Here we go again: Harrison Says Single-Player Games Are Doomed
(Visited 7220 times) Game talk
May 292008
It’s Phil Harrison’s turn to get beat up, and PCWorld begins the process.
Of course, in the process, they beat up on me a little bit too, saying that I only advocate multiplayer for the money in it, or something. š
For those just joining this particular multiplayer game, you may want to read these older posts of mine:
31 Responses to “Here we go again: Harrison Says Single-Player Games Are Doomed”
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Hmm. Harrison makes a coincidence, but he doesn’t make causality.
My take: I played Diablo 2 solo right up until I got broadband. After that, I played online or not at all.
Are gamers raised in the 80s (like I was) introverts just ’cause, or is it simply because the internet wasn’t widely available yet?
Matt Peckham wrote in the article:
I tuned out there and began wondering about the credibility of the author…
Turns out he’s just another talking head with a “commerce = greed” agenda.
In other words, zero credibility.
Ah, such an on-going debate this is, eh?
I have to admit, back when I got Oblivion I played for a while with my roommate across the room also playing. We would share stories of what we were doing as we played. He stopped playing… I did after about two days because the game suddenly seemed to be lacking some huge part of it.
Devil May Cry 4 also seemed to be uploading all of my in-game statistics for online rankings and would complain whenever I didn’t have my PS3 connected online.
Turns out heās just another talking head with a ācommerce = greedā agenda.
Uhm? Commerce is by definition greed, isn’t it?
Surely, games on the PC platform will increasingly go server-based or FREE as that is the best copy-protection you can get and as throughput/bandwidth is increasing the negative impact of being server-based is diminishing. Single-player/two-player games will still exist on the consoles and in the shape of free Flash games. Surely. So yes, greed is part of the equation.
The downside is that multiplayer/server-based is an excuse to force players into subscriptions, which in turn leads to pisspoor gamedesigns. Again, greed is part of the equation, and the impact of that is not good. Multi-player doesn’t equal better games, too often multi-player becomes and excuse to avoid designing interesting game mechanics. “It’s fun to be social and balancing an advanced multi-player game is just too hard”.
Commerce isn’t driven by demand, it is driven by greed. And so is game design…
Ola Fosheim GrĆøstad wrote:
Get out your tinfoil hat!
Commerce isn’t greed. Middle men are simply greedy. It’s the money for nothing effect. Anyone see the news blurb on the ‘only the famous and obscenely wealthy hedge fund managers and stars’ charity event on CNN where the talking head goes on and on about the generosity of the wealthy? The other end is not noticing how these managers obtain that wealth by choking the very life out of companies and their employees? Ever been in a company acquired by these guys? I have. All human generosity goes out the door as the numbers required to pay off the leveraged buyout loans hit the levels of vig.
Commerce isn’t greedy. Cultures and people are.
And single player games are perrenials. Not everyone is desperate for company or feedback. Some people are starving for solitude. Caveat vendor.
He (Mr. Harrison) doesn’t appear to be talking at all about the death of single-player game modes and models like single-player interactive narratives (ie: Bioshock). He seems to be talking about the proliferation and popularity of community features built up around the games, like xbox achievements, psn features, downloadable content (either sanctioned or community generated), tradable content (send me your pokemons and pinatas!), leaderboards, etc. There is a big difference there people!
Soon, there won’t be that big a difference, is the point he (and I) are making. The line between community features and game features is already pretty blurry — a guild is technically a “community feature,” not a game feature, for example. When you see other players’ activities popping up in your stream while you play your single-player game, and you start competing with them, isn’t it starting to cross the line? I think so.
I think so also, but I think there is a definitive line that when crossed changes the play experience entirely. When those features are essential to gameplay, and not optional features that you can choose to ignore it changes the whole experience that the game is delivering. I enjoy social games like mmorpgs, sometimes. Other times I enjoy a good single player interactive narrative, and forcing social interaction into the gameplay would flat out ruin a game like say Bioshock for me.
There is deeper stuff going on there, really all those tertiary features like xbox live achievements do for me is help me decide which platform I’m going to play the game on. For example, if a game is on the 360 and another platform I’m personally more likely to play it on the 360 because the achievements serve as a record, or scrapbook if you will, of my time and activities in that particular game.
I am the same way, actually. š I think a lot of people are.
But the one-liner I have used before is that Bioshock is well on its way to being the one-player instanced dungeon in the Xbox Live MMO. And I think that this is the trend we are going to see more and more of.
