https://www.next-gen.biz/news/pitchford-bemoans-multiplayer-obsession
Good short read. Can’t say I disagree with him.
The man has a point. I really wish there were more story focused narrative driven single player games like Half Life out there, but these days you can’t be financially successful in the industry without some kind of multiplayer attached. While it’s fun to run around fragging people, I prefer being immersed in a rich world with interesting characters and story.
Multiplayer obsession is a derived issue from what he establishes as his second point i.e. marketing and sales departments never being happy with ‘their’ game until it ships as many units as Modern Warfare. This is the first time I see a major developer acknowledging the most obvious flaw of the current games industry. I’m kind of flabbergasted.
I like the fact that he references the dead space games. The original was amazing, epic and your first playthrough took a decent amount of time. No multiplayer but the new game+ feature kept me going for three playthroughs. A saw a few reviews at the time that penalised DS1 for lack of multiplayer but it just wouldn’t have made sense.
Dead Space 2 had a very short campaign in comparison and the multiplayer while enjoyable just didn’t really add too much. I would have preferred a more involved campaign like the original. I still went through the game several times!
A similar story can be seen in Bioshock and Bioshock 2. I played the multiplayer in Bioshock 2 a bit but not enough to warrant the decrease in quality of the singleplayer in my eyes.
Every publisher wants to emulate COD’s success because they’re greedy. Think of something new people!
HAHAHAHA! Derp.
Ok, inevitable CoD bash aside, he makes a very good point, one that I’ve been hoping dev’s and pubs would see for a long time now. I saw it happen with Halo, I saw it happen with Bioshock, it’s obvious it’s happened to CoD, I hope it doesn’t happen with GoW 3, I really sincerely hope it hasn’t happened to Dead Space 2, but the MP > SP fad has gone on way too long imo, and needs to stop, as it’s ruining the games industry and turning it into a “stfu n00b I h4z ak47, i m pr0!” fest. Why can’t the industry do what Valve does? You make a game dedicated single player (Half-Life, Portal) or multiplayer (TF2, CSS) and you make tons of money off of a successful game that does what it does well, rather than trying to be a jack of all trades. Unless you’re Epic Games, in which case you make a combined effort of the two that does both actually quite well.
To be honest, the multiplayer in Gears of War 1 & 2 was boring as hell. I haven’t tried Bulletstorm, but I don’t think I expect any better.
The topic isn’t whether the MP is/was boring as hell, but rather that developers/publishers are slapping on shitty multiplayer because it makes it more like CoD, detrimenting the SP and overall quality of the game. Something which hasn’t happened with GoW…yet.
As for the Bulletstorm MP: I have tried it on XBL. It’s terrible, absolutely terrible. Netcode is shit, constant connection problems, constant dropping from games, plus you need to actually form a team with someone you can communicate with, otherwise you will inevitably fail the MP.
inb4 “your connection is shit” because I play other games on XBL without a problem.
I was replying to your comment where you stated that Epic Games makes good single player and multiplayer. I disagreed, but I didn’t feel like quoting your entire comment. I won’t make the same mistake twice. 
I do agree, however, that many companies are placing multiplayer in their games haphazardly in the hopes of being a CoD killer. This is all for naught, for the people who have been dedicated to CoD for this long will not change their loyalties on a dime, so what’s the point in trying? CoD is what they like and it is what they will always choose when they want to play an arcade shooter.
Companies need to really think about whether they’re trying to make their multiplayer to be a CoD killer, or if their making it because it would go well with the game as a whole. They need to stop looking at CoD and start looking at themselves and start asking, “Are we really going to stoop that low?” :hmph:
I honestly find all of this to be repulsive. Yeah, everyone who has posted before me is absolutely right in the fact that the game devs and pubs arent happy with a game till it sells as many as modern warfare, but at the same time, it’s the players that fuel the obsession. I can’t begin to count how many gamers i’ve spoken to about bioshock (for example) that go “that game was fuckin stupid.” and when i ask them why they say something stupid like “there was nothing to do after i got bored with the storyline. It needed a multiplayer.”
While it’s not the entire gaming community that conforms to this consensus, it’s generally the group of people who obsessively play CoD… the ones that don’t care that it’s storyline is shitty and predictable and only want to “lozl pwn” some newbs with their famas or some shit. But i totally agree, even if you were to make a game with just SP elements you would still turn a profit. Look at bioshock.
Deus Ex 3 is looking promising for those that want a rich single player narrative experience. To slap a MP component on a DX game would be an obvious cash grabbing attempt and an insult to the series, which is why I’m glad they chose to focus soley on the SP.
I agree, but should the devs take everything the players say to heart? No, they shouldn’t. They should think about whether the multiplayer is logical to include in the game or not. They shouldn’t include it just because a bunch of CoD fans scream for it.
My apologies mankyman, but I was initially referring to the UT series rather than GoW. But both stand as good examples of what I meant.
@fridge: You mean like they did for the GOTY of the first game? 
Damn it’s terrible lol.
The original unreal was an amazing game. It’s one of those games with an epic single player, and the weapons/mechanics to make an epic multiplayer as well. That’s why they made UT to begin with, because the Unreal multi worked so well.
Thing is, now epic only does UT, GOW, and haphazardly made Unreal 2. The Unreal series is their staple, what their fucking engine is named after, but still there has not been any true successor to Unreal 1.
Hmmm. Is this a cry for Unreal 3 I hear?
UT3 didn’t have much of a campaign, it was basically multiplayer with bots. I know Unreal 3 and UT3 are two separate things.
It’s hard to balance both single and multiplayer, even for Epic. Yes, their engine can do both pretty well but what does it matter when they don’t put forth the effort?
Also, I still stand by my claim that both GoW multiplayers were boring. Gears is a series that I can honestly say that would do better without multiplayer.
literally every game should include co op mp even if it makes no sense or is totally broken
Oh yeah.
Not.
@mankyman: I kind of agree with you there. UT3 campaign in so generic that the highlight of it is the Necris invasion movie. Yes, the highlight is a non-interactive scene. In a game. Come on Epic, you can do better than that.
I also wouldn’t mind them making a bit effort with their bots in UT. Every single bot of every single UT game is nothing but a mobile aimbot.
UT99 Loque: Derp, insta headshot you through a tiny gap, from across the map, the instant you appeared, while I was noscoped and jumping sideways.
UT2K4 Matrix: Derp, insta headshot you through a tiny gap, from across the map, the instant you appeared while I was noscoped, double wall dodging sideways.
UT3 Akasha: Derp, insta head…you getting the idea yet? lol
Of course, this makes insta gib matches pure hell against AI any smarter than Experienced. It’s just so unnecessary to make every bot an aimbot who’s chances of hitting you are governed by what essentially amounts to an engine dice roll.
I must admit, I enjoy hl2dm myself and hl2 didn’t come with a dm out of the box.
The multiplayer versions of games should at least keep the fundamental gameplay mechanics to keep things interesting.
Yes, but HL2DM is a classic example of Valve’s approach to gaming. I.e. Single versus multi. If HL2 had come bundled with HL2DM, it probably wouldn’t have suffered much, but being seperate, they are free to do their own thing and excel at it, rather than suffer the limitations of each other. Valve don’t seem to mix the two types of games very much. That said, it will be interesting to see how the co-op in Portal 2 works, as they have essentially combined SP and MP into one package.