There are times I can’t make sense of the ‘hardcore’ gaming community and comment sections. It’s easy to just bust out the tired popcorn gif, but when particular outrage can lead to industry leaders redirecting focus to go with the seemingly-popular opinion I become more attentive. Sometimes these outrages can be based on consistent principles, like the Xbox One backlash on practically everything from its reveal (1) or micro-transactions in premium-priced titles (2), yet other times it seems to be entirely capricious; in respect to this whole ‘campaign or bust’ mentality, it’s the latter in my honest opinion.
Let me set the stage: many are now considering their big-budget shooters’ price tags to be unjustified unless there’s a campaign attached. I mean…what? The campaign’s what’s important now?!?! I know that’s condescending but this is such a peculiar demand to me. Single-player (SP) campaigns bundled with cooperative and competitive multiplayer (MP) became a simulacrum of seventh-gen AAA games and, considering how often this revealed unequal levels of quality in the final product, I thought we wanted to put the kibosh on this sort of requirement. Perhaps I may be missing some of the nuance within these complaints though. But the semantics and the WAY this has been approached has affected both released and soon-to-be-released games. Some of my favorite shooters of this generation, Titanfall and Rainbow Six: Siege, have been affected by the community’s caprices regarding this, in part evidenced by the addition of a new single-player campaign in Titanfall 2 and EA’s general capitulation regarding this topic at E3. Even FIFA’s getting some sort of a campaign. It’s also been shown via some of the critical response to both of my adored MP games (3) (4), giving extraneous criticisms over something they were never designed to have in the first place. The first Titanfall was essentially the hallmark resuscitator of MP-only shooters for this generation, which came with its own pre-release outrage—with possible ulterior motives that I don’t disregard either (5). And while this singular case of TF2 could result in a fantastic campaign (if so: great!), this still bugs me when observing this arbitrary mandate at a macro level.
After all, ‘twas only a few years ago the run-of-the-mill campaigns found within most shooters were continuously castigated for their inclusion. When more statistics came out showing how few gamers even bothered to finish up their stories (6), and the wild success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s brisk and well-paced campaign won Infinity Ward dozens of accolades, it didn’t take long for many others to jump ship on this type of design philosophy. For a while this seemed like an ideal situation: enjoy a healthy appetizer from a structured SP-only campaign and come back for the meal of the deeper, more-competitive multiplayer systems. As time went on, these campaigns felt more and more lacking with examples like Homefront taking up a disappointing four hours (on average) to complete. Titles like Homefront, Modern Warfare 3, etc. would oftentimes get flak from the community and professional writers (7) asking the same question: what was the point of having them in the first place? Fast-forward to our modern AAA industry and you’ll find a greater disparity of options. And I’m digging it.
The seventh generation is an interesting case study of market forces and the resultant balancing of a game’s two separate halves; more often than not, one-half of them stole the show. Within the likes of your COD’s or Battlefield’s, the loudest of the gaming populace seemed to denigrate these campaigns for being cheap alternatives to a more diverse and complex multiplayer. Conversely, the meatier campaigns of Tomb Raider, Bioshock 2, and later Far Cry games were strapped with multiplayer modes that felt like wasted potential. That doesn’t mean no examples broke the mold. I very much enjoyed both halves of certain COD games, The Last of Us, most Splinter Cell games with MP, and more. But even with some of these examples listed it’s not very hard to see that very rarely was the quality and inspiration between all modes totally equal. And that inequality oftentimes deflated my enthusiasm entirely. Battlefield 3’s multiplayer has sometimes been credited as one of the best of seventh-gen; much of that can be credited to its bombastic vehicular warfare and complex technical stats behind each weapon as well as convincing bullet drop that raised the skill ceiling for snipers. All of that intricate design goes to waste with a campaign so contradictory to everything set out in multiplayer that made me just jump back to the Bad Company titles for my fix.