I was born in 1979, does that count? I always felt like I played video games because I was an introvert; the extroverts were all playing outdoors. They had better things to do, so to speak.
My feeling is, games and such have finally attracted those extroverts who previously weren’t interested, and at the same time provide a safer and more encouraging social context for folks that would otherwise be more introverted.
Don’t know for certain, though. I’m still an introvert, even in the biggest MMOs. In a way, I regret that.
“Imagine: Grand Theft Auto IV bereft of its single-player story mode, Halo without its epic solo campaign, Mario withoutā¦well, whatever you want to call the single-player business…”
Really? Either Phil Harrison is entirely missing the point, or I am. Halo has a story mode, but it’s not a single player game. It demonstrates that Phil’s assumption that story mode and the single player game are linked is wrong. Nothing is being taken away or going away, but new social multiplayer things are being added.
Seems like a cute journalistic line with no basis in fact – he should go work for FOX news.
I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where you can’t play games without an internet connection. There are certainly more games with online components than ever before, but there are more games in general than ever before. Raph, I will not dispute the trend towards games that use the internet. I do dispute single-player games going away or becoming a niche. Perhaps it seems to be a much starker trend from where you stand, much like a person who lives in a wealthy part of town will be more likely to notice how popular a given brand of luxury SUV with GPS has become. Meanwhile, on the poor side of town, people continue to drive fuel-efficient economy cars just like they always have. Sure, the sales of the SUV may have increased, but that doesn’t mean that economy cars are going to become extinct. Single player games will still appeal to mainstream gamers, and not everyone enjoys trolling forums, talking on teamspeak with people they’ll never meet, or fighting for top spot on a ladder or killboard. This kinda has the same flawed logic as the people who claim that paper publications like books, magazines, and newspapers are going to be replaced by electronic media. People will always like to have a piece of paper in their hand, which they can draw or make notes on, cut pieces from to hang on the wall or paste into a scrap book, or take to bed with them. The medium will evolve, but single player games aren’t going away just because multiplayer games are the newest latest greatest thing on the shelf.
It wouldn’t surprise me to see it become common — there are plenty of games like that now, as well as industry-wide moves towards not being able to run apps — even word processing — without access to the Net. A lot of stuff is moving to the cloud…
There will always be a need for standalone. But don’t underestimate how ubiquitous connectivity is going to be.
Actually, the question is whether today’s mainstream gamers will be the mainstream tomorrow.
Sort of like everyone still has a horse? We need to be careful here — it’s dangerous to prognosticate like this. š I say this as someone who isn’t giving up his pper books, either! š
Multiplayer games aren’t the “newest latest greatest thing on the shelf” — in terms of gaming overall, they are the oldest, commonest form of games. In fact, the first videogames were also multiplayer from the get-go (Higinbotham’s oscilloscope tennis, Baer’s ping pong, Spacewar, Pong).
Raph: It wouldnāt surprise me to see it become common ā there are plenty of games like that now, as well as industry-wide moves towards not being able to run apps ā even word processing ā without access to the Net. A lot of stuff is moving to the cloudā¦
But there is a difference between a proper multi-player game design and a game with connectivity requirements. Many MMOs also aren’t truly fully multi-player game designs, as they are played like card-collecting games of sorts. Which can be played in a single-player fashion or a multi-user fashion (swapping of cards etc). Sure, some have strong guild-card-collecting components. But even games with a fictional cooperative theme (save-the-earth) tend to focus on solo-collectibles, grow-your-own-character… The earth isn’t really saved, it’s a theme.
Surely, connectivity might become a requirement, if for no other reason than cutting down distribution costs and preventing illegal copies. Surely, when you have connectivity adding some social component is cheap.
That doesn’t imply a proper multi-user design. Table-top RPGs are multi-user designs because the game master binds the players together (if s/he is good). MMOs are less so because the computerized game master doesn’t bind the players together, they have to attach themselves to eachother and many do so only to gain access to better cards, so they solo the multi-user game mechanics even when playing on a formal team. Surely, some guild leaders and others take on the role of the game master and binds the players together in a table-top fashion, but that’s not the game design, that is a high-level game design on top of the computerized game mechanics.
At what point is it interesting to use the term “multi-user” in relation to game design? We all know that all you need is chat to have a multi-user game platform, but you need more than IRC to study proper multi-user game design.
Actually, the question is whether todayās mainstream gamers will be the mainstream tomorrow.
