What has online multiplayer done to games and gamers?

Since the Xbox and the rest of this gen, online gaming has become a huge part of the gaming experience. In almost every game you find there’s online play, or at least some sort of online components. There are games that even full focus on online, MMOs, “MAG”, and such. We can all agree that it brought us gamers a lot of benefits, but what is also taken away.

The Good

The main purpose of online play: to bring people together from all over. Being the MLK of games, it has allowed you to play with a friend all the way in Wisconsin, US. It solved the problem of only childs (is that right) who love competition. It’s brought people a little more closer. Online play has/can also boost up replay value exponentially. Instead of doing speed runs and learn ever inch and glitch of the game, it can always be a new experience with new players. Of course it all depends on if it was done right. And let’s not forget DLC. DLC has also been able to extend replay value and deliver things that could fit into the game or could make it in.

The Bad

If that wasn’t good enough reasons to satisfy you, well then there’s nothing I could do as it only gets worse. The first problem is the contract. No not the terms of agreement, I’m talking about Xbox Live. Yes it only MS doing this but 360 players make up most of the gamers today, and having to pay a subscription fee, it seems weird to pay for internet and to use the internet to gain internet use. Still it’s not a major, nor a minor problem. Another thing is DLC. While I noted it as a good thing there is also a bad side, pricing and the content. I wasn’t a PC gamer for a long time, but I believe that DLC or add-on content was more worthwhile actually adding depth to the story or truly extending the value of the game. Very few games successfully do this, while some make you pay a fee for recycled content.

A major problem however is what it’s done to developers. With online being major with casual gamers, some devs think it must have online to make sales (Bioshock 2 anyone). With that single player get hurt badly, and those who were/are all about speed runs and such, the story was too boring, too short, or too easy to go at it again. Devs also get lazy on both sides sometimes, making a boring SP and MP. Another thing is when making online multiplayer, split-screen is left out. Devs need to realize how MP started, what makes it worse is when online co-op is there.

But THAT isn’t even the biggest issue. The biggest problem is what it’s done to the gamers. Multiplayer was invented to share the fun across the world; however people have started only caring about rank and K/D and the glitches to get them to the top. This sounds mostly like COD and that’s where it’s truly shown. Noobs constantly trying to find combination and permeations to make on a top 100 list that no one, not even the devs, care about. There are those players that just sit in their rooms waiting for a fly to come their way and kill it. Really I just can’t stress how much I hate this. SSBB, believe it or not, actually succeeded by not including rank; however there were some who still those who only care about winning and being top dog by using the lag from the crappy servers. It’s something hard to fix you can’t blame the devs, even IW; it was just them giving to much freedom and players who found the right combo. Taking out rank won’t help as the players just want to win, you can only hope for a change of mind. /dreaming