An open letter to the developers of "multiplayer-only" games:
Dear developers,
I can understand why, over the past year or two, you collectively seem to have become entranced by the idea of making games "multiplayer-only"; It requires significantly less work than creating a balanced single-player and multi-player experience, it means that you can focus on a more polished and full experience in one court as opposed to having two thinner experiences in two, and you can apparently sell it at full-price with people calling you out on it left, right and center and still make a frankly ludicrous amount of money.
I'll grant you, multi-player is often very satisfying to be good at; there's something viscerally fun about knowing that you've bested your fellow man that you just don't get by playing against a computer. In addition, I'll grant you that multiplayer tends to take longer to get tired of than single-player, although this is largely dependent on who you're matched with or against. However, it does have one major problem which I've brought up previously in my RWBY: Grimm Eclipse review, and that is Ghost Town Servers. What happens six months down the line when most of the player base have moved on to the Next Big Thing?
I remember when I first got Titanfall, and I played it every day I could. I put a lot of work into levelling up, and I have a lot of (probably) very expensive military hardware which has spent the past two years (give or take) kicking its heels and falling into disrepair. I did actually try to get into a match a while ago, because I'd forgotten why specifically I'd left. Half an hour later, I was still trying to get into a match and I remembered why: because practically everyone (admittedly, myself included) had moved on to Destiny or whatever else had come out in the intervening time that promised a more amusing distraction on the inexorable road to the grave.
In addition, if you're going to charge full price for a game, you should at least give us the other half of the full game; a campaign, not just a multiplayer mode. To clarify, when I say 'campaign', I don't mean just the same multiplayer modes but with bots. I mean something that you put actual effort into, ideally with a story that can offer at least some passing explanation as to why these people in the multiplayer keep popping a cap in each other. Now, I'm not looking at any game in particular here *cough* starwarsbattlefront *unconvincing cough*. Like I said, not looking at anyone in particular here, but it'd be nice.
The problem is that while, granted, multiplayer takes longer to get tired of, when everyone does get tired of it then you've spent however-much money on a game that you can no longer play. It's already troubling enough that DLC and micro-transactions have become prevalent enough that games are shifting further and further away from being something that you pay for over the counter once and then own permanently. It scares me to think that we may be close to coming full circle with the older arcade days; paying for games at the start and then continuing to do so lest it arbitrarily shut off.
All that being said, I'll confess that Overwatch may be the one exception to the rule, for two reasons: the first is that it's a Blizzard game, and they have a reliable track record of keeping their games running pretty much indefinitely with continuous events, content and updates. The second reason is that it has a large enough community that it won't be dying down anytime soon. I mean, a campaign would've been nice if it's going to be $70AUD, but y'know. Can't win 'em all.
In summary, it's a dangerous path that you're going down here. If you're not careful, you're liable to slip off, or, if you keep treating people playing your games the way an uninterested theme park attendant treats another pack of children running on to the teacups, get a little helping hand on the way down.
Best wishes,
Harry
As always, anyone who wants to send me a review suggestion, rant topic, or just wants to say 'Hi!' can do so by emailing me at pressxtoreview@gmail.com
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