Now, that is an interesting question. Here I thought that social misfits played MUDs as a replacement for their lack of social ties in the physical world. Then the argument is that social misfits prefer single-user games and that the socially successful mainstream will prefer multi-user games. Maybe they do, but will they prefer worlds? Do they need a new world to live in? Or will they rather prefer accessories that they can bring into the world they already live in? Like Boccia.
Gene Endrody wrote:
Neither. You’re misattributing Peckham’s words to Harrison. You can read what Harrison actually said in this interview. Peckham’s just a loon and really doesn’t understand the whole “single-player gaming is doomed” shebang.
When certain folks refer to “single-player gaming,” they’re not necessarily talking about in-game single-player modes. That’s the main point of confusion. Those modes are better described as “1-player” and “2-player.”
Grand Theft Auto X won’t be “bereft of its single-player story mode” and Halo X won’t be “without its epic solo campaign.” Players will simply be doing more with other players, and the idea is that developers will further enable and empower that interaction. The challenge to marketing will be how the value of that interaction can be made a firmer and more significant part of the buying process.
You cannot play BioShock or Mass Effect on the PC without an internet connection. More importantly, since those can be played offline on the 360, you cannot play Spore on the PC without an internet connection. The inital install authentications will fail. Thankfully they’ve removed the gorram stupid re-auth every 10 days or the game stops working policy, but you still need the initial authentication so you still need to be able to connect to the net, at least briefly, or you cannot play.
We’re not headed towards a place where you can’t play games without an internet connection… we’re already there.
And lets face it… having an instanced singleplayer dungeon that’s like BioShock is far less prone to piracy issues than having a boxed version. And that makes publishers happy.
Now they just need to reduce the annoyance of those DRM setups and I’ll be happy…
So, moving away from being lofty, general, and prophetic, I ran across this interesting comment:
From: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3638/postmortem_ironcladstardocks_.php?page=5
I wonder… is it possible that the lack of a single-player campaign actually contributed to its higher scoring? I barely noticed the fact that there wasn’t one, but I’d installed it in anticipation of a multiplayer gaming session last week, so I haven’t had a chance to feel the lack of a dedicated single-player experience.
Isn’t there a difference between a game in which multi-player (either MM or even 2-player) is a game component, and a game in which social activities are happening “next to” the game?
I don’t count playing Solitaire on my PC while chatting in IM with another player of Solitaire as a multi-player game. It’s two people doing a multi-person thing (IM chatting) while playing a game. Social computing features are being added to all kinds of solitary activities, just as RL social activities often revolve around solitary activities. A book club meets to discuss the book, not (usually) to read it aloud. The reading is solitary, the discussion is social. The book club isn’t, therefore, a “multi-player reading experience.” It’s a “multi-player discussion of a reading experience.”
Same with games that require online activation. That’s a pain in the ass, not a social thing. I have a buddy who loves single player PC games and doesn’t have Internet access. He tried playing “Two Worlds” and was incredibly frustrated by their absolutely, insanely stoopid registration requirements. The box did *not* say, “Internet access required for activation,” and there was a phone method… that didn’t work. Their website (which he had me get to ’cause, well…) listed the broken phone thing, too. Crazy. He ended up returning the game.
Just because something is plugged into a communication network doesn’t make it multi-player or social. I would argue that voting by phone on “American Idol” isn’t social. It’s massively masturbatory.
Regardless of the media that’s attached to various gaming experiences, I don’t see an end to games that I can play without connecting to others. Maybe it’s a Flash game online with high-scores from all over the world. Again… that’s not a multiplayer game; it’s a social environment for a single-player game.
If Thomas from TN were here, he might claim that the vying for high-scores would be, however, its own multiplayer game. OK. But playing that game ain’t.
It would help if people would use terms that actually convey something along the lines of what they are saying. I find it damned annoying that people are sticking to this whole “single player is doomed; disclaimer not actual single player” line of argument.
If you mean disconnected or communityless gaming, say it. I don’t really have an issue with that. However it drives me mad when people stick to terms for shock value and not because it accurately portrays their point.
Unless I’ve misunderstood the whole “single-player gaming is doomed” shebang. That is, unless you are really trying to say players will have to engage in cooperative or competitive game play in the future without any recourse to experience solo play.
Sara Pickell wrote:
That’s quite an assertion and nowhere near the truth.
Having read more, I’ll agree that the term isn’t necessarily being used for shock value. However it doesn’t convey the meaning accurately nor portray the point intended. Which means that we have a useless shocky term being used instead of better ones because a few people can’t bend a little.
