'Sometimes, you just have to save the world on your own.'

Is the solo video game a dying art?

I've been thinking about that quite a bit since picking up a few used Xbox 360 games during a recent sale at GameStop. As the guy behind the counter was ringing me up, he stopped to give me a warning about the critically acclaimed title Mass Effect: "You know that this one's offline-only, single-player, right?"

Until then, I'd honestly never realized how much video gaming has become a community experience, thanks largely to online services like XBox Live and innovative party games like Rock Band.

So is the solo gaming experience on the way out?

I posed this question to my friend Dale Mulcahy, a 3D effects artist for Activision's Treyarch Studio who worked on games such as Call of Duty: World at War. He said that game developers still put a lot of emphasis on the single-player aspect of each game, though players don't always share the priority:

"There is a very high percentage of Call of Duty: World at War players that skipped the solo campaign and went straight into multiplayer. I think I'm safe in assuming this is the case for Call of Duty 4 and any other game popular for its online component. But still, most of our development time goes into the flagship solo campaign because, I dunno, it just feels like it's the core of the game.

"Also, I think many developers feel that their multiplayer modes are extensions of the single player campaign. This philosophy might not prevail in a few years considering where the players are running to first."

Since GameStop's where I was first inspired to tackle this topic, I figured I might as well throw it back in their lap. I turned to Gary Offutt, GameStop's online editor, who just got back from the massive E3 gaming conference.

Gary responded with a truly fantastic writeup on why he believes single-player gaming will never die. I couldn't bear to cut a word, so read it in its entirety after the jump.

Although gaming technology and social-networking have combined at just the right time to make multiplayer gaming more popular than ever, the well-told, engrossing single-player story will always have its place, and developers are still very aware of that.

It’s fun to go online and bond with your friends while you embark on a quest together or to laugh at one of your buddies when he gets blown away in a multiplayer shooter, but some games simply work better as a one-player experience.

For example, both Mass Effect, the game you mentioned, and Bioshock deal with moral decisions that have to be made as the story progresses, ultimately affecting the outcome of the game. In a plot like that, most players want to make those decisions themselves.

Other games may involve relying on your wits to uncover a riddle or mystery, and you usually get more satisfaction out of figuring it out yourself. Although the sequels for some of these popular single-player games may have multiplayer options, the single-player experience still comes first when developers flesh out the plots for games like these.

 The developers’ intentions for the feel of a game definitely play a role in deciding whether it should be single-player, multiplayer or both. Developers might choose to force players to work together to accomplish a goal, like in Left 4 Dead. If you don’t cooperate in that one, you’ll soon be overrun by zombies. On the other hand, developers might intentionally try to play upon feelings of isolation or claustrophobia to enhance the overall single-player experience, like in Dead Space. When you’re playing as the sole survivor on a space ship, and you have to sneak through darkened corridors as you blast your way through hordes of aliens, you get closer to those real feelings of being alone, afraid and outnumbered if your character is actually alone, afraid and outnumbered.

It may help if you compare playing video games to watching movies, which, by the way, seem to be losing a little ground to video games as the preferred entertainment medium. Sometimes it’s scarier to turn down all of the lights in your house and watch a horror movie by yourself. However, you might take a date to that same movie just so she’ll grab your arm during the scary parts, which worked like a charm on my second date with the girl I would eventually marry.

Or depending on your mood, you might prefer to meet all of your buddies at the theater to watch a movie full of car chases, gun fights and explosions because, well, that’s what guys do. Just as we need the variety of romantic comedies, adventures, mysteries, historical dramas and so forth in the movies, we need variety in our games to fit our personalities and moods.

I have some friends who meet online every other Friday to play their favorite shooter. Now that they’re “responsible” members of society with jobs, families and busy schedules, it’s hard for them to coordinate getting everybody together at a sports bar, but once they get the kids in bed and settle in for the night, it’s easy for them to get together online without leaving the house. Then they don’t have to battle traffic, their wives know where they are, and they still have a good time male bonding by blowing stuff up.

That’s part of the appeal of multiplayer gaming. You can have genuine social interaction without going through all of the planning and preparation it takes to get a large group of people together in one physical place.

Of course, these same friends will also play through single-player games when the mood strikes them. As human beings, we all need some alone time every once in a while. Playing a well-made single-player game can be the equivalent of curling up with a good book. Sometimes you just have to save the world on your own.

Gary Offutt is the online editor and content manager for GameStop. To learn more about Gary, check out my Q&A with him on AdFreak.

Today's photo credit: Mass Effect 2 home page.

Comments

[Tony Legrone]

I love playing single-player games. Multi player if great, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I don't have the time to invest group missions. I'm mostly referring to games like WoW or FFXI where it takes hours to complete tasks and gain levels.

Being able to hop on the xbox and be playing within 5 minutes and be able to pause or quit whenever you need to, without obligation to other players, is something I think will never get old.

[Josh Shabtai]

Brilliant post, David! I've been thinking about this question a bit recently myself, being one of what sounds like an increasingly small percentage of gamers who prefer the single-player, slow-burn-narrative experience.

I'm hoping the answer will become significantly more interesting when BioWare releases its upcoming Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic. From everything that BioWare's put out so far, it appears that they're creating a game that stratifies the multiplayer experience into strong individual narratives that overlap every so often.

Okay, time to stop geeking out and go back to work. Nice job.

[David McRaney]

I play with others to compete. I play alone to experience.

[eq plat]

I certainly enjoy playing both modes. Mostly, I play alone when I want to gain, discover and learn new things on my own. And multiplayer mode, when I want to interact with my other everquest buddies.