Another important factor to consider here is how the trend of solely-mutiplayer titles actually predates the SP Campaign/Co-op/Competitive MP amalgamation we see so often today, making this reactive response even more surprising. This started around the time 7th-gen consoles were gaining a lot of steam. EA bosses talked a big game about moving beyond just getting a one-‘n-done experience and morphing their titles to act more as “services.” EA’s former CEO, John Ricitello, even decried the old game business where before “the game you bought was the game you got. (8)” The risk of an online-only shooter predates his mentality by almost a decade. Starsiege: Tribes released at full price—for that time—in 1998 to much of the same complaints. It was online-only with no campaign and no bots. It relied solely on the online connectivity of other people. In an era where dial-up was still a norm, this was a gutsy risk that paved the way for Unreal Tournament, Quake III, and more. Think of what many of these older MP-focused titles are considered today: some of the most lauded examples of multiplayer FPS game design.
“B-but you may not be considering the underlying theme within some of these complaints, beans!”
Well, that is possible. Perhaps this could be a case of arguing semantics. I’d still consider it worth challenging because words like this do matter. Developers and publishers have their ears perked when assessing their IP’s success or failure. Even if one's intention may be more nuanced than what’s presented, the demand for a “campaign mode,” by definition, means a collection of missions tied together by some plotline or singular objective. And when considering the financial costs of adding one, as the likes of Cliff Blezinski’s relayed in the past (9), you get a smorgasbord of new creative demands as well: writers, voice talent, levels to incorporate a narrative, and so on.
Compare that to those vaunted old-school shooters mentioned before. With all unnecessary fat cut away, id Software, Epic, and others were able to be experts at one thing versus being a jack of all trades; freeing them up to concentrate solely on the tenets of competitive multiplayer play. This trade-off seemed to be more understood back then—to the best of my knowledge. When considering inflation, fifty dollars (previous full price for games of that era) had even MORE worth than sixty does today. So there must’ve been something to allay fears of potentially empty servers back then, right? Oh indeed. The alternative to a tightly-constructed campaign was simple: bots.
Battlefield 2, Quake III, and more! It used to be bots, bots, bots galore! They used to be such a standard feature of olde that’s—sadly—gone out of style. So many old franchises that initially had this feature quietly got rid of them during the 7th generation. It seems only the likes of recent Call of Duty games, Gears of War, and few others still bother with them to any capacity. As online connectivity continuously improved the need for bots to fill up a game decreased, thus disregarding them altogether. It’s a shame too because under EVERY consideration they’re a positive:
-longevity of the game
-scalable training they provide
-the escape from toxic Xbox Live teenagers hurling unnecessary insults
-the ability to still play full games in extinct or under-populated servers
These are just some of the positives lost with bots now gone and could likely be that understated factor the gaming community seems to forget when complaining about MP-only shooters. And I do believe some have clearly forgotten when the likes of Star Wars: Battlefront (2015) gets rather odd criticism of its bot fights.
It was about a year ago I said the current Battlefront seemed to compare LESS to a DICE Battlefield game of today (a criticism many had heaped upon it before release) than of the main Battlefronts and main Battlefields of yore (10). Turns out I was right. The Galactic Conquest mode focusing on the 501st in Battlefront 2 wasn’t really much beyond a prettied-up bot match with flashback cinematics providing some semblance of a story. Sure, GC mode would fall under the strict definition of a “campaign” but strip out the context before/after each battle and you’ve got the same structure as an old Battlefield 2 bot match. Compare that to the campaigns of DICE’s recent Battlefield games. The condescendingly-designed corridor crawls of BF 3 and 4 are some of the most cynical attempts in recent history that actually betray all their multiplayer modes have to offer. Bullet drop, squad tactics, health kits playing an integral role, and more are disregarded in their campaigns for quick regenerating health and COD-style hit-scan shooting. That’s why it’s befuddling to see how many felt Battlefront 2015’s Missions were considered unsatisfactory despite…ostensibly being business as usual for the series’ SP treatment. While I still find DICE’s Star Wars effort to be a just-okay title, the quick-n-dirty bot fights were a natural fit to prepare for online.
