Excuse me. You got some multiplayer in my single player game.

More like Massive Multiplayer Effect

It has been a growing trend of late, well the past 10 years, but it seems to be getting more egregious.  Im talking about Multiplayer in every game made anymore.   The biggest/most recent offenders would have to be the Mutliplayer aspect added in the Uncharted and Mass Effect franchises.

*Warning , Rant*

“But Jason I love Multiplayer!”  And you know what you are in the majority, its hard for developers to turn down the aspect of multiplayer, when multiplayer heavy games sell so well (COD and BF for example).  But do single player only games  need a multiplayer outlet? I mean Mass Effect made its name without Multiplayer, why does it need it now?  I personally am not a huge multiplayer gamer, however,  don’t get me wrong I enjoy a good COD game and the random bouts of strategy in Star Craft but 80% of the time I just want to play a game for its amazing story, rich game play and without having to worry about some 12 year old griefing me all day.

“Well Jason if you don’t like the Multiplayer part of a game you don’t HAVE to play it.”  This is true, however when I look at a game I am excited for I want the game to be all it can be and more.  Take Mass Effect 3 for example,  the first two games are great, no mulitplayer.  Now Mass Effect 3 will have a multiplayer component to it, and all I can think is:  “Why didn’t they use this extra space/time/money to make the single player game longer/better/more detailed?”  Really, anything besides just to tack on another Horde battle mode (note to game devs horde mode is lame).  Think about it, how long until every game has multiplayer and only a 4 hour single player game? Bleh.

Finally lets look at it from the Game companies side.  Statistically Multiplayer games have a tendency to sell better, plus by adding a multiplayer component to a game, they can add the good old “online play pass” code to prevent/ hinder used game sales.  So in reality, if you think about it, the Multiplayer add on for a heavy single player game is just an elaborate DRM tool and is being spoon fed to us as a exciting benefit.. “Woo I get to kill people online! I’ve never done that before!”.

Well I for one am not excited for this trend and unless something changes I am fearful that I will slowly become the cranky old man wishing for the good ole days and yelling at kids to get off my game lawn……   But enough about that, what do you think?

/Rant

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