarly, you can lower the stakes so that the gameplay doesn't devolve into toxicity, even with multiplayer (e.g. Animal Crossing)

jauntywundrkind 2y ago

Small squad coop is a pretty excellent option. Helldivers 2 was super popular for a good reason; all the upsides of hanging out with a couple others folks and having a ridiculous time, facing absurd monsters. Warhammer Vermintide & Darktide lack the open level design but have similar upsides. I do think multiplayer is super hard to make broadly rewarding. High skill players quickly come to dominate, often in brutal ways. I enjoyed some Star Wars: Battlefront 2 but man, a couple players who knows what they are doing rack up kills quick to earn a hero character respawn, & can often just own the heck out of most players quite well. Figuring out how you can drop good experiences for medium & low skill players is super hard.

ryandrake 2y ago

I used to like multi-player shooters, when I was young and had infinite time to devote to "git gud." I also played games for the challenge back then. Now that I'm old, I don't have infinite time to upskill, and I mostly play games to relax and unwind after work. I specifically don't want a challenge. Unfortunately, every multi-player first person shooter seems to be geared towards (and infested with) sweaty professional gamers who do nothing but practice, and of course they wipe the floor with me. Game companies try to solve this with so-called "skill based matchmaking[1]" which purports to match you with other players of similar skill, but I've never seen it actually work. Every game is full of sweats who somehow have cracked SBMM so that they get into games with less-skilled players like me and punch way below their weight. I wish games would just go back to letting the user choose their own difficulty level. Sad that that's kind of gone out of fashion. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill-based_matchmaking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skill-based_matchmaking

solardev 2y ago
Are you only interested in PVP? The PVE shooters can be a lot more chill (Destiny, Division, Borderlands, Remnant, etc.) If you get a friend or two together who don't mind oldies, the old Tom Clancy games (Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell) are a blast to play through in coop too.
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Will have to try them. I like shooters, but I prefer to play against push-over AI bots instead of 13 year old pro humans. I guess that's what PVE means.
  - solardev 2y ago
    > I guess that's what PVE means. Well, sort of. PvE just means "player vs environment", a holdover/loan word from MMOs where that was the default, vs being able to attack other players in PvP areas. When applied to shooters, though, typically it means that the game was designed around asymmetric battles between players and AI enemies. Asymmetric means that the enemies aren't just bots taking the place of humans, with the same rules, weapons, health, etc. Instead, they are usually a mix of different enemy types... easy to kill grunts, the occasional sniper, the melee berserker, and of course the "bullet sponge" bosses that take forever to kill and feel more like old MMO raids than a normal opponent in a shooter. They're not meant to simulate real players (even shitty ones), but to give more of a feel of a traditional video game campaign. For like the super-boiled-down version of this, Serious Sam is just endless hordes of enemy types running at you. A more modern take would be the roguelite shooter genre, like Risk of Rain 2 or Gunfire Reborn, which offers only endless combat and not much else. The other titles I mentioned usually have some sort of story and some form of permanent progression in the form of new weapons, abilities, etc. If that isn't what you want, then yeah, it's bots in regular PvP shooters that you'll have to look for :( I think they are relatively rare these days, but you can still play the old Unreal Tournaments, Quakes, Doom, etc.

cool_dude85 2y ago

While I don't doubt that this is true, it also seems like the very biggest games at a given time tend to be multi-player. DOTA, Fortnite, WoW were all so genre-definingly huge that there are lists of copycats a mile long. Maybe the only comparable single-player-only game I can think of, in the last 20 or so years at least, is Dead Souls / Dark Souls.

jerjerjer 2y ago

Can an apparent preference for Online PvP amongst 16-19 age cohort be explained by a lack of disposable income? Online PvP games are often free (with different monetization schemes), so that removes one large barrier to entry?

johnnyanmac 2y ago
It's certainly possible. We're approaching a generation of gamers that may have never actually had to spend on games, nor ask their parents to get them GTA for Christmas. That kind of market may never even consider the idea of buying a game outright, even when they do get dispoable income.

barnabee 2y ago

Multiplayer games are fun with people you already know. (In person LAN party optional but recommended.) Though so are plenty of single player games.

