In defense of tacked-on multiplayer

It's time to give games the benefit of the doubt

Words: Hollander Cooper on December 1, 2012

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trikeman - December 16, 2012 5:54 a.m.

From a developer's standpoint, the issue isn't the existence of multiplayer in a primarily-single player experience, it's two things: 1) the near-necessity of multiplayer components of a game for a major publisher to even *think* of touching it, and 2) the diversion of resources towards making that multiplayer work. If the publisher wants to shell out money to some other company to have them tack on some multiplayer to my team's game, I'm a little annoyed as an "artistic integrity" sort of thing, but whatever, I can live with it; if the publisher expects us to make the multiplayer ourselves, that automatically means that the single player experience will suffer - we have limited resources, and limited people on the team, so if we need to dedicate some level design guys to designing multiplayer maps for the extent of the project, that means we'll have less people designing the campaign levels, and they'll probably be worse for that.
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deceasedxo - December 12, 2012 7:20 a.m.

I believe that since the popularity of COD all devs are relying way too much on multiplayer to sell a game nowadays when really most people outside of the hardcore COD fans want a great single player campaign over any form of multiplayer.
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elilupe - December 11, 2012 1:41 p.m.

I agree that sometimes multiplayer components of games can be surprisingly entertaining, but I'm part of the school of thought that thinks "tacked on" ANYTHING should never be defended as a good thing.
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awesomesauce - December 4, 2012 10:31 p.m.

Well the way i see it is like extra credit on a test. Taking some time to do the extra work won't ruin the rest the of the test even if you get it wrong. However if you do the extra credit "multiplayer" right it can make up for most main portion "single player's" short comings. So it's multiplayer isn't ruining the game, some people just use it as a scapegoat because the single player didn't rise up to their expectations. Because most of the time if a game isn't ready it just gets delayed or updated. (Or in Mass Effect's case DLC'ed)
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Aarononymous - December 4, 2012 2:15 p.m.

Splinter Cell's multiplayer was mediocre and super tacked on and I suspect that it hurt the franchise. Then again, the thing that really hurt was drifting from the hardcore, slow-paced, stealth gameplay that fans loved and everyone else hated. Also chaos theory's co-op mode was awesome, so mixed bag I guess?
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zombi3grim - December 3, 2012 9:56 p.m.

Man, this enitre comment thread is nothing but people who confuse their very poorly thought out opinion with fact. My god, I could pick apart any of these posts and thurn this into a 50 page shit storm. And theres so many to choose from! Its...its like a buffet of idiocy! What to pick, what to pick.....
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MyCoolWhiteLies - December 3, 2012 8:57 a.m.

Nice article, but I have to ask, who the hell considered the first Uncharted to be a "proving point for the Games as Art movement"?
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AuthorityFigure - December 3, 2012 3:41 a.m.

I thought the current trend was to 'tack-on' campaign mode. Why? Because developers want to socialize their work as much as possible to cater to the always connected facebook generation.
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DarthPunk - December 3, 2012 3:12 a.m.

What a specific example? Fine, Resident Evil 5
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clearlight20 - December 3, 2012 8:08 a.m.

A specific example for what exactly?
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DarthPunk - December 3, 2012 9:21 a.m.

Gah this was meant to be a response to Hollander's comment but logging back in just made it a regular comment. I mean specific example of a game that had it's single player ruined by multiplayer
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clearlight20 - December 3, 2012 9:53 a.m.

I guess that comes to down opinion really. I rather enjoyed RE5 MP considering how much of a shitty job Capcom did with the AI. Then again this whole defense by Hollander comes down to opinion and there are very few facts to be presented.
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DarthPunk - December 3, 2012 11:56 a.m.

Admittedly Resident Evil 5 isn’t the best example for this article given it’s about tacked on multiplayer where as Resi 5 was very clearly designed to be a predominately co-op game It’s just Resi 5 is the most obvious example I can think of for single player suffering due to game developers focusing more on multiplayer.
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clearlight20 - December 3, 2012 12:12 p.m.

The only game I can really think of that could have been better off if the resources and time were used to develop the SP more thoroughly would have been Rage. The ending was so ungodly anticlimactic that it felt like ID software just dumped it off without any thought of a final, epic boss. However, it becomes almost a sneaking suspicion that even if the game was a SP game, that little would have been changed. Developing a final boss would have probably taken a minute amount of time compared to developing the engine and the game in its entirety and yet ID felt it was unnecessary to put in a final boss. In short, the developer's will do whatever they want.
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avantguardian - December 2, 2012 11:32 p.m.

damn gr, is this the start of your: 'things you hate aren't really that bad' editorials? like moths to a flame.
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Pwnz0r3d - December 2, 2012 7:22 p.m.

Big budget games that are SURE to be a critical and financial hit never have tacked on MP (for the most part). Tacked on meaning "throw in team deathmatch and free for all and call it a day." The MP is usually on par or very slightly below the single-player offering. The only games that really have a detrimental effect when it comes to MP are FPS's as their main focus IS multiplayer, and even then the singleplayer is still enjoyable to a degree. With such a huge budget, they wouldn't ever just half ass a MP offering if that meant wasting money on something that no one would play because it was terrible instead of perfecting what you focused on in the first place. The same could be said for smaller budget games (which do have "tacked on" MP) but those kind of games are risks in today's gaming market (which is disappointing, considering all we really get nowadays are sequels.)
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Z-man427 - December 2, 2012 6:17 p.m.

The problem with tacked on multiplayer is that it's tacked on. It's not well thought out. It's not well developed. Don't defend poorly made multiplayer.
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