In the end, I’m compelled to call bullshit on this whole anti-MP-only attitude I’ve seen floating around. Coming off as harsh, I recognize that, but this demand of reeling back online-only titles to a one-game-fits-all approach limits the fine-tuning and polish possible if said developers were simply allowed to remain as wholly-devoted specialists to a specific role. And while some may opine about the negative effects for what this may do to SP-only AAA games, that doesn’t seem to hold much water now when considering the steady increase in them seen these past couple of years. You got several big-budget open-world RPG’s, Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Old Blood expansion, Alien: Isolation, Until Dawn, Quantum Break, an artsy darling like The Last Guardian coming up, and more. Now is this list of SP-only AAA games what I’d personally consider as enough? Nope. I’d still like to see more of that risk from the top dogs too. But I think this demand for SP Campaigns & MP across ALL premium-priced games—a view I’ve been guilty of judging some games by in the past as well, needs to be vocalized in a more careful way.
I’d put it to you like this SP-focused gamers: think of how often you felt poorly-executed multiplayer additions sullied the purpose of a SP-focused game. I’ll list some that instantly popped into my head: Dead Space 3, Spec Ops: The Line, and Bioshock 2. Isn't it fair to suggest that if we inverted both this situation and community demand we’d probably see the same kind of negative results? Already we’ve seen a couple of games tuned for a particular play experience be criticized for, above any other legitimate issues with them, a mode oftentimes divergent of their primary intention. Perhaps instead of channeling this sort of demand we push for developers to offer the best kind of product they know to make; and by doing so, we should get more games where every mode on offer will feel substantial and worthwhile.
Links:
1. https://www.youtube.com/wat...
2. https://www.youtube.com/wat...
3. http://www.metacritic.com/g...
4. http://www.metacritic.com/g...
5. http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...
6. http://www.cnn.com/2011/TEC...
7. https://www.rockpapershotgu...
8. https://www.destructoid.com...
9. http://www.playstationlifes...
10. http://n4g.com/user/blogpos...
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I hope everyone enjoyed the blog. Please feel free to leave any comments and/or questions below. :)
I was considering putting some more links around as proof of seeing this 'campaign or bust' mentality floating around (not saying it's some big majority or anything). It's not everywhere but I'd say it's at least common to see at this point. https://www.youtube.com/wat...
Let me reiterate: I'm trying to focus on the implications of this trend. Don't want to act all doom 'n gloom for games like TF2 (which I'm really hyped for) that have now added a SP campaign. They seem like talented people who could pull it off, but I can't pretend I'm not at least a little worried of how the final result will turn out.
I think this general "anti-MP-only" attitude may partly stem from the trend of MP-only games offering a fairly limited amount of content while asking gamers to pay the standard $60 price. Battlefront, Evolve, Overwatch, etc. People don't trust MP-only games to give them bang for their buck, and become disposed toward SP and the inclusion of Campaigns because those features make them feel more confident in the value and novelty a game will provide.
There may also be the sentiment that multiplayer can't stand on its own. I've occasionally heard people say that they think multiplayer content is too narrow/repetitive and gets stale quickly.
I think multiplayer-only games are fairly criticized for the most part. If you look at it case by case you can understand why. The attitude of "campaign or bust" is certainly wrong, but so far this gen multiplayer-only games have been far overvalued which has led to this attitude in the first place.
Firstly you have to look at the games that people feel should have a campaign. Titanfall, because the devs themselves wanted to have one, they just didn't have the resources/time. They had to make do with a multiplayer story mode, you could tell they were portraying a sense of culture and story in the game. They whole time I was playing the game, I was thinking how amazing it would be to pilot these titans in a giant battlefield against a dozen other titans, or taking on the giant wildlife than only served as background filler. THAT is what would've been a display of next-gen capabilities, instead we got a teaser, and a great game no doubt, but a game that did not achieve the potential it teased.