fourfour3 2y ago

I really enjoyed PvP and PvE shooters with my friend group in secondary school (that's 11 to 18 or so), but I don't get the same feeling with people I don't know. I do some occasionally with other friends but it's just not the same as it was then. My taste in games has changed too as I've gotten older - I find myself mostly playing a mix of older games, story rich RPGs and indie titles - eg things like Tyranny, Baldur's Gate 3, Disco Elysium, OpenTTD, Rimworld, Slay the Spire... twitchy FPS games just don't do it for me any more. So this article's main findings (the splits by age) definitely fits with me - I'm out of the <25 age group and have been for a while ;)

markx2 2y ago

This sums it up for me. "I Don't Want To Be A Product Of My Environment. I Want My Environment To Be A Product Of Me." Frank Costello - The Departed.

mdp2021 2y ago
Don't we all, here? Don't we (most of us) engineer? Is this still "Hacker" news? (Although I do not quite grasp the intended relation of the idea to gaming. I would say it's a matter of one's own private time with oneself, one's own rhythm...)
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >I do not quite grasp the intended relation of the idea to gaming MP games play on a server that updates to its desire. you like that cool gun? it can be nerfed tomorrow. Like this strategy? well, competitive gamers can hard counter it and kill you every time. you can "take a break" by getting a good night's rest and fall in rankings overnight. Single player games can be played on your time, your way, and (most) glitches/exploits you may find won't be patched out one day. Some games even added back in some glitches on behalf of speedrunners' requests. Even linear games can have you craft your own experience on what you did when and how you reacted. It's "your" experience. But a shared enough experience that everyone can relate and talk about it. a year 1 pvp meta may be ancient history to a year 3 meta. That's what I took out of it.

dfxm12 2y ago

My gaming time is split between online PVP fighting games (Street Fighter 6, Guilty Gear Strive) and single-player games (Elden Ring, Yakuza). If I had to pick one, I'd go with single player. The online experience is great compared to even a few years ago (when it wasn't acceptable), but not perfect in terms of loading times and lag.

Novosell 2y ago
A few years ago? People have been playing Counter Strike professionally for like 20 years.
- dfxm12 2y ago
  I said I play Street Fighter, not Counter Strike. Netcode (needs and implementation) is actually not the same between all games.
  - Novosell 2y ago
    Seems the first Street Fighter game with rollback netcode was in 2008, another in 2011.[1] But perhaps the implementation was poor? I'm not a fighting game expert. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GGPO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GGPO
    - dfxm12 2y ago
      These were rereleases of fairly old games (i.e. niche titles, where most of the people were just playing on emulators). It's also not enough to have rollback netcode, it still needs to be implemented properly, the game needs to have good matchmaking, etc. These weren't new, mainstream releases.
      - Novosell 2y ago
        Yeah that's fair. I've been playing some GG Strive recently and compared to how it used to be playing fighting games online, 50/50 you're either against a pleb or Leffen, it's been nice to have somewhat consistent matchmaking in terms of skill. It does fuck it up from time to time though.

thebeardisred 2y ago

IMHO because of toxic online interactions and a lack of couch co-op titles.

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

I wonder to what degree the business and bureaucratic dynamics of big-budget failed live-service games are similar to big-budget Hollywood flops. The people working on it day to day know that it's crap and will not succeed, but someone in the background[0] keeps pushing the project forward anyway. What's the disconnect? If dozens or hundreds of people intimately familiar with the project say it's no good, why don't you listen to them? [0] in my mind's eye, mustachioed, smoking a cigar, and fanning himself with hundred-dollar bills

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jayd16 2y ago

Does what the article is arguing make any sense? AAA studios cancelled some live service games and that means fewer single player games made. But it doesn't follow that the live service aspect is what killed the games. Games are cancelled all the time. And then saying there's an industry trend but what's brought up is how those games were cancelled, not brought down by the user sentiment of live services. And their data point is a 53% preference? It just seems poorly argued to me.

calf 2y ago
It's consultant bullshit research, not even doing proper science. For example it talks about the popularity of PvP--the actual argument it wants to say is, companies should develop single-player games because existing PvP games are locked in to an audience already. Which makes the title completely misleading and a clever/unscrupulous consultant might say such a sweeping statement to get access to companies' interest.
Triphibian 2y ago
The headline is a bit of a dogwhistle, capitalizing on deep held sentiment among gamers, that unfortunately doesn't bear out in the market. I think many have pointed out that there are excellent smaller single player indies, but the risk to create an expensive single-player only game has become too great for most developers. It is very similar to the current state of cinema -- where people say they prefer different kinds of or better movies, but they only reliably turn out for sequels and superhero movies. I think the mistake being made is instead of opting to build a cheaper, higher quality single player games they opt to created an expensive, AAA live service (for a minute they were calling them Destiny killers) -- which is a tough landing to stick. You'll notice that the success stories took long investments Fortnite's pivot from a grindy co-op game to a genre defining battle royale or maybe even Apex's stealth development and launch. Not long ago the consultancy GameDiscoverCo released a study that most people were playing OLD games. So the toughest competition for new single player games are classics like Skyrim. So the question these studios have to ask is "can I make a game that will get people to put down Skyrim or Civ V." That's a big ask.
- 2y ago

