Could it really be Single-Player Game Over? A reflection on the single player experience.

 Originally written for Nuclear Geek.com  

  

“Alone in the Dark is a beautifully crafted single-player adventure game. I don’t think the industry is going to make many more of those.” These were the words of one-time SCE WWS president Phil Harrison, in a recent interview with Eurogamer.net. “I just don’t think consumers want to be playing games that don’t have some kind of network connectivity to them,” he continued, “Or some kind of community embedded in them, or some kind of extension available through downloadable content.” Revising his statement to Kotaku, he made it clear that, “The single-player, disconnected console game is probably in its dotage.”

It’s quite a declaration, to assert the demise of a major element of gaming that has been at its core for many decades. It’s true that videogames are changing, in considerable and diverse directions. Consumers increasingly want network connectivity in one form or another in the titles they play, and its inclusion is becoming ever more ubiquitous with each release. Nonetheless, is it really fair to rule out a stand alone, single player experience altogether?

It’s a bit of an odd statement from Harrison, given his new standing as the new Directeur Général Délégué of Infogrames, a position whose responsibility means shaping the future of Atari, which in turn means ensuring the success of the upcoming Alone In The Dark. It’s peculiar because AITD is one of the more high-concept mainstream videogames seen this year, its innovations arguably set to take the single player experience into exciting new territory in the future.

AITD’s narrative is designed to maintain interest through peaks of drama spread over individual episodes – a design lifted straight from such American dramas as 24 – and the ability to skip a particular challenge or puzzle that’s proving a problem has been made available to the player. It’s a rewriting of the single player construct that already feels it may one day become a kind of standard, and as such it feels wrong for Harrison to dismiss it as the last of a dying breed.

Would AITD really benefit from the kind of connectivity Harrison is so eager to endorse? It’s a question that lends itself to many a game. How would Shadow Of The Colossus’ or Ico’s lonely, pervasive atmospheres be affected if they were to become massively multiplayer? Would Bioshock’s Rapture feel as ominous during a deathmatch? Zelda with leaderboards? Tetris DLC? Some games simply wouldn’t benefit from such embellishments.

Ben Mattes, producer on the upcoming Prince of Persia title, echoes the view that there is still a significant single-player market. “I read [Phil Harrison’s statement], and I don’t totally agree,” he told Eurogamer. “I know where he’s coming from – I certainly see a lot of the industry moving in the direction of more community, more multiplayer, that sort of stuff. But in my opinion, there are things you can do in a carefully crafted single-player game – experiences you can create, emotions you can elicit and magnitudes of engaging the player that you’re not going to reproduce in the uncontrolled environment of multiplayer.”

Sure, games like Mario Kart, Call of Duty and Rock Band thrive on those features that Harrison considers the future, but they’re not essential for a great gaming experience. There’s a seeming disparity between consumer demand for multiplayer and consumer use of multiplayer. Online modes can be a sort of interactive equivalent of DVD special features – the perceived value is many more times important than the practical benefit. Its careless addition (we’re looking at you, Condemned 2 and The Darkness) is somewhat indicative of the industry’s common problem that is prioritising marketing over content.

Harrison’s statement, while perceptive of the industry’s current state, still feels like a little of an oversight. The casual mass market is quickly becoming a predominant part of the industry make-up, but it’s amiss to neglect those players that ask for a more concentrated experience in the form of well controlled and choreographed narratives. It’s a group that Mattes doesn’t see disappearing any time soon. “For some time yet, there’s going to be a market of people who say, ‘You know what, pander to me. Suck me into your world and just make me believe. I don’t want to be distracted by griefers and high scores, and dealing with the stuff not everybody loves about multiplayer games.’ I do think there is still a significant market there.”

Personally, I think that a future without good, standalone single player games would be a drab prospect indeed. Single player experiences will form the nucleus of the movement that moves gaming onto the next plateau – that of the ability to stir true feelings of emotion in the player through drama, believable interaction, and cinematic choreography rivalling that of the silver screen. Leaderboards, multiplayer, user-generated content. While these are certainly part of the future of gaming it’s hard not to feel they’d dilute the player’s engagement with a truly poignant game.

Maybe we should concern ourselves less with how new online features will be the end of the single player experience, and instead allow disparate ideas to branch and evolve along their own path.