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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Alternate History: What happens to gaming if the internet never existed?

SvennoJ on 06 September 2019
Wman1996 said:
Multiplayer is less of a priority in games than it is today. Local multiplayer will continue to exist, of course.
Games will be more complete when they release, due to the lack of patches, and DLC won't exist. Physical copies will be just about the only way to play games.
Basically a lot of gaming will be how it used to be, but continue to evolve with better graphics and sound, etc.

There would still be expansion packs which PC had plenty of before online content, just no horse armor! Consoles would have gotten them as well with the addition of HDDs. Game stores would be thriving instead of dying. Many more games would have split screen multiplayer on consoles with lan play being a big thing as well. Lan parties would still be more prominent and gaming overall would be more social in the way that people would still be going over to each other's houses to play together.

Gaming would be more expensive though, no frequent digital sales, less competition from indies due to expensive distribution. No kickstarter, much less indie games or revivals of old games. No GoG, nostalgia gaming wouldn't be as big today. LBP, super mario maker, GT Sport would not exist. Minecraft might not have existed as well as many other games that were 'discovered' and crowd influenced over the internet. VR would have a lot less games, yet longer, higher quality games. Without the possibility to flood the market with cheap short downloadable games, only the best ideas would get published for the standard 60 or even 80 dollars per game.

Manuals would still exist, hint books, game magazines, tip lines, and people would actually play the game instead of watching you tube or follow a wiki on how to beat a game. Games would obviously be more focused on delivering the best single player experience instead of relying on online multiplayer. AI would be much better today, no multiplayer to provide the challenge. The focus on graphics would be much less, no internet, no minute comparisons between versions of games and consoles. No need for pro consoles and better focus on performance due to the lack of patches. Bullshots in magazines would of course still be rampant.

Overall I think gaming would have been more innovative than it is now. All the big cash cows rely on online multiplayer and DLC to keep people entertained for as long as possible. A games would still exist and not have been pushed out by mega AAA on one side and cheap downloadables on the other side.



 



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SvennoJ on 06 September 2019
vivster said:
I dread to think how bad gambling would be in games without a central hub to complain about it and push back against predatory monetization systems. P2W would be rampant because there are less incentives for people to buy cosmetics.

Though I wonder if society would've even existed or would still have a need for video games. I'd fully expect that by now without the internet we'd either be nuked or live in 1984.

How do you envision those loot box systems would have come around without the internet? What would be the point of P2W if all there is is local multiplayer?

Without the internet actual journalism would still have existed to prevent 1984 or WW3. The internet much more helps 1984 than pevents it...



DonFerrari on 06 September 2019

Less FPS and competitive multiplayer, piracy would keep same rate because bans wouldn't exist, and I would still like the same type of games... perhaps they would still be releasing more of the type of game I like instead of GAAS, FPS, competitive MP focussed, etc.



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SvennoJ on 06 September 2019

Thinking about it a bit more, VR would have been more popular today without the internet. Although kickstarter does seem to have pushed VR back into the public view, I believe Sony always had plans for a revival. They have basically been working at it since the eye toy, GT5 already had head tracking support. Without the internet game stores would have flourished, perfect places to demonstrate and let people try out VR. Without the internet people would also visit each other a lot more, facilitating word of mouth after experiencing VR at a friend's place. Pictures and videos simply can't show VR to the masses.

The flood of cheap downloadable games has also hurt VR more than help it. As well as the race to the bottom for game prices, dragging peripherals along. The constant push for better graphics thanks to DF and you tubers with endless pixel comparisons and 4K nonsense has also moved the focus away from stable 60fps performance and make VR seem even less appealing due to lack of fancy graphics in screenshots and videos.


I also believe that games would still have been more varied, risky and less pc without the internet. No SJW or public outcry when something gets blown out of proportion on social media.

No internet would probably also have helped HVD to become a reality. Bigger, faster storage instead of let em download the rest. Without Netflix etc 4K blu-ray or rather HVD would have caught on instead of becoming a minor digital upgrade due to streaming requirements. More and faster storage also means more extras for games, pre-rendered cut scenes instead of stuttering in engine endless talking bullshit, better light maps, textures, uncompressed sound. Making games download friendly has held them back a lot.


Gaming would be vastly different today without all the 'free to play' time sinks and micro transactions that the internet era has made possible. PC, handheld and console might actually be a lot bigger without the likes of Netflix, You tube, Facebook, Twitter, gaming websites, free to play phone games taking up so much time. I know that when I was a kid I played a lot more and watched a lot less than my kids do now.



haxxiy on 06 September 2019
Shadow1980 said:
haxxiy said:

The Cold War was over before the internet became well-known to the general public. The Soviet Union had dissolved completely by Dec. 1991. The World Wide Web had only come into existence mere months earlier. I doubt the absence of a publicly-available internet would have changed anything about the outcome of the Cold War. Geopolitically, I imagine the 90s wouldn't have been much different without a public internet.