You call a person a ‘loon’, already quoted in last post, because he logically assumes that single player means game meant to played by a single person at a single station at any given moment with the rules of the game as the only opponent, and without in-game cooperation from another player. As much as I understand Raph’s position, he is wrong. Games played in parallel are not multi-player games. They may be very social and very connected single player games, but they are not multi-player.
You could use terms like social, or connected to describe the movement in single player games, but being more social and connected does not suddenly make them multi-player. Six people playing six games of solitaire around a table are not playing a multi-player game, but are having a social experience. Even if they were to time themselves or record points, the points game would be in parallel to solitaire and not changing the game itself to suddenly be multi-player.
The term has a meaning, imperfect though it may be, and that meaning hasn’t suddenly changed. Even Raph has admitted that what we refer to as “single player games” are not going away, just becoming more connected and more social. So why draw on a pointless argument fueled by a fatally flawed term? Especially when you could just say “the days of playing games completely alone are coming to an end” and be understood by everyone for exactly what you actually mean.
One reason: nobody would actually listen. š Part of the reason to be provocative is to force people to think.
Secondly, because maybe we actually do believe what we’re saying. You say, for example,
Saying that a footrace between multiple people is not multiplayer seems silly…? You cite solitaire, which is intuitively not the same, but part of the point of doing an examination like this is to see if our intuitions are wrong.
Also, something that needs to be kept in mind is that both Phil & I are speaking to a large degree from a business point of view. The question is not whether people want single-player games, or whether they will continue to be made, but whether the single-player game as we know it is ceasing to be a viable and default business position.
Because there is a direct competition, and that is the “race”. One person finishes first, one person finishes last and we call it a race. But if I were to start “running” it wouldn’t be. And I realize where you would go with this, that running is nested under the race. That is where I disagree. I believe the race is either nested under running, or a parallel thing.
The race hasn’t made running multi-player; you don’t have two people moving your legs. You have added on a multi-player component, the race, but that hasn’t changed the basic action of running into a multi-player activity.
That I do empathize with. The current business model of stand alone boxes is probably going away. Again though, that is true for single player, multi-player and even MMOs. That fact is changing a lot of how games are made, and chances are games that are naturally more social will have better legs. But don’t underestimate the need for alone time. In fact a constant push of market forces towards 100% world connection could bring out the introvert in the extroverts.
Still, although the two effect each other, it seems to me as though term “Single Player Game” is just confusing the two different issues, player connection and viable game designs. Instead of the two being treated as heavily related but separate issues, the conversations pretty much begin in cacophony.
It’s not parallel, because it cannot exist independently. Remove the running, and the race evaporates.
You could do the race in ways other than running, such as in vehicles, bellyflopping, or hopping on one foot. Therefore the running is a characteristic of the race, a nested game. And in fact, many races, such as the triathlon, make use of multiple nested subgames.
That seems like a deeply odd definition of multiplayer, and one that doesn’t fit most of what we call multiplayer games today?
That would be why I start from a game grammar point of view in discussing the subject…
From a business stand point though, isn’t what you are suggesting just that companies will force everyone to be in a race in order to run?
Sara, I think that is a very succinct way to put it. Yes.
Well that is really the sticking point for me. Because then Race is just a label that is artificially made synonymous with running. It… bugs me, that everyone who wants to run for the pure joy of running, or play a single player game for the sheer joy of playing a single player game, is suddenly forced to be classified incorrectly. Forced into the title of competitor when you didn’t play it for that.
False labels and I go way back, it’s not a trivial matter to me.
As I have said many times before — I actually quite enjoy and love single-player games. So I am not advocating here, I am just assessing trends. Often, when discussing this, I have said that it may make lots of players unhappy.
Sara Pickell wrote:
From a communications perspective, I agree. The term is technical, and like psychologists using the words “aggressive” and “violent,” which carry far more serious connotations than exclusive grouping and pinching for the layman, there is work to be done on helping people understand what’s being discussed.
Peckham’s a loon because he thinks a) commerce is the root of all evil, b) Harrison and Raph aren’t “track-record visionaries,” and c) Harrison and Raph are only passionate and dedicated to the games industry to make a buck.
First of all, anyone who knows me knows that I am ultra-procommerce. I’m almost Ferengi, worshipping at the altar of capitalism. Secondly, anyone who knows me knows that I am ultra-loyal. Peckham managed to assault my “religion” and one of my friends, and for that he earned his name—loon. š
When Raph called the single-player games a mutant monster, he was participating in a panel discussion titled “The Era of Connected Gaming – An Inside Look At An Industry On Revolution.” Context!