oramit 2y ago

"Hitting a few singles and doubles beats trying to hit a home run and striking out." As game developers and publishers have consolidated into mega corps this line just isn't true anymore. You need a billion dollar game to move the corporate needle these days. It's a very similar dynamic to what has happened in Hollywood. All the mid-budget projects are being squeezed out and you either go very low budget/indie or you go huge budget and swing for the fences. There is no career reward in the current corporate marketplace for modest wins.

Terretta 2y ago

We prefer same/shared screen co-op (Diablo 3 and 4, A Way Out, etc.), and story campaign PvE co-op (e.g. Wildlands, BG3). Shared screen co-op is annoyingly difficult to find since "couch co-op" doesn't differentiate split screen versus shared screen and we strongly dislike split screen. Story co-op is increasingly difficult to find. When you do find them, they tend to be less campaign or story and more "repeated encounter" scenarios (e.g., Insurgent). There is nothing like the strategically deliberate plan and work together pace of Wildlands since Wildlands. Worse, recent co-op campaign games tend to be add-on modes to PvP, meaning you have to contend with ridiculous "balance" boosts and nerfs so nothing works like it should if it was a single player game. PvE should not be "balanced" this way.

solardev 2y ago
If you liked BG3, have you tried the Divinity Original Sin series by the same studio? They're even better in co-op IMO and not being limited to the D&D rules makes combat more fun and dynamic.
xnorswap 2y ago
If you didn't already try "It Takes Two" then you owe it to yourselves to try, although I don't know off the top of my head if it's playable as shared-screen. It definitely ticks the "co-op story" game box though, and is overall a great game.
lesuorac 2y ago
Some co-ops are very confusing to me. Like for Pikmin where in the later editions there were multiple main characters on the field that you could switch between. How was there not a local co-op where each player could use a main character?

tombert 2y ago

Most of my gaming now is honestly FreeCell on my phone, but if we want to talk about what "gamers" would consider games, the only time I really enjoy multiplayer is if I'm playing with actual friends. I never really had much enjoyment with playing with strangers on the internet. Most of them are much better at these games than I am, and it's just way too stressful. I also have some hesitation trash-talking total strangers, but I'm perfectly fine doing that with close friends.

al_borland 2y ago

I think the push for multiplayer games made me quit gaming about 10-15 years ago. It was only in the last couple years that the new Zelda games got me back into it, which are single player. I will sometimes play multiplayer games with my nephews, but would always prefer to play by myself. If I'm playing a game I want it to be fun and not stressful. When everything is a competition, it's stressful. There's not letting up, no lazy laps... you have to try to win. They often want me to play Minecraft with them. I "forget" to bring my laptop a lot. When I played Minecraft in the past it was always on peaceful and I'd just build stuff. It was a giant sandbox of digital legos for me, or I'd try and make weird stuff with redstone. They have all these monsters turned on, want to go into these boss battles, and they never give me any weapons (and disable my ability to get my own) so I just die over and over again trying to run from things with no defenses. It's awful. Half the time I just stop playing and stare the the screen, like wtf do you want me to do here... I'm sure the industry hates the idea that most people prefer single players games, because then they can't justify their online services, so they are incentivized to push multiplayer games and make people think that's what they like.

spacecadet 2y ago
LOL your nephews are trolls.
- al_borland 2y ago
  For sure... The one was being a jerk, so I was just threw it right back at him and started destroying the whole settlement he built. Emptying his chests into lava breaking down walls... to see how he likes playing with a griefer. It was somewhat effective.
  - jerf 2y ago
    Minecraft has the distinction of being the only game I've played with my kids where I still felt like a parent even in the game. It wasn't even just policing "bad behavior", sometimes I had to run around covering over the ravines so they wouldn't fall in, because then I had to go rescue them. Now they're older and I still had to sometimes go rescue them after they made an ill-considered journey without supplying well enough in advance. I'm not complaining per se. It's just interesting that the game is able to have that dynamic in it. They're older now, it's much less of an issue, but I still mandate that PvP stays off at all times. Though it is a useful lesson in the mechanics of escalation, I suppose. (Specifically, you always value harm to yourself more than you value harm to others, even your family, so when someone does "1" damage to you, you perceive it as "2", then you try to retaliate with "2" damage but they perceive it as "4" damage for the same reason, and now you're stuck in an escalating loop. There are ways out of this loop, of course, but it takes time. This rather simple model explains a rather distressing amount of international politics and history....)

