Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Look back over the last 50 years of gaming. You might notice a couple of important patterns...
1. Genres are born, get honed over time, and then assimilated into larger more successful games.
For example, think back to the mid 90s when platformers were all the rage. The industry was trying to learn about controlling an avatar in a 3D space, camera work, responsive controls etc...
Then by 2001, GTA3 is released, takes the industry by storm, and platformers begin to fade away. Rockstar takes the lessons learned from platformers, racing games, action games, story based games etc, adds them all together to huge commercial effect. Now Grand Theft Auto V is basically a multiplayer focused title and it's the best selling traditionally priced game of all time.
2. Over the last 50 years, single player has steadily lost its grip on the industry to make way for multiplayer. The invention of online multiplayer drastically changed the commercial nature of the industry. Multiplayer was mostly an afterthought on the NES. Today, PlayStation has shifted to becoming a multiplayer focused company. That trend, over a 50 year period, doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Now we're seeing pattern 1 and pattern 2 fly in tandem with one another as multiplayer begins to take single player frameworks to unprecedented heights.
Examples:
FPS games like Doom and Half Life were pretty big back in the day. Now they don't seem to make AAA single player FPS games anymore.
The survival genre has been flying under the radar since the 1980s. It went big time with the arrival of DayZ, Rust, and Ark.
Roguelites have done moderately well over the last 10 years. They went big time with the arrival of PUBG, Fortnite, and Warzone.
Dungeon crawlers had a pulse for a while. They went big time once Diablo, Left 4 Dead, Destiny, Lost Ark injected multiplayer into their DNA.
RPGs used to be massive. Now we have World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XVI that dwarfs them all.
TLDR: Is the medium of gaming really a multiplayer medium by it's core nature? Is single players main contribution to gaming simply being a "proof of concept" before multiplayer gets integrated into design?
In other words, does multiplayer simply appeal to human nature much more than single player? Do its strengths align with our species desire to connect with one another?
Btw, thread was inspired by:
A coop multiplayer game that tries to copy scenes from spy movies / Splinter Cell where HQ is feeding the agent minute by minute information in order to navigate suspenseful scenarios.
1. Genres are born, get honed over time, and then assimilated into larger more successful games.
For example, think back to the mid 90s when platformers were all the rage. The industry was trying to learn about controlling an avatar in a 3D space, camera work, responsive controls etc...
Then by 2001, GTA3 is released, takes the industry by storm, and platformers begin to fade away. Rockstar takes the lessons learned from platformers, racing games, action games, story based games etc, adds them all together to huge commercial effect. Now Grand Theft Auto V is basically a multiplayer focused title and it's the best selling traditionally priced game of all time.
2. Over the last 50 years, single player has steadily lost its grip on the industry to make way for multiplayer. The invention of online multiplayer drastically changed the commercial nature of the industry. Multiplayer was mostly an afterthought on the NES. Today, PlayStation has shifted to becoming a multiplayer focused company. That trend, over a 50 year period, doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Now we're seeing pattern 1 and pattern 2 fly in tandem with one another as multiplayer begins to take single player frameworks to unprecedented heights.
Examples:
FPS games like Doom and Half Life were pretty big back in the day. Now they don't seem to make AAA single player FPS games anymore.
The survival genre has been flying under the radar since the 1980s. It went big time with the arrival of DayZ, Rust, and Ark.
Roguelites have done moderately well over the last 10 years. They went big time with the arrival of PUBG, Fortnite, and Warzone.
Dungeon crawlers had a pulse for a while. They went big time once Diablo, Left 4 Dead, Destiny, Lost Ark injected multiplayer into their DNA.
RPGs used to be massive. Now we have World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XVI that dwarfs them all.
TLDR: Is the medium of gaming really a multiplayer medium by it's core nature? Is single players main contribution to gaming simply being a "proof of concept" before multiplayer gets integrated into design?
In other words, does multiplayer simply appeal to human nature much more than single player? Do its strengths align with our species desire to connect with one another?
Btw, thread was inspired by:
A coop multiplayer game that tries to copy scenes from spy movies / Splinter Cell where HQ is feeding the agent minute by minute information in order to navigate suspenseful scenarios.
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