I guess I've always had an "I don't give a fuck" mentality on the topic of piracy. If it's there, available for me to download it without having to pay for it, I do it. I guess I'm just selfish that way.

Single player games are piratable, thus you get the whole experience without having to spend a cent.
Multiplayer games usually offer more gameplay hours in comparison and aren't solely first-person shooters but strategy, MMOs, racing and so on. People will pay because they want to play with their buddies and/or want to have a good challenge.

Seems obvious that people would do this. Why pay for something you can get for free?

multiplayer games give you hundreds of times more gameplay and they're way more difficult to pirate
people would pirate multiplayer games just as much if they could

>>142
That's the problem that is trying to be pointed out here I think.
If people only pirate single player games, and only buy multi player games, developers will focus more of multi player games and less on single, it's a pretty simple concept.

>>145
I understand but good singleplayer games will still sell no matter what (e.g. Mass Effect, Fallout). Devs can use profits from multiplayer games to finance single ones too. We now live in a connected society and most people want to play games with others so it's obvious that those games will sell more, you can look at any chart and you will see multi games on top.

Imo there is still room for singleplayer games, they're just not the type of games the mass of the new gamers will pay for (gamers that get called casuals and that make for a substantial part of the gaming population now, which means more monies). Devs will be inclined to make games for those gamers because they know it will sell no matter how bad the gameplay or story is, which means less development hours. Plus, with singleplayer games you need to invest more time, be involved in a story for at least 2-3 hours while you can play a short game of FPS in 30 minutes and be over with it. Then later come back to it and play another 30 mins. It's just a different form of consuming games than the one we had.

Multiplayer games=easy to enter, learn and leave
Singleplayer games=no one reads books any more

>>146
But if the types of people who are engaged by singleplayer games are the kind who pirate them, why would that be profitable at all? It seems like rather than use a story as a guideline for gameplay, they could just use that script as a CGI sequence to draw the player in, then use the campaign as a 2 or 3 hour tutorial, before presenting the multiplayer aspect, like the latest Halo game.

When Half-Life 3 comes out, do you think it will sell better than the most recent Call of Duty game? Black Ops wasn't even made by Infinity Ward, and people are still applauding both the singleplayer and multi. It's possible to enjoy games without purchasing them, but don't act like you're participating in the industry, or even among the true hobbyists.

Multiplayer games are popular now, and I wouldn't blame that on piracy.

They take half the brainpower to develop and have twenty times (generous) the play time. Why waste time making up plots when the player base can just entertain itself with dorama and rivalries? What better soap opera is there than the internet?

I personally don't care for multiplayer so I'm left out of this movement.

>>152

>I personally don't care for multiplayer so I'm left out of this movement.

It's a little reassuring to know I'm not the only one. I dislike 'real time' interaction with other people to the point where it's almost impossible to play any multiplayer games (barring some turn based games, like Advance/Batallion Wars). If I recall correctly, I have never played any multiplayer game online.

>>167
The only thing I like about multiplayer games is they let me be a girl to other people. If a game doesn't have a female character option I don't bother with it

>>152
Multiplayer games aren't just popular now, they've always been popular. They only seem more popular because this is the first generation with widespread online multiplayer available on consoles. Even pre-online (which started in, what, the mid-90s?), multiplayer games have been popular. Gauntlet, for example, was a bar hit thanks to its group-centric gameplay, and that's a game from the early 80s.

I wouldn't say they take half the brainpower to develop, either. Look at RTS, MMOs, or fighting games to see just how difficult it is to properly balance.

>>167 here again

>>146

>I understand but good singleplayer games will still sell no matter what

I hope you do realize that that's just bullshit. The developer behind Little King's Story (Cing) went bankrupt after releasing it. The game sold like shit, even though it was by far (in my opinion of course) the best Wii game of 2009 and one of the best games of 2009 overall.

>>171

>RTS, MMOs, or fighting games

Coincidentally those are some of my favorite genres (if you substitute MMOs with RPGs in general). RTS's not so much these days, though.

