this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
54 points (100.0% liked)
Gaming
30557 readers
337 users here now
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it's gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
See also Gaming's sister community Tabletop Gaming.
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Used to be our favorite single player games came with multiplayer modes attached to them. You didn't expect them to get years of content. You just enjoyed them for a little while with some friends and then moved on. Not only is that totally fine, I'd argue it's preferable.
Absolutely, but that's not how this works anymore and today, the expectation with every multiplayer game and even multiplayer mode is that it's live-service. The industry has replaced the "natural" skill progression of players with dangling the carrot of permanent (and in my opinion mostly pointless) unlockables in front of their faces at all times.
I think some of it is the audience's fault. I have heard many friends complaining about multiplayer games being "dead" or "abandoned" because there's no new content and I'm like "I'm pretty satisfied, it doesn't need anything else". If there's enough people playing for matchmaking, I'm good.
Let's change that expectation. Baldur's Gate 3 won best multiplayer at the Game Awards, and it's not a live service. In a talk with some friends, I realized how antagonistic the relationship between players and developers always ended up as well when the developers make more money with more "engagement". Diablo IV will get fun builds nerfed into the ground; Baldur's Gate 3 will let them rock, but only in the pre-existing difficulty levels before they add in extra challenge modes for fun. That's the difference.
Meanwhile, Agent Under Fire multiplayer for the Gamecube is more fun than any live service FPS I've ever played. It certainly didn't require years of support to be that fun, and you only need one other person to play it with, but preferably 3. Very easily doable regardless of how many people are in matchmaking.