Multiplayer and the Quest to Make Gaming Cool

In our extroverted society, being alone can mean being uncool. It has a lot of negative connotations: You don’t have any friends, you don’t like to be with people, you’re a nerd or geek or dork.

But nowadays, “geekery” is becoming something like a fad. While decades ago, reading comic books was the lonely fate of unpopular nerds, superhero movies are now some of our biggest blockbusters. Our culture is going through a geeky phase.

Even ignoring that, though, I think something else is changing our notion of “alone” and, in turn, our notion of what’s cool. It has a lot to do with the web. Our new online culture means that even when we’re alone in our rooms, we can be with people, at least virtually. We can surf online forums, feel connected to people through Goodreads book clubs and live Google Hangouts, and — here’s the big one for us gamers — play our favorite video games with other people online.

Though online gaming has been around for quite awhile, I have always thought of gaming as primarily a solitary hobby. Most video games have, until now, been single-player experiences. Some of the big AAA titles like Halo and Call of Duty might have multiplayer modes, but those were only for the “hardcore,” competitive gamers — a very small segment of the population.

The funny thing is, I find myself wanting to share my experiences afterwards — through blog posts, reading forums, seeing how other people made their decisions in these games. I want to connect with people through my hobby… but I still enjoy the act of gaming by myself.

And we still have lots of single-player games. We have our episodic adventures from the likes of Telltale and Dontnod, our epic fantasies like The Witcher series… and despite Bethesda’s recent MMO, it’s still king of solo open-world adventuring with Fallout 4. And those are still some of my favorite games. I’m not playing Dragon Age: Inquisition multiplayer, and I was a little turned off by Destiny because it’s online. I have my own preferences.

I’ll also specifically point out that I am not competitive… which means I do not like having to be competitive in online multiplayer.

That’s where the trend to toward more peaceful, social multiplayer modes comes into play. I’m talking about the cooperative online modes you find in Dragon Age: Inquisition or Assassin’s Creed Unity. It’s almost like a more personal MMO experience. I also notice a lot of games including couch co-op. (That’s something I do enjoy personally.) Again, some series release co-op for the first time later in their lifespan; for instance, you can play the last installment of Dead Space with a friend instead of alone. (Notice a lot of these games are EA games. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.)

It leaves me wondering why so many games want to include these shared experiences. Was it so bad to play by yourself? More and more, I hear about friends playing together online like it’s an everyday (or “every weekend”) hobby. It’s becoming a thing.

It seems that video game developers (or publishers) want to gamble on that. They want to create multiplayer modes in the hopes that people will keep playing their games if they can play together — and, in some cases, that they can sell some stuff in the online modes too.

But I also believe that in including multiplayer, there’s some hope that gaming will become a household hobby, more socially acceptable than ever before. If you can play online with your friends, you’re not gaming alone. This is a social experience. It’s totally cool.

I’m not saying “cool” is a well-defined thing, nor is it anything to aspire to. It’s a silly word, but it sums up what I’m trying to get at. I still want my rich single-player experiences, and I’ll probably never be into multiplayer. But I see the trend, and I wonder if being “cool” is what it’s all about.

— Ashley