After Saturday’s post, I thought some more about multiplayer, and I think I’ve figured out precisely what irks me about some people’s demands for it. The issue is not that they want multiplayer in general, it’s the way they say it. Let’s take a look at a couple of statements, here:
“I really enjoyed BlahdeBlah, but it was kinda short so I wish there was a multiplayer component so I could keep playing it.”
vs
“BlahdeBlah should have multiplayer! It’s stupid that it doesn’t have it!”
When someone says something like the first statement, I can see where they’re coming from. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but the fact that they enjoyed the game and want to continue enjoying it is something I understand. The second statement rankles me as an artist and as a gamer. Saying what a developer, artist, or author should or shouldn’t have done is a sure-fire way to get yourself ignored. Maybe they just didn’t want to put multiplayer in their game. Maybe they actively considered multiplayer and decided it wouldn’t work with the rest of the overall game experience. Maybe they just goddamn hate multiplayer, for that matter. Telling a developer that the decision they made is stupid is just going to make the developer annoyed. (And often, when it is a genuinely stupid decision, pretty much everyone on the development team is going to agree with you but would have changed it if they were able to. If a dumb design decision makes it into the finished game, you can bet that many of the people on that team disagreed with it but were helpless to change anything.)
There are people who want multiplayer because they feel it adds a continued play value to a game they have spent their money on. This is certainly a good point–Halo has a single-player campaign but is mainly a multiplayer title, and people are still playing it years later. (Heck, people are still playing CounterStrike! They certainly got their value when they bought that one!) But I, personally, don’t feel that a game needs multiplayer to justify the purchase price if the single-player experience is interesting and varied enough. Let’s take Portal, for example. I paid $20 for Portal on Steam, and it took me about four hours to get through the first time. That’s around $5/hour for entertainment, which is on the pricey side when it comes to video games, but I enjoyed the experience so much I would have gladly paid more. I also replayed the game with the developer commentary on, so let’s say I got 7 hours of entertainment for my $20. I find that pretty fair.
On the other hand, I have Twilight Princess on the Wii. I paid $50 for this game, but I have logged probably over 25 hours on it so far and I find it immensely fun and engaging. (I only need to fight Ganondorf and I’m done, but I want to save that for a special occasion and like, bake a cake to celebrate. Yes, I know I am weird.) That comes out to about $2/hour of entertainment, and I can certainly see myself replaying it at some point, bringing the total cost per entertainment hour even lower.
My boyfriend has one of the most extreme examples, though. He bought Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in around 2001 for somewhere around $35. He has played that game almost once a year since he first got it. Conservatively, he has logged around 100 hours playing Castlevania, bringing his cost to around $.35/hour of entertainment. Why has he played it so many times? Because it’s a good game with good gamplay and an engaging (if not well voice-acted) story.
I have no problem with people preferring games with multiplayer because they like the multiplayer experience, but it’s certainly not the only thing that makes a game enjoyable or valuable, and it’s not always necessary to make a game worth the purchase price.
I believe you have a very good point about the multiplayer vs solo games. I also enjoy looking at a game in terms of it’s “cost per entertainment hour”. At one point, I purchased Kirby on the N64 because it seemed like a fun little game, but unfortunately, it only took me a little over an hour to pass it. But as to the multiplayer vs solo games, I thoroughly love many solo games, such as Kingdom Hearts, Sly Cooper, any Zelda, etc. But ever since I got married, I have become progressively more enchanted with playing video games that allow a more social aspect. My wife and I have a great time playing Baldur’s Gate and Champion’s of Norrath on the PS2. Moreover, it has gotten to the point that even when I play Kingdom Hearts, my wife and my brother-in-law sit there making comments (some of which are to help me, others take on a more Mystery Science Theater quality). So, I can see both sides of the issue.
Oh, and by the way, this blog is awesome! Thank you so much for all your insight. I have only worked on one published title, but only as a tester. My hope is to get back into the industry as a 3-D modeler, but my portfolio has a long way to go before I get there.