Since when did the MP become the game?

Let me begin first, modern day competitive online games are rubbish. I like online gaming on PC and consoles, but competitive games are stupid.

One thing I can't stand this generation is something Halo 2 caused. The multiplayer SECTION of the game being popularised as 'the game'. This is something I can't stand, this has continued into games such as the Call of Duty series and especially when the blockbuster story or campaign gets ignored for essentially what has been exactly the same game for the past 4 years or so.
This is a typical conversation concerning this situation I hate;

Me: "Have you played the new Call of Duty?"
Friend: "Yeah! It's awesome!"
Me: "That's great! So what set pieces does the game have this time?"
Friend: "I've not played the campaign yet, but I'm halfway heading towards Prestige."

Or the seminal;

Me "How's the new Call of Duty?"
Friend "Agh, the bullet detection is rubbish, the sound of the guns aren't very good and the maps are flawed"
Me "Oh right, so I guess that means that the campaign has rubbish level design then? Not as good as the old one?"
Friend "I wouldn't know, I've been busy playing the multiplayer, I only played half an hour of the campaign."

And this is something that comes up regularly. Just HOW many people in the world are actually thinking that the multiplayer is the game and then actively complain about the game being rubbish after playing ALL FOUR of the maps available in each mode and just see the game flopping just because the ATTACHED multiplayer that hardly changes, UT2003 and UT2K4 had more changes in a year than either CoD or Halo.
Then add to that insult of the level designers, story writers, animation directors. The campaign isn't played for about a week until they're bored of the MP and IN COMPARISON because of all the trigger happy shooting online for that week and mastering the shooting mechanics obsessively, the game's AI seems 'too easy'.

A lot of reviews these days for these kind of first person shooters, just review the multiplayer section and ignore the campaign as if it was some kind of last minute addition, when ACTUALLY, the campaign was what the game was intended to be marketed AS. The reason the developers built an engine, the reason the motion capture was so closely adapted for animation, the reason that the team hired a top class Hollywood composer to do the soundtrack, all gets ignored until later, when the player is bored and rushes through it like having ADHD just to get either Achievements or Trophies. What a sad world we live in and the game development community is encouraging this, because it makes money and everyone follows, getting the line between 'additional selling point' and 'high budget game' mixed up.

Oh well, I'm going to play the rather good bonus section of the game of MW2 which had a few tweaks that could of been in a patch in the last game and should be named "Call of Duty Modern Warfare Arena Tournament 2" until I get a copy of Black Ops in the future.

[Nate-Dog]

I agree with what you're saying, but you can't deny that games like CoD and Battlefield: Bad Company are games that focus on the multiplayer modes and so the campaign modes suffer at least a bit. I understand though that you're not really complaining about that but people's attitudes to this situation.

But I disagree with your second-last paragraph, I mean look at the adverts for Black Ops, how many of those are focused on the single-player? Look at the back and front of the BFBC2 box, how much of those focus on the single player? The games that are almost only played in the multiplayer section are usually marketed in that way because they know that most multiplayer-focused games have more longevity than singleplayer-focused games and because multiplayer seems to attract more attention than single-player does. All depends on the genre though when you think about it, I'd say if you asked anyone about Assassins Creed: Brotherhood at least 8 out of 10 would tell you about the story first and foremost before even considering the multiplayer.

[Cajun Chicken]

I'm not downplaying what you're saying. But the way the game has been marketed in printed game magazines and aired adverts have shown a deep focus on set pieces in the singleplayer game and the characters, plus the overall feeling of the era the game is set in. I find that multiplayer often cancels a lot of it out.

I do like the MP, don't get me wrong. It's very addictive, but I get annoyed how the actual parts of the game gets swapped around for the afterthought and bonus to be the game itself. If it was the case that everyone wanted that, then the MP alone could be sold a lot cheaper and it should just be advertised on TV as people sitting around shooting each other, which actually, I believe a clever advert has shown that aspect recently.

If you look at a Uncharted 2, neither part of the game eclipsed the other and it was a whole package. It just seems to me, a lot of the time, CoD and Halo just become 'the multiplayer' when referred to in general speech, forgetting there's a good piece of single player focused interactive entertainment behind it which should be at the forefront because it had the bigger budget.

Is it because the MP outlasts the SP? Personally, I get bored of the MP faster, the maps and the weapons, they're just the same boards with different pieces. Plus...Would you fork out the price of half a board game for another board to put the same pieces on just because everyone's decided to play on the new board more? That's also something worth discussing. I'm sure people can see the metaphor I'm trying to put across there.

[Nate-Dog]

Yeah I know what you mean. I have a good few friends myself who rarely play anything else than CoD (i.e. just it's multiplayer) and FIFA (multiplayer only after playing about 5 games against the AI). I'm a bit unsure on whether multiplayer outlasts SP myself. The attraction is that you're never gonna have the same outcome twice and playing with friends and things like that, but personally I've never played a game focused on MP that I can say I've in all enjoyed more than a game with a good SP. I look at games like MGS and Final Fantasy (of which the latter I've only recently began to play) and I find that you simply can't beat a good SP experience. Even to this day (up until my PS3 got YLOD) I'd still very often have a craving for playing MGS1 or 2 again and would just pop it in and continue along my save file. I'd go onto forums and discuss the story or anything new I've found even this many years later because sometimes that's the beauty of an SP game.

