More Players, Less Interaction

With wireless technology being the staple of the world as we know it today, it's almost hard to remember a time when "2 player" was only an option if you had a brother or had a friend come over. Now, there is a plethora of games that have an online multiplayer feature available, all of which letting you play with any amount of friends (or people you've never met) at any time. While this seems great in the advancement of games, it also has its own flaws, as games are becoming less and less social.

Let's take it back to the arcade days, back when Pac-Man was causing coin shortages. An arcade cabinet was only available in a public location, so if you wanted to blow your allowance on game, you had to go to the game, not just order it online. While there, you may have to wait in a line to play your favorite game, and you might meet some people, usually the ones waiting in line with you. This added a social element to games, as people were all gathered to play a few games and were interacting with each other. The important thing here is the number of players vs the amount of social interaction. Street Fighter let 2 people play at a time, while other games only allowed for 1 player, yet there was still a large amount of social interaction due to the atmosphere.

Now let's jump to your childhood, the original Playstation or Nintendo 64 was the hottest toy on the market; if your childhood dates back further than this, even better! The home console took away the hassle of driving or walking to an arcade and even cut down on the cost of games by letting customers purchase their own copy of a game, rather than requiring them to pay a small cost to play a game once. I started playing on an NES, and since I was too young to be any good at anything, whenever my dad came home from work, we would turn on the NES and play some Mario Bros 3. Up until the Playstation, only 2 players could play at a time, and many games still were exclusively 1 player. When the Playstation introduced the Multi-tap, games like Crash Bash sold like hotcakes because they encouraged the 4 person play. While the social element was cut down incredibly, as there was only the people in the household to socialize with, the multiplayer encouraged gamers to play with others.

Bringing it back to today, we see that online multiplayer is in nearly every game for the current-gen consoles. Even games that were originally single player, such as Uncharted 3 or Metal Gear Solid 4, had a multiplayer element thrown into them. Although we can have 16+ people playing a single game at the same time, the environment has changed so much, that there is hardly any social interaction at all. Even if there is interaction, it usually involves a child screaming profanities, racial slurs, etc. or a butt-hurt player blaming their team, their weapon, the other team, etc. as to why they are losing. Despite all the players available, the environment of game has changed, as it is mostly now in a bedroom or den of sorts, with only 1 person per room. Multiplayer isn't a social concept anymore, its become a way to play against a better AI character.

Even games that supposed to be social are suffering from the lack of interaction as well. Facebook games are known for their "Ask a Friend" button, allowing the player to post on their friend's wall that they need some sheep, a gem, extra lives, etc. While it may sound nice that the games are kept in a community closer to the player, it often proves to be annoying to anyone who receives these notifications. However, even if someone absolutely loves getting these notifications and sending their friends material and other goodies, there is still no social interaction, except for a possible "thx" in a Facebook message.

Does this mean all hope is lost for social gameplay with others in the future? Of course not. Is the lack of social factors going to sink the game industry? Nope. Many players prefer to have it as is, as it allows for a simple way of getting what a player wants, that is, a game and someone to play it with. Although I personally enjoy going out of my way to play a game with multiple people in the same room, there are still times where I want to play my games by myself or pseudo-socially. Technology changes constantly, as does society, so although it may be uncomfortable, change is inevitable, all we can do is adapt and overcome. There are still plenty of ways to play in the same room with a group of people, the sociality of games hasn't been obliterated, it has just become easier and more comfortable to stay in and use online multiplayer.