You’re Doing It Wrong: Best Left Alone

What is the decision making process for choosing to add a multiplayer component to a videogame? I presume the publisher has an influence over this process, suggesting the addition to help boost market appeal; if a game has both solo and co-operative play the game is marketable to more people. But if a game doesn’t need multiplayer, why doesn’t the developer avoid the inclusion of this and focus purely on the single player experience.

This week’s piece conflicts a little with my videogame buying ethos: when buying a game, I expect the multiplayer mode(s) to provide quality, longevity and above all value for money. I feel like my money could have been better spent when a multiplayer lacks any of these aspects and the game experience is short-lived. A multiplayer component whether fundamental to the game or not is rendered useless if there are little or no players online to play with (unless the multiplayer has a very niche audience which leaves a handful of players meeting up to play regularly).

Quality vs. quantity: time-frames and release dates mean that developers don’t have the freedom to produce the best possible single player component and work on a long-lasting multiplayer addition, unless the game being developed is multiplayer-only or primarily a multiplayer experience or the developer has a vast and/or experienced team and money available to produce more content within a time-frame.

When a game is released, if a multiplayer feels tacked on within a few weeks the number of players dries up and the single player mode is left to try and justify the price-point. Take Bioshock 2 for example: I felt the game didn’t need a multiplayer mode since the single player was strong enough to play multiple times much like the first Bioshock. 2K Marin added an unnecessary multiplayer mode and even though the mode offered a little originality and intrigue in the form of your underwater hotel room ‘lobby’, it lacked the same atmosphere and suspense intensity the single player offers – this led to the feeling of needlessness, which reduced the amount of players fast.

I feel this reflects badly on the game because the single player is excellent but the multiplayer unfortunately not so – since Bioshock as a concept doesn’t naturally suit co-operative play participating in the multiplayer is a somewhat forced decision on your half. A game like Uncharted 2 which lies in a similar position of being a naturally single player experience with a perhaps needless multiplayer mode managed to provide a decent enough multiplayer that kept the player count suitably high and had genuine longevity.

The decision whether to include multiplayer or not probably rests with developers making games for the likes of the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, since PC games have a higher tendency to offer multiplayer components, increased multiplayer longevity and the ability to heavily customise the experience which greatly boosts the time you can spend online. I found the game Star Wars Jedi Knights: Jedi Academy had a far greater life-span on the PC than on the original Xbox; I played multiplayer on both but the PC offered more servers, more mods and patches and more players. Both versions had the insufficient and wholly average single player campaign, so the game’s enjoyment life-span & entertainment value rested pretty much entirely on the multiplayer’s more than sturdy shoulders.

A game like Modern Warfare 2 has a big reliance on multiplayer too; sure, the single player has had some care and attention but if Infinity Ward were truly focused on delivering a story mode that provided its own value for money separate to that which the multiplayer inherently provides, the slight hike in retail price would have been made more justifiable. You could argue that the six-hour Hollywood story was a short but sweet diversion from the main attraction but I felt the story lacked the quality and sustenance which the game’s prequel definitely had.

The story-telling and replayability factors were considerably better in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare than in the sequel but this may have been due to Infinity Ward not knowing how much of a success the multiplayer would be way back when. A bit of arrogance showed in the more developed and improved multiplayer component two years later but a less impactful and enjoyable single player campaign in Modern Warfare 2 was also present - Treyarch’s World at War oddly had a better and more rewarding single player than multi-player even though the online part still provided an abundance of playtime.

I expect a developer to make an educated decision when choosing to add multiplayer to their game: if there is definitive justification for including a multiplayer component then by all means go ahead. But if the game would benefit more from a more memorable single-player at the cost of being solely a sole experience, the game is best left alone as it is. I’m currently playing Singularity which includes a multiplayer mode but since the game is remarkably like Bioshock and Timeshift in appearance & gameplay I imagine the multiplayer will be incredibly short-lived. I wonder whether Activision convinced Raven to add the multiplayer in?