bitfilped 2y ago

Something else I haven't seen mentioned in the comments yet is the rapid pace of AAA title acquisitions by players. I never played as many games as my "gamer" friends, but over the last several years the pace that people pick up and put down games is staggering. Most of my friends will have acquired, played and stopped playing 4-6 games in the time it takes me to get to the oldest one in the current cycle (at which point there are no friends left who are willing to play with.)

sandspar 2y ago
Microsoft at least is heading towards a "Netflix for games" streaming model, which gives players very low switching costs between games in the Xbox GamePass market. I pay ~$20 per month and have rental access to a group of AAA games that would cost $1,000's to purchase.

asdff 2y ago

Single player games are always how they were, you are running local software after all. If anything they get better with time with bug fixes and community mod ecosystems that continue to improve and overhaul the experience. Multiplayer games are of course not strictly local software, but their experience extends beyond software itself into forming an abstract community of people. You might come on to a multiplayer game and enjoy it for a time, but its in its nature that this community will shift. The casuals move on to newer titles that have all the other casuals on it now. The greybeards left playing halo 3 today are total sweats now who stomp you every time you have a happy memory of getting a killstreak 15 years ago and foolishly open master chief collection.

falcolas 2y ago
> Single player games are always how they were, you are running local software after all. Balance fixes (yes, in single player games) show that this is not always the case. Baldur's Gate 3 and Elden Ring have both had several gameplay tactics nerfed.
- asdff 2y ago
  That sometimes happens but at the end of the day its on you to actually patch the single player game. No one forces your hand except on console, you can still earn steam achievements on old game versions i believe.

haunter 2y ago

Interestingly they don't mention singleplayer online games which are my favorites. MTG, Hearthstone, Street Fighter, Tekken etc

recursive 2y ago
All the games in your list are multiplayer games though.
- haunter 2y ago
  In my mind a multiplayer game is where I need other players to play together. WoW, Counter Strike, League of Legends etc. In Hearthstone, MTG, SF etc I play alone, single player, against someone who might as well be a bot
  - recursive 2y ago
    If it was really single player, you could pause it. That's the easiest way to tell the difference. I prefer single player games. By which I mean games with a single player. Redefining it to mean something else just makes it harder to communicate IMO.

charlie0 2y ago

I just really miss split screen.

koshergweilo 2y ago

An obvious explanation for why publishers overwhelming focus on multiplayer titles despite consumer demand is that multiplayer games are much harder to pirate

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Maybe? Seems like more and more publishers are trying to sneak in a required internet connection for single player.
mrguyorama 2y ago
Everyone is trying to build AAAA "live service" games because fortnite and friends made a gazillion dollars. They did that by essentially being a very new experience (no, shitty arma mods do not count, they were so clunky you have to be a special kind of patient and weird to enjoy them), so everyone tried it, and that meant they could capture almost any whale, and Epic eventually figured out you could milk literal children and whales for all of their money, because kids will bully each other into buying freaking character skins that used to be just an unlockable or option in multiplayer gaming The problem is that, to properly milk the whales, you have to follow specific strategies that encourage their "I'm better than you because I paid $100 instead of wasting 100 hours" mentality, which means you have to make it suck to not be a whale so that the whales can feel so superior, and to help drive potential whales into entering their payment info and becoming milkable whales. That means that non-whale players, the majority, have to treat the game as a part time job just to keep up with released content (which is partially enforced by the game or community) or else just not get to experience the majority of the game. The game requires more effort per unit of "fun" you want to experience because it has to in order to trigger the whale catching effects. However, most people only have time in their life for one of these part time jobs, including the whales, which means the market is fixed. There's only enough player time and whale money to support a small, fixed number of these games. That's why they keep failing, there are strong network effects, and nobody wants to "invest" in a new game.

emilfihlman 2y ago

I mean yeah, when you make multiplayer too clean it becomes less fun.

jkubicek 2y ago

I want to start, pause and stop my game at any point and this isn't compatible with a real-time multiplayer game.

