Do You Believe That Games Lose Their Appeal Over Time?

[Baloo]

Theres nothing wrong with you agreeing with J_Factor but for me multiplayer games get played much more then single player games. Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic was an amazing game that I enjoyed all 42 hours that it took me to play thru it. But once I was finished, despite my fond memories of it I never picked it up again. On the flip side, I bought Halo 2 at the midnight launch back in 2004. And I played it up until the day they ended the original Xbox's online servers last year in 2010. Thats 6 straight years of playing the same game due to online multiplayer. Had it only been single player I probably wouldn't have played it since 2005.

Of course different games are made with different experiences in mind. And while I was specifically talking about online multiplayer from this and last gen, theres still some old school games I can pick up and go back to(like Nes Tetris). But today, because I have over 600 games I'm much more likely to play something with online multiplayer(where human players behave differently then simple AI ones) over an extended period of time then I am to play a single player game after I initially beat it. It doesn't mean I'll never go back to any single player games but they lose their appeal to me not very long after I beat them.

OK, I see what you're saying, getting more value for your buck. But let's be honest here, which game did you really enjoy more? I'd rather play a game once that I enjoyed every second of, than an online game that I played for months or years and not getting that same sense of satisfaction, only playing because SOMETIMES it was fun or some modes were fun or my friends were playing it too. For me multiplayer is definitely not making or breaking the game as to how good it is. There has NEVER been a game that I've played online that I've always had fun playing while playing it. There's always fucked up teams, a screwed up connection, a boring gametype, glitches, something to screw up that session or match of the game. There always is. It's not consistent. And once the servers are gone for these games, half of them you literally CANT go back to. The single player is so barebones that it's not worth playing, and the online aspect is gone.

Why thank you!



But it's still lost its appeal now, hasn't it? In any case, most games with online multiplayer aren't Halo. Almost every other original Xbox game with online multiplayer was a wasteland online long before they pulled the servers. I bet you didn't try to play Whacked! in 2007.



But you don't go back to old school games with online multiplayer. You'll play NES Tetris, but you won't play The Next Tetris: Online Edition (or you will, but not for the online part). You may play games with online multiplayer more nowadays, but the topic isn't about whether games lose their appeal over time played, it's whether games lose their appeal over the years. And online multiplayer tends to disappear with time, either by servers going offline, or a simple lack of players.

Exactly. I'm going to still find myself coming back to the games I enjoyed immensely and played through once or twice in the past but after I get burned out on the multiplayer or the servers go down, or even most of the fanbase moves onto something else, the game has lost all its appeal. Do you find yourself using your Saturn Netlink, or X-Band these days?

Multiplayer for me definitely doesn't make a game better or worse, just simply gives you more things to do with it. The actual gameplay itself is what really matters, and that's what games are lacking today. Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War, these games may be fun now, but in all honesty. Are you really going to go back and play the Single player modes of these games? Is this something you'll look at 20 years from now and recommend to all of your friends to go buy if they have this system, will they become instant classics?

No.