Originally published on 1/16/13
So I’ve discussed this a few times with people, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Gaming with others, either physically or digitally: helpful or distracting?
I s’pose I should clarify the term “helpful.” I mean, do you feel like you’re deeper in a game when you know there are others roaming the countryside around you, or are you constantly thinking about their experience as well as your own?
After multiple conversations about this, I feel like I am in the minority. I must say that MMOs are not my jam, because when I see real live people running around all over my screen, I think about them as people, on the other side of a monitor or console, judging me or living their own lives. I don’t think about their character(s) in relation to my character; I think of them in relation to me. And it takes me so far out of the game, I just don’t want to play. Obviously this is a weird function of some self-esteem problems, if I’m assuming strangers in Guild Wars 2 are judging my Charr as I run by, but hey. It is what it is. Maybe I’ll sort it out one day.
As for me, I love the single player experience. I let myself completely become who I’m playing and suddenly realize I’ve been playing for five hours. The world, with all of it’s imperfections and impracticality, becomes totally real. If someone is there with me? I feel about the same as I do when I play MMOs. Certainly they must be scrutinizing my skill, my technique, and my know-how. Certainly they must be deciding to never play with me again, or that my gamer street cred is an inflated joke.
There are a few exceptions to this, but they’re few and far between. Hopefully I’ll get to a point where I can move past this, but as it stands for right now, I thoroughly enjoy playing by myself and try to avoid all multiplayer situations.
What about you guys? Do you prefer single player or multiplayer, particularly from the viewpoint of immersion in a video game? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Ashton
More and more, I game with an attention to story progression and character development. I really want to see video games evolve as a narrative medium, to see how games can tell stories in a way that books, movies, and music can’t. As a result, the vast majority of my gaming today is singleplayer, but that’s not to say that I can’t enjoy playing a multiplayer game.
MP gaming, however, requires a different kind of commitment to be enjoyed than singleplayer. I don’t enjoy getting my butt handed to me in every online match of Halo that I play, but I really don’t have the time to invest into honing my skills–at least, not like I once did. Singleplayer gaming is non-competitive. It can (usually) be enjoyed regardless of one’s skill level.
And with that, I’m going to leave with a meme that plays nicely into this discussion. Be forewarned, there’s some NSFW language: http://goo.gl/XTgGg
Laurie
Hahaha, I always love that meme. You know, that’s really the truth about skill honing. We have Halo 4 in our break room, and when I can play a local game with friendly co-workers, I get better, and then I jump online on Xbox Live and get obliterated and it’s not an experience I ever even want to try again. Once again, the wisdom of Ashton shines through 😉
thedanner
My only experience with online gaming is FPS, so here is my .02 in that context:
I love playing with a bunch of friends where we communicate our location and fight strategically. Having said that, the people without jobs (children or welfare cases) who spend hours a day mastering these games make them pretty much unplayable for me.
The other problem: match-making engines see that we have 4 people in a squad and match us with 4 player pro-teams (it seems like). I wish they were more sophisticated to allow casual gamer squads to face off against casual gamer squads.
In short, I never feel like I “win” playing multiplayer, and on the off chance I feel like that, the instances it happens are so few and far between that I’m not incentivized to try it any more.