drdaeman 2y ago
That's not even compatible with a lot of single-player games that only allow to stop at checkpoints (because developers are lazy).
- scruple 2y ago
  FWIW, the Switch has this and so does the SteamDeck. I'm a father of 3, 5 year old twins and a 3 year old, so it's the killer feature for me on my SteamDeck.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  depends on the game, to be honest. Resident's Evil tension would be demolished if you could save in the middle of battle, or right before you turn a corner. But also yes, modern consoles do have a suspend feature. PC's can't do it as easily because of various Windows API issues, I assume.
  - indrora 2y ago
    Apathy by developers, really. The Xbox One and above are a really funny shaped Windows machine with HyperV underneath.
  - drdaeman 2y ago
    Well, anything can be ruined by a pause at a bad moment, but it’s great when each individual player can decide for themselves whenever their circumstances require interruption at the cost of potential experience disruption, or not. I think it’s less about player experience, though, but more about save system complexity (how much data needs to be persisted), aka lower dev costs.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago

rasse 2y ago

The problem with most perpetual multiplayer games is that they are potentially limitless time sinks. They are often inherently addictive with no natural end or resolution to them. Of course there are single player games that do this too, so it's not the only differentiator. In contrast, single player campaigns (or co-op campaigns for that matter) are often story driven. They have a beginning and an end. They offer catharsis. If it's good, you may play through it again, but it will end eventually.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Yeah, different taste. You can see a few here argue that $60 for a single player game is not worth the value. Some want that sink to come back to and sink a few hours into. Some are pretty free upfront, so their monetary investment can even be $0, amortized by whales.

skizm 2y ago

My brain has a switch. I either want to try-hard or I want to relax. Try hard mode means I'm playing competitive multiplayer (cs2 is my current poison). Relax mode means I'm playing something single-player and easy. Unfortunately, this makes it so I pretty much can't play dark souls, souls-likes, or any other single player games that advertise as "hard". When I'm in relax mode, I have zero desire to run my head against a wall over and over just to continue a story or world exploration. I wish more games had a mode like "Another Crab's Treasure" where you can simply press a button to kill the boss (there's an option to "give Kril a gun" in the settings).

ryandrake 2y ago
> When I'm in relax mode, I have zero desire to run my head against a wall over and over just to continue a story or world exploration. Exactly. Real life has enough "repeated failure despite best effort." Why would I want more of it in a video game I play for enjoyment?

throw7 2y ago

When I got Batman Arkham Asylum it had Games for Windows Live required. I didn't want an account online or "live" scoreboard, at the time you could choose local only as an option. Imagine my surpise when GfWL lost all my save games halfway through. Why? Who knows. Maybe an GfWL update? Maybe a game update? I severely reduced my gaming after that and have been adamant for true standalone games only (thank you GOG games). Note: I do not mind multiplayer online games. I have been known to play DDO (Dungeons & Dragons Online) off and on.

cpersona 2y ago

I've spent a lot of time lately playing a game called Ravenfield. It has replaced CS2 as my main game. The graphics are bad, it's purely single player, the AI is not great, but it allows for large scale battles with none of the pain of playing against other people. Mods are free and there are tons, with new ones created weekly. No need to pay for upgrades or game packs or seasons or crates.

mrguyorama 2y ago
Ravenfield is silly fun. The slowmo is so great for power fantasies. An extremely old build (that still demonstrates the core gameplay) is available on itch.io if anyone is unsure that they might like it. The dev is doing some weird anime campaign that they seem to be heavily invested in, but I don't really care. I paid for the game I wanted long ago.
nine_k 2y ago
What do you mean "graphics are bad" in Ravenfield? It's not photorealistic, but it's a game. Tetris is also not photorealistic. But it's a great game about plastic soldier figures using plastic toy battle gear to play an actual plastic war.

tonymet 2y ago

multi-player is more competitive. single-player is more about the story & mechanics. they are complimentary and distinct genres of games. I'm in my 40s and don't put in the effort to be competitive in multiplayer games. I have great admiration for the developers and the players who participate.

wiradikusuma 2y ago

Maybe because I'm old (and have a job and a family), but I don't like online games because of availability issues. If I'm playing online, I prefer to play with my friends (not strangers). Arranging time so everyone is available is very difficult. I do miss LAN parties.

atum47 2y ago

Hey, if I wanted to socialize I'd go outside, am I right?!

lencastre 2y ago

I find turn based board games on BGA to be the best compromise.

