The Current Direction of Gaming

So, I haven't blogged in a while, and I wanted to finish my thoughts on the "Smarter Grids" topic, especially since Bryan brought up scooters and that got my mind working. But I will wait and finish that later I guess. What I want to talk about today is the current direction of the gaming industry, specifically the focus of turning gaming into a "group" activity.

I would classify myself as a "light hardcore" gamer - I play very frequently but not usually obsessively, and I tend to play several games very thoroughly, rather than many games more casually. I play games to blow off steam for the most part. They are there for my enjoyment, and I don't particularly care about being good at them, as long as I am good enough to finish them I don't really care if I don't excel at them. I also play games virtually exclusively by myself. I have played some Little Big Planet with Leesa, and I was very involved with the MMO scene with Final Fantasy XI for a time, but since quitting FFXI roughly a year ago, I have been a very independent gamer.

What bothers me about more and more games these days is that they seem to be aimed exclusively at group gaming, either through a cooperative mode, or a competitive or team-based multiplayer mode. I don't mind that these games offer such options, I know a lot of people really prefer to play the games in those modes, and I know it might be a good idea to give gamers some opportunity for a bit more ... "social interaction". The problem is that many games focus ONLY only these aspects, and show little attention to the single-player (call it campaign, or story mode) of the game. So this means that there are many games out there that just don't offer enough on the story/campaign front because they figure they can make up for it on the multiplayer. Which is great if you like multiplayer, but leaves people who typically do not use the mutliplayer features in the dark.

The main problem I have with multiplayer experiences is that it makes my experience dependent on other people. And most of those other people are absolute and complete morons. I played a total of about 8 hours or so on the Far Cry 2 multiplayer, which amounts to probably 30-40 total rounds. I'd say that in 90% of the rounds where other players had microphones, one or more of the following was present...

• "Dude, I'm so high right now. I've smoked so much pot today. Is anybody else high? I'm so high."
• Player not actually speaking into their mic, but instead blasting their crappy music (typically Linkin Park or some form of gangster rap) for everyone to hear, only because it's coming through their crappy microphone, it sounds 10x worse than it already was.
• Baby screaming in the background - yeah man, forget about changing that diaper, or feeding your kid, you really need to help protect the Captain while he captures that control point.
• Player aged 10-14 talking about what their teacher did at school today that totally pissed them off, and explaining how they're not going to take it because they're hardcore.
• Player aged 10-14 reeling off as many curse words in their squeaky voice as they can think of, because obviously cursing makes you hardcore.

On rare occasion, I'd somehow land on a team full of people who actually use their mics to communicate to their teammates, offering constructive criticism or insight on a level. When that happened, it was actually really fun. The problem is, most people that play that way are already part of a "clan" or similar organization, and they all play very frequently and demand fellow members do the same. I just don't have that kind of time or desire. There IS a multiplayer experience out there that I want, I just can't dedicate myself to a game enough to actually get it.

As such, I tend to steer clear of mutliplayer games and focus solely on campaigns, but again, this is actually drastically cutting down on my options in terms of games that offer me my full $60 worth of enjoyment. Thankfully, there are some games on the way, specifically Assassin's Creed 2 and Uncharted 2, that should offer me a very strong campaign. Of course, even Uncharted 2 is going to offer multiplayer - here's hoping they don't make sacrifices in the story mode in order to work on the multiplayer.

Another problem with having so many multiplayer games is that they all wind up with smaller communities as a result. Instead of having maybe 3 or 4 games that have the bulk of the players, everyone is spread out amonst 20 different titles. So at a given time, even if you WANT to play some multiplayer, you might not be able to because there's just not enough people around to play a match. Perhaps this effect was exaggerated in my eyes as I was on Far Cry 2, which was not exactly a heavy hitter in terms of players - it might be very different if I was on CoD4, but either way, there is no doubt that having more multiplayer offerings dilutes the pool of players.

Am I the only one who has noticed this trend and doesn't particularly care for it?