Personally, as regards to the metaphor you mentioned, I have gotten the last 2 Cod games myself. I originally had CoD4 as one of my first "next-gen" games and loved it. I eventually got MW2 and even from my first play of it, I never really ever enjoyed it because I felt I had played this all before, and eventually got rid of it and told myself I wouldn't take this bs from a company like Activision anymore. But then I got sick of playing multiplayer games alone and eventually got BO, solely because of that, and I know for a fact that for the whole time that I went not even considering considering buying BO that would have continued had it not been for the want of playing some lighthearted games with my friends. Ok I've really gone off topic but I suppose that's the only reason why I'd ever go and get a game like CoD each year / two years, and at the end of the day, even though I love single-player games and modes a whole lot more than multiplayer, the attraction of playing games with friends casually and of being able to say to yourself you're better than this or that guy in a match (as egotistical and stupid as it sounds), for some reason that makes me want to play multiplayer games often.

Edit: Sorry I really went on in that second part about nothing in particular hehe.

[blackburn5]

I agree with everything you guys have said. MP is fine but why is it put as the main focus? It's like selling you half a game. Games like LFD have 3 hour campaigns which i personally think is ludicrous.If you are so focused on MP alone then make a MP game and sell it for less.I mean if UC2 can make a robust SP and MP without sacrificing anything why can't everyone else do the same? It's like a huge middle finger to your gamers. "You don't like MP and want to play SP only? Then screw you!"

[Cajun Chicken]

Now, L4D is an interesting one. You see, the game is mainly an online game. It's like the Unreal Tournament series that the single player was practice and more bang for the buck for the user.

L4D arguably. In my eyes, hope I'm not going to be hypocritical here, always has been packaged and marketed a MP game. Right from day one, just like Counterstrike. It was intended to be online.
Another part of this argument is that the L4D series still has a narrative wherever in SP or Online unlike CoD, it's the same choice of stories, the bots are just replaced with real gamers around the globe and the characterisation, voice acting and soundtrack (although dynamic) remains. This partly is why I respect Valve with multiplayer games that the story is the characters/classes within the games meaning that the same feel of the game can be online and offline.

What you have with CoD is a blank slate running around shooting. There's not much more depth. Like as seen in L4D which has great characters and archetypes, you might as well be Doomguy in CoD.

[christheredhead]

games that are so heavily focused on multiplayer do seem to have a tacked on single player experience. i have friends who have bought modern warfare, mw2, and black ops yet have not played even 1 hour of the campaign for any of those games. i enjoy multiplayer just as much as the next person but for me a single player experience is was draws me into a game. if youre just going to tack on a 5 hour single player then whats the point. what i would like to see is games such as bad company or cod become online only and come out at a starting price of 39.99. yet i feel the same about single player games as well. some games dont need a multiplayer such as bioshock 2 or up and coming dead space 2. there no need to tack them on. after playing the dead space beta the multiplayer was actually a lot better then i thought but still i think most everyone could live with out. basically in an overall sense you tend to see great single player games with a tacked on multiplayer and great multiplayer game with tacked on single player so maybe we should be at the point where developers sell them separately at discounted prices. i would be some what open to that idea.

[gamerdude132]

Personally, I go into every game with Single-player first and may play a couple of hours of multiplayer, then I'll go back to SP forever. If I want to play online, I'll throw on Combat Arms or Cross Fire (*cough* approve the reviews and my blog *cough*)and play that for several hours until I get bored. But I don't go into CoD for multiplayer, admittedly. I'm all SP after a bit and every game I've ever played has that same reaction unless it's an MMO. This is why I love BioShock 1. Didn't give a damn about multiplayer and created what is, IMHO, the best single-player experience to ever grace gaming.

L4D is excused though. That's pretty much an MMO and SP is practice.

[jcmoorehead]

I tend to play through the Single Player of a game first and then I'll try out the multiplayer. Although that said I've never been huge on multiplayer in games up until Halo Reach came along and even then I made sure to play through the campaign and check out the story before going fully into the multiplayer mode.

There is definitely more of an emphasis on competitive mutliplayer in games though and its been going that way for a few years now. I guess its a way of saying to potential buyers that they can just hop on for about half an hour for some mindless action. It's a big shame because some of the storylines in games are brilliantly crafted and amazing to watch play out. Unfortunately people just don't want to dedicate their time to it as much.

[theonlylolking]

I agree completely.

[DivisionG]

WooHoo! So glad to see a like minded view on the state of gaming and its advertising today. The 2-5 hour campaigns are becoming a joke. A simple script of actions that we just move forward on. Did you see the video of the first mission of Black ops played without a single bullet fired. Totally scripted actions there. Ultimately a waste of my 15 minutes.

Question is though, with multiplayer only on the up and up. What does this mean in the long run for the singleplayer? Two versions of the game to be released?

As we can see from other articles here they want to start charging exclusively for multiplayer content, releasing two versions of the game could be the start of that.

[hougigo]

Very true, they're starting to shift away from the whole "single player" aspect of gaming and moving on towards multiplayer. That's all that get's hyped up about the biggest game releases now-adays. I mean, even some of the big name games are trying to implement multiplayer even though their single player mode is so strong. Assassins creed, Grand Theft Auto... i'd name more but my brain is mush right now from staying up all night.

[hougigo]

P.S
I'm one of those guys that prestied and played multiplayer without even playing the campaign yet..... 7th right now.