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Single-Player is a Second Thought for Modern Gaming AD

Single-Player is a Second Thought for Modern Gaming

It wasn't long ago that single-player gaming was the dominant (and preferred) way to play for many gamers. Whether it was shooters or role-playing games, gamers expected a robust single-player campaign to make up the lion's share of their experience. Now, developers have flipped the script and there are few games released today that don't include at least some kind of multiplayer option. In fact, many place most of their focus on their multiplayer options, with single-player taking a backseat. Where massively multiplayer gaming was once a niche genre, it has now become the norm for the vast majority of players today.

Many games heavily favour multiplayer and even more are increasingly offering no single player options at all. Star Wars: Battlefront, for instance, offers little in the way of a single-player campaign and received a fair amount of criticism from players over the exclusion. So much so that the developers have gone back and created an offline single-player mode that's expected to be released soon. Elsewhere, multiplayer-centric games such as Destiny and Overwatch are helping to prove that games don't necessarily need one-player modes to be successful.

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Ten years ago the only games people thought of in regards to massively multiplayer gaming were titles like World of Warcraft. However, technology has enabled it so that many more styles of gameplay are now readily adaptable for the MMO treatment. In fact, some real-life games have made their way to the digital realm with great success. Bingo is one popular pastime that has experienced significant popularity in the gaming world. Typically played with dozens of other people in a crowded bingo hall or parlor, fans can now find digital bingo rooms where they can play with hundreds of other people. It faithfully recreates the real-life experience with more colorful, customizable settings as opposed to the traditional rooms.

Casual games are embracing the need to play well with others and popular games such as Clash Royale dominate the marketplace. The multiplayer phenomenon has done so remarkably well that the game's developer, Supercell, was purchased earlier this year for $8.6 billion by a Chinese investment company, Tencent Holdings. As a result, the game recently began its expansion to China. Nothing says massively multiplayer quite like a country with a population of more than one billion people.

Developers want players to be constantly connecting and consuming more content with their games while also receiving a constant stream of updates and promotions. There's very little incentive for companies to provide a simple single-player game that can be experienced offline in the privacy of your own home, by yourself. As more always-online titles keep rolling out and even more people keep playing them, expect multiplayer to be the name of the game for the foreseeable future.

Christian Schmidt

Christian Schmidt

Staff Writer

Playing videogames, listening to nightcore

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COMMENTS

Dombalurina
Dombalurina - 02:55pm, 8th July 2016

But what about those of us who are anti-social and don't want to interact with other humans? :(

Reply
Gamerino
Gamerino - 06:53pm, 10th August 2016

See a psychiatrist.

Reply