You got it the other way around. I'm trying to postulate a point of divergence for the internet not to exist, not speculating about its geopolitical effects or absence thereof.

Also, for the last sentence... butterflies and black swans. For all we know, in our alternate 90s, Putin could die from cancer and Bin Laden decide to really jam airline jets into nuclear power plants. That's what I'm saying it's useless to talk about how gaming develops in such a scenario. There would be no Google, no Facebook, none of the games and consoles we know in the last 30 years etc.



 

 

 

 

 

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The_Liquid_Laser on 07 September 2019

Shadow1980 said:
The_Liquid_Laser said:

You covered all of the main points.  Here is my take on some of them.

The first thing that the internet impacted was gaming magazines.  You could now lookup a walkthrough online, and walkthroughs and hints were the biggest reason people bought gaming magazines.  Also the internet had a very immediate impact upon Adventure games as a genre, because online walkthroughs destroyed Adventure games.  This may have had a bigger impact than you might think.  In the 90's the games with the best stories were Adventure games (although RPGs were somewhat competitive on this.)  Before the internet, when a developer wanted to make a story oriented game, they would make an Adventure game.  It was kind of a way to be an interactive novel, but it very much relied on the puzzles taking some time in order to be solved.  After Adventure games died off as a genre, you start seeing narratives in almost every type of game.  I would argue that a heavy narrative works a lot better in an Adventure game than it does an action game, since when a person is playing an action game they just want to kick some ass and the story is kind of a distraction to that.  But, because Adventure games died off, we get narratives in most of our action games now.

I agree that the internet had no impact on American arcades, since they were killed mostly by consoles.  Specifically most developers decided to focus on console games, because it was much easier to make money on the NES and SNES than on an arcade machine.  The lack of developers lead to a lack of arcade games and it inevitably declined and died out.

On the PC side, there were a lot of changes going on in the 90's and early 21st century.  Some of these were impacted by the internet and some were not.  One thing impacting PC's were that a lot of action games that started on PC's were moving to consoles.  This sort of thing actually happened with EA first, when they moved most of their titles to the Genesis.  When Sony came around it happened more, with franchises like Tomb Raider and GTA moving from the PC to a console.  How much impact did this have on the PC?  In my opinion, not much.  Action games tend to be a better fit on a console.  When I look at the best selling PC games in the 90s they tend to be things like Myst, Civilization, Rollercoaster Tycoon, and several games made by Blizzard.  Add in The Sims from early 2000 and you see what kinds of games were popular on the PC: Adventure, Strategy, Simulation, and (to a lesser extent) RPG.  None of these are action games.  So I think the PC would have still been fine even with action games going to console, because the best selling PC games were not action games at the time.  Without the internet, the PC would have been the main place to go for Adventure, Strategy and Simulation games and to a lesser extent RPGs.

So, two PC genres that were affected hugely by the internet were MMOs and FPS games.  MMOs would simply never exist.  FPS, on the other hand, is probably the only type of action game that actually is important to the PC, and I think its safe to say that FPS multiplayer is the main draw for this type of game.  In the late 90's, laptops were not nearly as ubiquitous as they are today.  I tend to think that as laptops became more popular, then LAN parties would have become more popular as well.  In the absence of the internet, this may have made PC gaming a solid home for FPS games.  After all, the PS2 had FPS games, but the FPS genre never really had serious sales numbers until generation 7 when online gaming came into play.  So, in the absence of the internet, I think LAN parties become the norm for FPS games and the genre tends to remain dominant on the PC.

All of this means that the PC would not undergo radical changes.  PC gaming would continue largely as it had before and it would continue to have a retail presence.  This is both good and bad.  For places like the US and the UK, PC gaming would continue as strong as it always had.  But one advantage Steam has had is that it has made PC gaming accessible to places where gaming doesn't have a strong retail presence.  I suspect there are a lot of places in the world like Russia, India, etc... that would not have much access to gaming if it had not been for Steam and online PC gaming.

