Never the less its a terrible choice of words

IMO single player games are the art part of gaming, that multiplayer experiences rarely achieve. Multiplayer is like the huge blockbuster movie, you watch with your friends, while single player is that lone DVD nobody wants to watch it with you, because its boring...

As someone who prefers to play alone, I completely disagree with Antonsson.

The man is an idiot. That's all I can think. Games are meant to be played with others OR alone, there is no need to nail it down to one path. That's just asinine. Games that pit people against themselves are as old as time. Trying to hit a tree with a rock, or trying to jump over this, or climb over that, these are all games that everyone has played.

I hope that was just marketing speak and he doesn't honestly believe what he said.

I read about 90% of it. Skimmed certain parts. You're right that I was making the wrong argument just now, but the fact still stands that the term "gimmick" shouldn't be used for single player games. A gimmick is something flashy that is used to stand out from competitors. If you're going to say something as universal as single playing experiences are gimmicks, then you've lost all meaning of the term.

Besides, there were games before video games that only required one person. Not all games inherintly needed to have multiple people.

Hmm...

"I also think that it is worth to note that the single player mechanic is a gimmick - games are meant to be played with others and it doesn't matter if it's in-person or online."

"Playing a game is a multiplayer activity and can easily be seen as such when you watch young toddlers play by themselves. They invent someone to play with, someone that they talk to and interact with."

"But now we can connect people in and around a game through real time PvP and PvE mechanics and the need for pure single player games had gone down."

You don't think his words are that outlandish? Where does the idea come from that all games have to inherintly be multiplayer? Before video games existed, there were single player games. As a child, I played games by myself and never had an imaginary friend. Are single player games more irrelevant now that we have connected experiences?

"So games that drive you crazy can be excellent because they are well designed, not because that's what games are supposed to do(...)"

Again, who is he to say what games are designed to do? Games are not "inherintly" multiplayer experiences.

But single player games weren't always universal. The most natural types of games pit one player against another, and all the first video games were 1 v 1: Tennis for Two, SpaceWar, Pong. Single player modes arose out of a commercial need rather than an artistic one. They were a gimmick in that sense, something needed to increase the appeal of the product. Street Fighter II's single player mode was a gimmick, as the real appeal of the game is beating your friend's virtual face in. But it's nice to have the ability to play by yourself, too, especially when you're an only child like young badgenome.

Now that online matchmaking allows for two or more people to play a game anywhere in the world, games are able to go back to their more natural multiplayer state. But of course single-player has matured a lot since its inception, and it is now a full-fledged design choice in its own right.