I think I could play some Guild Wars/Monster Hunter/fightan games with fellow Brohnos, tho.

... Or not, I'm not too sure about that.

>>172
I don't think you can attribute Cing's demise to just that. Another Code: R, Last Window, and Again all performed terribly in Japan. I'm sure Nintendo had some role in it, too.

It's really a shame, as Cing were one of the few developers crafting stories worth a damn in video games today.

>>173

Yeah, I know that much. What I meant is LKS should have saved them but it didn't sell. I also realize that there were some complaints about distribution but if a guy who like me (who has no chance to buy it in his home country) could get it a week or so after release then it couldn't have been THAT bad.

(Side note: I seriously considered buying another copy to support the dev.)

The thing is Another Code: R was good (not spectacular but solid at least) and I can't imagine Last Window to be bad (considering it's a sequel to Hotel Dusk). Those games should've done a lot better, too, and I feel that it sort of backs my argument. I bet Carnival games (Wii shovelware) sold more than all games Cing has ever released combined.

>>176

Me again.

... Wait what. Do you mean to tell me Last Window has been released in english and nobody even bothered to tell me?

Well fuck.

>>176
Oh, I'm sure. The Wii market is unlike anything else we've seen in games before. Almost every third party, serious effort, game has failed to sell on it. Cing definitely deserved more sales than they had received. Also, yeah, Last Window was released in Europe with an English translation.

>>140
The industry has changed. Simple as that. All consoles now have an Ethernet port, which means something. Look at Street Fighter. It went from a two player game played at arcades or alone in your room to a worldwide competition. Single player games will now have increasingly online features or will be released in episodes. This allows the devs to make more money and sell you some DLC on the side. Players will buy games because it has an online mode where they can compete with others, the solo campaign and the multi are part of the same experience. Playing Final Fantasy genre games isn't as attractive as it was before and only a small margin of us old gamers will play them because we have that time on our hands, grew up with those games and are infatuated with fantasy settings and pretty little girls, can spend 2-3 hours on the same map leveling up characters or perfecting strategies.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2007/09/games-with-strong-online-components-outsell-the-competition.ars

>>172
>The developer behind Little King's Story (Cing) went bankrupt after releasing it. The game sold like shit, even though it was by far (in my opinion of course) the best Wii game of 2009 and one of the best games of 2009 overall.

I could give you a lot of good singleplayer games that didn't sell (especially on the Wii where it's so easy to pirate and non-Nintendo games have a hard time), that doesn't mean shit. Muramasa also came out in 2009 and only sold approx. 50k units in its first weeks. Was LKS a good game? Certainly. Why didn't it sell? It had no appeal. Most people haven't even heard of it or think it's one of those kids games, there wasn't that much of an advertisement campaign for it. This happens to a lot of good singleplayer games that try something new and aren't an established franchise.

Should've released those games on 360 or something. It's their own fault.

"As someone who games to escape, and not to compete, a future without singleplayer gaming is a future that would involve me no longer playing video games."
- Justin Bieber

>>188

>Was LKS a good game? Certainly. Why didn't it sell? It had no appeal. Most people haven't even heard of it or think it's one of those kids games, there wasn't that much of an advertisement campaign for it.

Oh, I don't deny it. In fact, that's most certainly true. I actually wanted to write about how rehashes of old franchises will sell 10x better than good new IPs. Good advertising is what matters the most nowadays and it's sad that even in video games just creating something good isn't enough as it won't get noticed at all or will be noticed and appreciated by a ridiculously small userbase. Back in the day creating a good game was enough, you could count on word of mouth.

>Should've released those games on 360 or something. It's their own fault.

Actually, I think they would've sold even worse if they were released on 360. In a way, LKS WAS one of 'those kids games'. Even though it wasn't piss easy and there were some things certainly not suitable for children (I don't really feel like spoiling anything, if you played the game you'll understand what I meant) it's overall art direction and it's theme were 'kiddie'. I doubt people who 'play only mature games for mature gamers such as myself' would appreciate that. On the other hand if you actually bought a Wii I can't see you complaining about stuff like that because that's what 95% of Wii games look and feel like. I don't really give much of a damn about gamers who can't look past stuff like that and simply appreciate some good gameplay.