Lastly, there are consoles.  I actually think digital distribution has had an even bigger impact on consoles than even online gaming.  First of all, there would be no smart phones without the internet.  Handheld systems have probably lost some sales to smartphones, so without the internet, the handheld market would be at least as strong as the home console market.  On top of that the "indie renaissance"would have happened on handheld devices, since that would be the medium where game development would have been the cheapest.  I also think that games would be less likely to ship early in the absence of the internet.  There would be a bigger effort to get it right before the game ships out the door once and for all.  I also think Gamestop and similar stores would be in much better shape without the internet.

Tying it all together, I tend to think today's gaming scene would resemble the 90's gaming scene a lot more without the internet.  Gaming magazines would still be ubiquitous.  PC gaming would still focus on non action genres like Adventure, Strategy and Simulation.  PC gaming would continue to have a retail presence and gaming stores would continue to be thriving.  In the absence of the internet, LAN gaming and handheld gaming would take the place of internet multiplayer and smartphone games respectively.  In general, gaming would continue much closer to the trajectory set during the 90's before the internet came in and changed the gaming landscape.

Regarding FPS games, the genre was already showing signs that it was viable on consoles in the 90s. On the N64, GoldenEye 007 sold 8 million copies, Perfect Dark sold 2.5M despite coming in near the end of the system's life, and both Turok 1 & 2 sold over 1M a piece. In Gen 6, Halo CE sold 5M copies despite not being an online title. Halo 2 sold over 8.4M, though it's uncertain how much of its sales improvement over its predecessor was due to the online; it generated record-setting pre-orders and had the biggest debut of any game ever at that point at a time when Xbox Live had a very low adoption rate relative to the install base, though the growth of XBL subscriptions from 1M in July 2004 to 2M by July 2005 can in most part almost certainly be chalked up to Halo 2. Aside from Halo, the Xbox also had other modest hit FPS titles: its port of Counter-Strike sold 1.5M copies, CoD2: Big Red One sold nearly 1.4M, and Ghost Recon sold over 1.1M. Additionally, both Star Wars: Battlefront games sold over 3M copies between the PS2 and Xbox, and the PS2 versions of Medal of Honor: Frontline and MoH: Rising Sun were multi-million sellers as well.

Meanwhile, on PC most notable FPS titles weren't actually massive hits. Looking at games released in the period of 1997-2007, by far the biggest blockbuster hits on PC were Half-Life and Half-Life 2, both selling 9 million copies. Counter-Strike sold something like 4M copies. Meanwhile, titles like Quake II, Unreal & Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942 & BF: Vietnam, and Far Cry performed relatively modestly. The last legitimate hit PC-oriented FPS was Crysis. And several notable PC FPS titles owed their success to online multiplayer, namely Quake III, Unreal Tournament, and Counter-Strike.

So, even in the early to mid 00s, FPS games were at least as popular on consoles as they were on PC. In a world where the internet never existed, I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that they'd have continued to be popular on consoles. By the start of Gen 7, they had already demonstrated their commercial viability on consoles. I imagine Halo still would have done well for itself. Call of Duty and Battlefield would almost certainly be a lot less popular, but they would probably still be around. The genre as a whole would be primarily single-player experiences, with some perhaps still having a split-screen competitive mode as well (though again I wonder if the LAN would have still been a thing). Many if not perhaps most FPS games would still come to PC, though, but I doubt the genre would have ever remained predominately PC-oriented. The cracks were already beginning to show in the late 90s, and in the decade between Quake II and Crysis there were only two smash hits that were single-player focused (both Half-Life games). There were only a relative handful of others that pulled over a million copies, but they were eclipsed by the big console FPS titles in overall popularity. If we were to make a Top 10 best-seller list of FPS games released after the launch of the N64 but before the launch of the 360, while the top two spots would be held by the Half-Life games, the rest of the list would be dominated by console-only titles and multiplatform titles that owed most of their success to their console versions.

These are good points about FPS games.  I had especially forgotten how successful Goldeneye was a generation before Microsoft even entered the market.  I suppose FPS would have inevitably made a serious home on consoles even without the internet.  However, I doubt franchises like Call of Duty or Halo would have reached the sales heights that they have without the internet.  Also I do think LAN play through laptops would have been something of a replacement for internet play on the PC side, which may have just ended up splitting the FPS genre into 1) local multiplayer games on consoles and 2) LAN oriented games on PC.

In spite of all this I still stick with my basic conclusion that without the internet PC gaming in the 21st century would have continued on the same type of trajectory that it had in the 90s with non action games being the spotlight, i.e. Adventure, Simulation, and Strategy games mainly.



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HoloDust on 07 September 2019

No Facebook, so no Farmville revolution and FB games - FB is pretty much from were micortransactions leaked into "proper" games industry, though, to be fair, there were some really good midcore FB games.