pjmlp 2y ago

Indeed, at max I would go for a split screen in some games, but that is about it.

physicsguy 2y ago

Most gamers are casual and are over the age of 20 and can’t dedicate hours of their lives to maintaining a decent standard in online play

misiek08 2y ago

Funny, because 70-80% of my friends prefer multiplayer, because you just can spend time together, talking and playing.

flashgordon 2y ago

Please just give me back my OG mass effect, og warcraft, StarCraft, monkey islands, kings quests that I can play on my own and has a good story. I don't want of the crappy mmo nonsense. One can dream!

xanathar 2y ago
... There are plenty of those kind of games being sold and developed, though. I only play single player stuff and have a backlog that just keeps increasing, I can't keep with the pace. They aren't the most publicized AAA titles though (BG3 probably bring an exception given its popularity, and the Zeldas thanks to Nintendo). It's just like music, where there's plenty of good one being made, but can't be found anywhere close to the top 10 hits or on radio (at least, for the kind of music I like). So yeah... One can dream, but the dream is, for once, alive (mostly thanks to GoG, Steam and Humble).

medvezhenok 2y ago

I'm an early-internet player, but I used to really enjoy games like KingsOfChaos, Outwar, Neopets and Runescape (OG version, or 2007 reboot). It sounds weird, and not what most people would consider as "gaming" but all of those were a mix of solo & coop since they had a social aspect but totally playable alone (well, KingsOfChaos would be kind of silly to play alone). It seems like only the OG runescape still has some sort of following, the other ones died out (there was a different one with space ships and planets and power levels, but I forget the name - same principle as Outwar and KingsOfChaos). There was also a Russian one based on the Dozory universe (Night Watch) by Sergey Lukianenko (one of my favorite authors), but that mostly turned into a cash grab which is a bummer because it's one of the coolest game concepts out there - it has been my dream that someone actually makes that game.

BigParm 2y ago

The competitive shooters have been destroyed by cheaters. In the long term, and even the short term, cheats beat anticheat. That's why co-ops like Helldivers 2 are popular now.

dcchambers 2y ago

Many reasons for this: Online gaming used to be about having fun. And while those communities definitely still exist, the landscape is dominated by "competitive" gaming that brings out the worst in people. The relentless pushing of "battle passes," in-gaming loot crate gambling, and in-game upgrades using real-life money from game publishers. There's also the whole "you can't pause real life" thing. Much easier to play online when you're young and don't have real responsibilities - but that's not a luxury most adults have.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
and sadly many reasons industry will continue to chase multiplayer. - higher spending cap. for minimal effort you can refresh battle passes and other monetization post launch. Making DLC for a single player game still takes effort to design and polish. And despite online protest, a lot of people clearly buy these. - longevity. Single player games have the same curves as ever where they make big sales in the first few months and peter out to a trickle by the time it's out for a year. And these are games that take multiple years to make at the AAA level.a successful MP game can run for years and merely iterate instead of re-invent entire campaigns and character designs. - external events/ads. some top games try to do an e-sports gauntlet to engage people and further cement their brand. they can release 3rd party skins to bring up player numbers. They can benefit more from streamers. At best, a SP game can try some collaboration content, which is much larger scale and may not create much buzz.

lucasfdacunha 2y ago

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valbaca 2y ago

No, we prefer single-player games that also have couch-coop but couch-coop games died.

spacemadness 2y ago

And almost all single-player games have a loud and obnoxious crowd demanding multi-player.

decafninja 2y ago

I don’t game at all these days. I think the last games I played were Overwatch and LoL around 2018. Speaking as my 2018 self, I grew quickly bored of single player games and felt most were not worth the money. Pay $60 and maybe get a week or two’s worth of entertainment. I was never into replaying static content or grinding for meaningless badges or trophies. Meanwhile multiplayer games have significantly more dynamic playtime for the money. I can’t speak for the state of gaming in 2024 though.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Yeah, nowadays people like you are amortized by people paying hundreds for skins. So it's basically a win-win if you aren't tempted to spend on battle passes or skins or whatnot. But that causes more outrage on social media, even though the wisdom statistics state that the top 10% spenders can make up half the revenue of a game.

t0bia_s 2y ago

Online games are like DRM. You need third party servers and internet connection to run it. You can lose your profile if provider/developer choose it. You are forced to accept every updates. Chances, that you'll deal with problems and unwilling changes are higher than just start an offline single-player game. That's why I buy games exclusively on gog.com.