Gnizmo said: Not all games should have online. Games that are mostly single player and don't lend themselves well to online play should not force it. Mario and Zelda games don't translate well into online because ithey aren't designed for it. Mario games are just platformers and that works best when you are working alone. Zelda games are about puzzle solving, and even the boss fights rely more on figuring out how to kill the boss rather than just killing them. Combat is very much secondary.
Development resources are not infinite. Tacking on online for the sake of saying it has it will hurt a game more than help it. Perfect the game and if it lends itself well to online then include it. Forcing it will just reduce the quality of the best part of the game. |
I totally agree with you. The Bioshock team specifically stated that they weren't including a multiplayer mode because they wanted to focus entirely on the single-player aspect of the game. I actually think the industry trend has been moving too far into the multiplayer-focused realm; I don't like how many people seem to think that if a game doesn't have online multiplayer, it isn't worth playing.
Of course, there are certainly examples of games that SHOULD have online multiplayer that don't, particularly in the case of the already-mentioned Worms game for the Wii. In fact, that's just plain inexcusable.
It would be nice if a game that already has multiplayer functionality expanded that area to include online capabilities, but I don't think it's necessary for games to shoehorn in multiplayer modes simply for the sake of having them.