Please note that not all people who posses an Xbox are like that. I just feel (and recall some personal experiences as well) that a good chunk of Xbox users think like that.
Each userbase has it's own share of idiots. Same goes for Nintendo. Just earlier today (for some reason I cannot recall) I watched the new Zelda trailer from E3. I have a habit of looking at the comments and the first one I saw was something like 'shut up people, of course it will be amazing, it's a ZELDA game, trust nintendo'. As a matter of fact, people who spout bullshit of this sort are even worse than GRIMDARKfags (now that I think about, LKS WAS pretty grimdark in it's own way). Nintendo has gotten stale long ass time ago and I feel that my now they're better of sticking to their old formulas (i.e. rereleasing what's basically the same game all over again - think Zelda, Mario; and no, I don't deny that they're good - I just think they're too 'samey' and I don't have much interest in them anymore). Metroid Other M was failure and if it was stripped of 'Metroid' in it's name 'game journalists' would rate it on average 10 points lower (in 100 points scale) then what they did which is another example for the importance of advertising (and I bet it sold like hotcakes - I stopped following sales a long time ago, as I almost lost all my teeth from constant grtting). And yes, I do realize it isn't a first party title but if you give one of your major franchises to some developer I think you do put some trust in them.

Wow, that certainly is a wall of text. Sorry about that.

>>189

As I'm living under a rock I don't have much on idea who this guy is (and after looking it up I already have my fair share of possible complaints about him, as I can only imagine a 16 year old pop star as someone who is the epitome of everything that's wrong with today's mainstream culture) but this should be quoted and over. Amen is all I can say (and I'm actually misotheistic).

>>191
Nah, that quote is from a Kotaku journalist. It's just an old meme to attribute quotes to Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. Don't mind it.

I think we can all agree the important thing here is to enjoy yourself, whether off or online. And I do pay for the games I like, be it a Halo or a game nobody heard of.

I really dislike multilayer games.
I just can't stand playing with other real people, not only does the idea make me uncomfortable, more far to ofter, people are idiots in games and it makes for a rather crappy experience.
Always with the guys yelling orders, always with the afks making unbalances in teams always with swarms of people that only hold possessions.
I play the games I do for the single player, and ignore the multiplayer part, but I guess I'm getting half the game or less now by doing so.

The most fun I had with a multiplayer game was in GTA4, where I didn't use guns at all and instead tried to knife everyone. People would freak out when I ran around their bullets and stabbed em to death. Works in RDR too but not as well because within a certain range they can gun whip you. If you kill them, it's funny: if they kill you, so what? You weren't even really trying

>>194
multiplayer was the best part of gta4 I thought.
I was more an rpg fan, loved blowing up people in cars as they tried to run me down.

>>195
I liked standing in the middle of the street then rolling out of the way at the last second, then turn around and blow them up. Or one time where I blew up a car speeding at at me and rolled out of the way as it's charred corpse zoomed past me into a wall.

That reminds me of another fault with multiplayer: when other people stop playing, you can't play.

>>196
yeah that's why I stopped playing it, just like with the few other online games I've played, waiting in a lobby for hours watching as people come and go but not stay as you need a certain amount of players, often times it might look as if we finally have enough players, then the game is canceled because someone dropped or has a bad connection or some bs, and then it's back to another hour wait in the lobby.
Needless to say, it got old.
Then there's lesser known or less popular games with ghost town online community's.

>>192

>It's just an old meme to attribute quotes to Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga.

First time I heard about it. Not sure if I should feel stupid for not knowing it.

>>194
>>196
>>197

Which only proves the truism older than time - multiplayer games are fun when played with friends (some people claim every geame gets better when you play it with someone but I'd have to disagree). And since I don't have any friends I created the multiplayer general thread.

>>203
I don't have any either but I still have fun with multiplayer games from time to time. I rarely communicate with anyone though