SvennoJ on 10 September 2019

In an internet less world you would have less of the runaway effect where friends all buy the same console to play together. 360's early lead pretty much set the outcome, just as now it's impossible for xbox one to turn things around.

In the old days before the internet, it was more beneficial to have friends with different consoles than you have, so you could go over to each other's place and play something different. It's no wonder Sony kept holding cross play off as it would lessen the runaway effect when people don't need the same console to play together. It's only beneficial to support cross play when you're behind.

Without the internet ps3, 360, ps4 and X1 would all be sold more equally.



vivster on 11 September 2019
SvennoJ said:
vivster said:
I dread to think how bad gambling would be in games without a central hub to complain about it and push back against predatory monetization systems. P2W would be rampant because there are less incentives for people to buy cosmetics.

Though I wonder if society would've even existed or would still have a need for video games. I'd fully expect that by now without the internet we'd either be nuked or live in 1984.

How do you envision those loot box systems would have come around without the internet? What would be the point of P2W if all there is is local multiplayer?

Without the internet actual journalism would still have existed to prevent 1984 or WW3. The internet much more helps 1984 than pevents it...

Arcades have been pay to win long before the internet existed. Believe me, there is always a way to introduce people to gambling. There are TCGs, sticker collectors and gatcha. Kids will pay for anything to look cool in front of their friends. That hasn't changed with the internet and would never change.

You mean the journalism that wouldn't be free because of their very limited reach and easy controlability by the state? Journalism is only a small part of freedom. What has an even greater effect is people's ability to reach beyond their borders and experience different lives. It's hard to lie to a population when the internet presents them with constant answers to their questions. And yes, modern journalism also manages to lie to the public, however it's rarely for political gain and it's only affecting a portion of the population and not 99% as if it would be without internet.

vivster said:
I dread to think how bad gambling would be in games without a central hub to complain about it and push back against predatory monetization systems. P2W would be rampant because there are less incentives for people to buy cosmetics.

Though I wonder if society would've even existed or would still have a need for video games. I'd fully expect that by now without the internet we'd either be nuked or live in 1984.

It's hard to see how post-launch monetization would have ever been a thing without digital distribution. It's something that literally only came about because the internet facilitated it.

I think you might be forgetting that aggressive monetization(arcades) and gambling(TCGs) existed long before the introduction of digital games. If anything the internet first curbed it because of the easier access to cheaper games, after that it became predatory to the max. The internet has shown us how far companies are willing to take it and you can't tell me that they wouldn't have done the exact same without the internet. Give their creativity and ability to squeeze ever more money out of their customers a little bit more credit.



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SvennoJ on 11 September 2019
vivster said:
SvennoJ said:

How do you envision those loot box systems would have come around without the internet? What would be the point of P2W if all there is is local multiplayer?

Without the internet actual journalism would still have existed to prevent 1984 or WW3. The internet much more helps 1984 than pevents it...

Arcades have been pay to win long before the internet existed. Believe me, there is always a way to introduce people to gambling. There are TCGs, sticker collectors and gatcha. Kids will pay for anything to look cool in front of their friends. That hasn't changed with the internet and would never change.

You mean the journalism that wouldn't be free because of their very limited reach and easy controlability by the state? Journalism is only a small part of freedom. What has an even greater effect is people's ability to reach beyond their borders and experience different lives. It's hard to lie to a population when the internet presents them with constant answers to their questions. And yes, modern journalism also manages to lie to the public, however it's rarely for political gain and it's only affecting a portion of the population and not 99% as if it would be without internet.

It's hard to see how post-launch monetization would have ever been a thing without digital distribution. It's something that literally only came about because the internet facilitated it.

I think you might be forgetting that aggressive monetization(arcades) and gambling(TCGs) existed long before the introduction of digital games. If anything the internet first curbed it because of the easier access to cheaper games, after that it became predatory to the max. The internet has shown us how far companies are willing to take it and you can't tell me that they wouldn't have done the exact same without the internet. Give their creativity and ability to squeeze ever more money out of their customers a little bit more credit.

Except gaming existed at least 20 years before the internet. Sure arcades were a gateway to gambling machines yet PC and home consoles didn't have any of that. But true that collector's packs with 5 random cards would still exist and probably would have become part of pay to win in Skylanders / Amiibo form.

The internet is no reliable source of information. It's a great tool to deceive and spread fake news. Investigative journalism is pretty much dead since news feeds are flooded with cheap sensationalist 'news'. Who pays for a newspaper anymore? It's easy to lie to the public using the internet and people simply look for confirmation while disregarding anything contrary as fake news.