The argument isn’t pointless and the term isn’t fatally flawed. Both are simply misunderstood. How can this issue be resolved? By both sides asking questions.
Hi!
An interesting discussion going on there.
I’ve been reading the other pages, and found myself disagreeing with what Raph says, even if the topic requires some projection and guesses.
For example, in “are online games a fad”, I’d say that I don’t see people getting bored of them that soon (unless the genre absolutely stagnates and people come to their senses).
I’m actually scared by the idea of people playing more and more of them. They’re intoxicating, and repetitive. They have no end, remain rather easy, they’re like quicksands, sirens. Everybody’ Ulysses. They can pull you into a world where real human interaction is not to be found. They can make you loose time at an extent that completely dwarves even the most basic solo shooter.
I’m also convinced that at some point, the MMOs as a whole will move away from the stupid mechanics were served with nowadays, which are nothing more than glorified Diablos, griding throughout tasteless levels, supported by absolutely abysmal stories.
At some point, I hope the experiences will be deeper, more exotic, less focused on combat.
That said, Raph argued that solo experiences like Halo 2’s could be entirely included into a MMO.
I can’t see how this would happen. The logistic and cross interaction nightmare cannot be fully grasped, and the budget needed for such a monster would be absolutely ridiculous (this is for the argument that solo games now cost mountains of gold… well, you really think the MMOs won’t?).
Not to say that you couldn’t provide just one single adventure with a decent narrative per game. You’d easily need hundreds of them if not more, otherwise it wouldn’t make much sense, universe wise.
Obviously, we are certainly not anywhere close to that. I’m rather sure that you can wait for another two decades, at the very least, before we get to see something as complete as that.
Besides, there was that socializing chat-room argument going back and forth. It’s notably frequently used as an excuse for the good points of MMOs.
I can’t help chuckling at that one. You’ll never beat real life socialization. Once you remove the MSN thingy in them, you get to the core of those games, and it’s not pretty.
In a MMO, once you’ve moved beyond the marvel of walking around in a character you’ve designed and proud of (and most designs I see are simply terrible), once you’re done with your parades across the plains of Schnuzob or across the futuristic metropolis of Vas Marbles, in most games, you’re left with the cold reality of your curse, but you’re generally too stuck into that illusion to notice the issue.
So yes, I believe massively multiplayer stuff is going to grow even more, there’s obviously lots of improvements to bring there.
Classical MP, as in Mario Kart, or in a game of Halo, well, there’s not much change to expect there. It’s always going to be about finite games, starting from zero again, again and again. But at least in these cases, the display of skills and strategies appear greater and more challenging.
I think it’s generally easier to play average games in group than alone.
When you’re alone, it’s you and the game, and only that. With friends, the quality standards are so high. The agitation, light fun and other distracting elements mask the most mediocre aspects of a game.
I don’t think that solo games will disappear. I don’t think they’re doomed. I actually believe they’ll be the pionneers of a fine art in video gaming… well, I hate using the term art, let’s again talk about deeper experiences.
Now, one thing I hate is that trend these days where multiplayer, big bucks and communities are so glorified, that any player admitting liking solo games is painted as a person being ten years late, a friendless old fashioned nerdy shmuck living in the basement, totally out of touch with reality and only worth a niche we should forget as soon as possible, etc.
Geez.
I’m nothing of that, and the connection with a solo game is absolutely unique. There are games where you NEED to be alone to appreciate them. Okami with friends? What the hell?
Ico with friends?? Are you F****** crazy???
Need I say more? š
Like, you know, the high scores we had with Defender and Pacman? I’m pretty sure people loved put their scores against those of the others.
The games, still, were solo. One single player input. No more no less.
Yes, I think the definition of a solo game doesn’t need to be blurred in order to forward some kind of bizarre train of thought.
Playing the same game, on the same network, at the same time, that makes a multiplayer game.
Exchanging scores, even if two guys were playing Pacman on two coin-up machines at the same time, that’s not multiplayer. That’s a Power Glove contest.
Many games? Like?
A case I can think of, for example, where a connection wasn’t needed, is Bioshock. And we know how this ended.
Globally, I think it’s absolutely idiotic to force the presence of an internet connection into a game where it’s totally irrelevant to the core experience it’s intended to deliver.
And no semantic plays here. A solo game doesn’t require a connection. Technically, even a MP game on a FPS shouldn’t require a connection until you want to play on internet. As long as you’d play on LAN, no internet connection should be required at all. Never.
It’s supposed to be a commodity, not handcuffs.