Same case with Rainbox six and Battlefront, both games had great campaigns in the past which entertained people's fantasies about have a full story mode. Rainbox six has really cool destruction, letting you shoot holes and then shoot through them which would've been amazing to see utilized in large story missions. Battlefront has epic battlefields and the banner of one of the biggest story franchises ever. These games basically said hey look we have this tech, this backstory, this universe, but we're not going to give you any story to play in. On the other hand you have games like Evolve, Overwatch, Battleborn, etc. that have no real story, they are not interesting enough to warrant a story and so people don't expect them to have one. That to me is why people were so disappointed with the former games. Of course, this begs the question, why should the devs have to make a story mode just because past games had it? Why can't they just make a multiplayer game and have a story element to it because they obviously wanna make the game interesting? And that's a fair point, it's totally their discretion, but then they better make up for that.
*continued in second reply*
That brings me to the second point. What constitutes to a $60 game? Sometimes the value is obvious, sometimes it's not so obvious. What may be worth $60 to me may not be worth the same to you. Since it's all subjective, the best way to compare is to other games, industry standards, and the majority opinion. Titanfall was awesome, but a $60 game, yet its full content was even less than the multiplayer component of a game like Halo 5, which had a campaign, co-op, arena multiplayer, warzone, custom games, forge. That's what triggers the consumer, how is it fair to price both of them the same? What's to stop Halo from cutting content to save budget costs. Budget is another factor to consider. Are developers really going to spend extra money on multiplayer if they aren't making a campaign? If yes, and the game shows it, then there's no problem. But so far no multiplayer-only game has shown that. Titanfall 2 will be priced the same as Titanfall 1, but it will have a full campaign and probably a bigger multiplayer. So that goes to show they overpriced the first game. Isn't that beneficial for us gamers? More gamers will be happy spending the same amount.
Single player-only games can be criticized the same way. Did you not see The Order: 1886 get destroyed for lack of content? It's less frequent but that's only because there are less cases. Multiplayer games are criticized more because they take advantage of repetition of gameplay. There was a time when games like Unreal tournament had dozens upon dozens of maps, vehicles, gamemodes, and weapons, and no one complained about it being MP-only. Now we consistently get ripped off. If I play a 12 hour single-player only game, I'm getting a lot of quality being thrown at me in those 12 hours, whereas if I play a multiplayer game for 40 hours, technically I'm playing longer but really I'm playing a handful of maps repetitively over and over. This is where the consumer mind makes the distinction that 12 hour campaign is worth more than the repetitive multiplayer. Add to that the bullshit season passes, DLC, cut content, and microtransactions, and you get angry gamers. Of course it's subjective but if the majority feels that way, there's going to be backlash.
One thing people miss is this: the people who want one thing and have it won't start complaining until it's gone. So, associating what "we" wanted, based on complaints from before, is showing a sign that people are only listening to the complainers rather than the reality of what people have been doing. So, people complaining now that there is no SP aren't necessarily the same people who complained before about unnecessary SP.
The truth is, people want many things and we're so large a group that associating complaints about one thing does not mean they should be listened to by those producing said work.
Example: Transformers movies are horrible movies. But, movie-goers spend hundreds of millions to watch them. Should the people making the movies listen to us who hate them or their wallets? The same should be said of video games.
As far as MP focused and SP focused games and their price tags... that's up for debate, but please don't ask me to think that a fairly basic MP focused title like Overwatch takes as much time and care to develop as one that implements both. Look at the price of The Division and the price of Overwatch. I'm sorry, but you are getting way more bang for your buck with the former than the latter and, IMHO, Overwatch is way overpriced based on what I can get out of one game to another. That will result in me either never buying it or waiting for it to lower in price to a point where I think it's worth it. Same with SFV and similar titles. For others, that means complaining about the price tag, especially the one on consoles that is $20 more than the one on PC.