tech

Lone gamers a dying breed as community play thrives

11 Comments
By Glenn CHAPMAN

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"Lone gamer" here, and arguably times have never been better- there are endless downloadable indie games, well-done retro compilations, and "mini" consoles to keep me occupied in my free time. I'm not into online multiplayer but I don't feel so down these days about lack of choice, that's for sure.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Whoever wrote the title of the article never played Street Fighter 2 in the arcades or Mario Kart 64 with friends.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What an ignorant, badly written article:

"...The advent of streaming games Netflix style from the internet cloud promised to fuel those trends, tapping into the power of data centers to let countless people play simultaneously in shared worlds or tune in to watch."

Streaming games are NOT "multiplayer" games. They are simply a (single or multiplayer) game, streamed from an online source.

Also, solo gamers are not a "dying breed". One only has to look at the likes of Doom Eternal, God of War 4, Fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077 and even many mobile games are all still single player experiences.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It's not a dying breed. It just comes down to what type of game(s) you enjoy playing.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

As others have said, lone gamers are far from a dying breed. I prefer to play alone but occasionally get into a group.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Incidentally .. I am currently bemused how the US Government has overlooked the F2P Gaming arena, especially upon Mobile phones - once installed those Games can ... do other things (unless Companies such as Apple suss them out), so apart from the obvious "e-Coin mining", the end-user is open to all sorts of privacy issues - microphone/photo/camera/location access - all of which, unless blocked could be activated remotely to listen in to conversations, view surroundings, etc and you'd be none the wiser.

I read once that Trump was even caught out by this, sinc the Chinese Ambassador called him just before he was about to make a call to someone the Chinese dont really like...

Today's DDoS attack on the Telegraph app Servers from China, just illustrate how that State is really not to be Trusted when it comes to Tech.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Throw in the word "Cloud" for anything that was previously MMO and make your Game sounds really hip. It's not really... it's a behind the scenes technology change for the compute that's use to provide the Gaming environment. An old concept in computing dating back from the 60's/70's - time sharing but with a modern twist, you can scale up the power of your Servers incrementally as and when you need to, or scale down (should your game prove... less than popular), and all without having to buy hugely expensive equipment that may sit there under-utilised. To the end-user/gamer... this has no material benefit - but to the Company providing the Gaming Service its potentially a good cost saving.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I don't want to play with overly sensitive SJW crowd or folks spewing racial slurs , GTA online and other rock star games online is ok though

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Tell that to the fans of Cyberpunk 2077.

4 ( +5 / -1 )

I think this is more because games have captured a new kind of audience. My younger brother is 11, and his primary way of spending time with friends is through gaming. It's a new way to be social together, and I think that attracts people who enjoy being social. Video games didn't have that appeal earlier.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Lone gamers a dying breed as community play thrives

Except that they're not. Developers might be pushing community play harder than ever, but ultimately it won't affect the number of solo players out there. All the fancy team/battle royale gimmicks in the world won't push solo players to team up if they can't trust/rely on the players the developers are trying to lump them with, while teaming up in death matches continues to yield high levels of toxicity. If you want people to team up, you need to give them the right incentives. Forcing teamwork is a bad idea. Video games are different to Marvel movies, and bands of misfits won't magically pull together to save the day. Try understanding why people play solo before you start doing everything you can to deny that capacity, otherwise you risk alienating a sizeable chunk of your consumer market.

Still, focusing on cloud computing in gaming isn't a bad idea, I just wish developers would pay more attention to their consumers and less attention on unnecessary excess details (like horse excrement in Red Dead 2. There's no need for that, seriously). There are some developers out there who prioritise quantity over quality in their games, which might be okay for a short-term revenue boost, but the long-term implications can be crippling, especially when the consistent lack of quality drives players away. By all means; go nuts with technology, just remember to get regular feedback from gamers, and listen to it. I can't stress the point of listening to gamers enough.

6 ( +7 / -1 )

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