Emergent Future

I've had a few thoughts on my mind for a while about some trends I've been noticing in my gaming habits, as well as some of the trends I've been seeing in the game industry. This thread over on the Metaplace forums actually brought it up - indirectly - into my mind as well. That thread talks about the types of games that people enjoy, and I responded with my own list of what type of games I like. However, I made mention that I have been having a hard time enjoying single-player games these days - but, that I noticed many single-player games were getting their own online/community-esque features.

Gaming has often been a shared experience between multiple people. We can certainly see that in most sports, and we can also see that in board games and tabletop roleplaying games. While many early video games did not offer a shared experience - meaning you played by yourself, against your computer - gaming has seen plenty of games that do offer shared experiences. Early console games featured a number of simple multiplayer games, and as the internet became gradually more and more prevalent, we saw early MUDs and other sorts of online gaming.

Yet, there has always been a huge market for truly single-player games. A large number of games are made for one person to play against the computer without any shared experience with another person. This of course offers plenty of entertainment value, but I've been finding myself having a harder and harder time enjoying such an experience.

This has really been the case for quite a while. However, a number of things have happened to help me enjoy a few games. Often, when I begin playing a game, I know someone else who is also playing it. We would then share stories and talk about our experiences in the game and our thoughts about it. Effectively, this turns a single-player experience into a shared experience. However, once the other person would stop playing, the game would often lose much appeal and I would stop.

Apparently I'm not the only person like this. Single-player games seem to be becoming less single-player focused, and developers seem more interested in bringing in shared-experiences.

I will use a few examples of this of games on the Sony Playstation 3. Devil May Cry is a popular series, so players can often enough find someone else to talk to about the game, thus creating a shared experience. That said, the developers took it a step further with the latest incarnation (even if it isn't much of a step). Every time you load the game, it will complain if you are not connected to the Internet. Why? Because the game takes your statistics as you play and puts you on a leaderboard based on your performance. Suddenly, your performance in the game becomes part of a challenge against other players for the highest ranking. No, there is no further interaction and the over all effect isn't strong, but it does show at least some effort put in an online, competitive component, for an otherwise purely singleplayer game.

So, how about a better example? The Japanese Action RPG Folklore (Folksoul in Japan) features an interesting option that you don't often see in Japanese RPGs: a dungeon creator mode. You can create your own dungeon. You can also upload that dungeon to the Playstation Network so that people can download it and play through it. Not only does this add more value to the game, but it allows players to much more directly affect the experience of other players.

Flash games usually offer little in the way of community or shared experiences beyond high scores, but Kongregate has gone beyond that by including the ability for players to rank and comment on games. Not only that, but they can chat with each other while playing as well, even though they are playing (usually) single-player games. Players can also obtain achievements as they go along as well.

This is hardly something restricted to gaming as well. Joost, which allows people to watch Joost TV stations via their computer, also includes features that allows people watching the same station to chat with each other. The enjoyment of shared experiences is something pretty much fundamental to humanity.

I don't believe single-player games will die out, per se, which a number of people have suggested. However, I do believe that they will certainly all include various methods of incorporating shared experiences. Mind you, to your definition, that may well mean that such games would no longer be single player at all.