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Posted By Robert G. about 6 months, 2 weeks ago
Jonas Antonsson: “Games are Meant to be Played with Others”,
“We want community to be at the heart of the experience.”
Controversial statements are common in the gaming industry, but it is rare that I am somewhat taken aback by a statement so quickly. Now, with a sense of morbid curiosity, let’s take a look at the opinions of someone you may not have heard, a man named Jonas Antonsson.
Antonsson, the Icelandic CEO of small time developer Gogogic, the makers of facebook and iOS titles such as Vikings of Thule and the upcoming MMO GodsRule, sat down with an exclusive interview with [a]list daily. The second part of this interview has already spread across the internet due to some rather cherry-picked statements regarding Antonsson’s words on “the single player gimmick.” Of course, focusing on that phrase turns it into a headline despite the context of Antonsson’s words.
I also think that it is worth to note that the single player mechanic is a gimmick – games are meant to be played with others and it doesn’t matter if it’s in-person or online. The first games were designed as multiplayer experiences, but when computer and console games became a thing there was a need to construct an antagonist and/or a protagonist for commercial purposes. You couldn’t depend on people coming together to have a synchronous experience over a game. That would have simply stifled sales. And since there was no reasonable way to connect people in other ways – the arcade was the only serious attempt – it became an industry need to project the game as the other player. Playing a game is a multiplayer activity and can easily be seen as such when you watch young toddlers play by themselves. They invent someone to play with, someone that they talk to and interact with.
The high score list is a simplest way to make a game social, to transform it to an asynchronous multiplayer experience. A simple list allows me to share an experience with others – comparing myself to you in the game. This also becomes a great reason to create games that are hard and difficult to master. Enter the classic hardcore game that allows dedicated players to compare not only scores but progress and in-game assets found or unlocked. But now we can connect people in and around a game through real time PvP and PvE mechanics and the need for pure single player games had gone down. We have multiple plots and stories and build the meta-experience for the entire audience. The premise for making games has changed – reverted back to building multiplayer experiences that are true to the game form.
We all know that multiplayer is not the only way to play. Antonsson clearly states that there is a market for social, single-player, and even hardcore titles out there, citing the Day Z mod as an example. One should also point out that, historically speaking, games from the 1970′s and 80′s were also primarily single-player in many forms. The arcades were full of them, so Antonsson’s assertions don’t appear to be technically correct in the end.
While it is a clear case of a poorly-worded statement, the merits of his thought process need to be closely scrutinized for a moment. Multiplayer has slowly been redefined over the past decade, and Antonsson is correct in stating that having that connectivity become both instant and far-reaching through the internet has shown to be popular. It is hard to deny the power of multiplayer now a days from the sheer numbers seen in games like World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. In some ways, Antonsson is correct in saying that multiplayer can lead to a more enthralling experience.
The key word, however, is “can,” since the entire foundation of Antonsson’s argument is based on the tastes of one specific group. Taste varies from person to person, so that one can seem like a gimmick to one player is the desired default mode for another. Despite the success of modern multiplayer games, the single-player experience is far from being eradicated or made irrelevant. The point that Antonsson is trying to make is that games are simply meant to be played with others at a core level, but on the other hand, games are still valuable as a single-player experience.
Source: [a]list daily
There is no right way or wrong way for a game to be played. It depends on what the game is trying to accomplish. To say singleplayer is a gimmick, is just ridiculous. While there are games I like to play with friends or just online, games like Metro 2033 would not have been as good if you were forced into co-op.
All this anti single player talk from the gaming industry is just lazy developers who don’t want to put the effort into storytelling.
I don’t have time for multiplayer, I have a full time job. When I game in my spare time I don’t have time to have that gaming time constrained by whether or not others are available to play with me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qileP4bAzek
Even in context, his statement is stupid. He is essentially denouncing those who like single player and implying that what they are playing is not what gaming is truly about. I play Marvel: Avengers Alliance, and considering how I only have two people who regularly play the game, I think it’s safe to say that you also have to consider that just because someone plays a multiplayer game, they may not know people in real life who share that interest. That’s why you build the community so that people can get into contact with each other.
I’m sorry, but we’re going to use Pong of all things to justify why multiplayer is the “true” form of gaming? Yes, clearly World of Warcraft was inspired by Pong’s multiplayer.
It’s one thing to insult a series that I like, but when you belittle the entire foundation my games are based on? I may not care for the FPS genre, but even I can understand that it’s unfair to say it’s not “true” gaming.
Ahem. Dear Mr. Antonsson. STFU. Guess what, I happen to like single player mode. So do many other people. Multiplayer is nice but in general, when I play a game I do not think to myself ‘boy I sure hope that they put more effort into the multiplayer mode than they did in for the single player campaign’.
I think all the big publishers in the business are starting to share the same mentality. Established Single player franchises are steering towards being multiplayer games( e.g RE6 and Dead Space 3 etc) all because they believe it would generate more appeal and more sales. I think Swery65 said this concern best.
“I think the videogame has to move to the next stage, not just make money. We won’t see any progress until we seek a game that truly attracts people. Most creators must realize this to a point, though it’s hard to say we’ve had that kind of movement in the video game industry.”
Games are meant to do what designers intend them to do. The end.
Yep.. Skyrim was just a silly gimmick game. Farmville is the real deal.
Considering this guy’s company makes games for Facebook, iOS, and an MMO, somehow it’s not surprising that he’d say something like that, stupid as it is.
In any event, by that same token his company makes absolutely nothing I care about, so eh, I’m content to let him think whatever he wants.
Calls single player gimmicky then brings up hi-score lists. What’s more gimmicky than measuring your e-peen against other people? Besides almost every game made within the last several years has achievemnts, so mission accomplished social connectivity guys, you can shut up now.
Funny, since nearly every Facebook and iOS game I’ve experienced just feels like a gimmick to me.
As a huge RPG fan, I think this kind of sentiment is what really hurts the industry. SW:TOR is a prime example of that. The series went from being fantastic – first as my introduction to modern RPGs and then as one of my favourite games of all time – to a generic MMORPG that lost me as soon as my free month expired.
See this is why the gaming industry is going downhill bit by bit, cause developers nowadays is targeting towards one audience only, the multiplayers that is and forcing us singelplayer fans out to dry with nothing to do by a 4hour long campaign.