I started writing this post up in the comments section of this Kotaku article (originally posted elsewhere I believe) by John Walker, and it got long enough that I decided to just post it here. This is my first "real" blog post that isn't merely an inane chronicle of my NBA Live career.
Walker writes a long lamentation on the decline of single-player games. He strongly prefers single-player, and until a few months ago (when I started playing LittleBigPlanet online) I would have agreed with him wholeheartedly. I still do agree to an extent although I am more open-minded than he is.
Where he goes off the rails is with crap like this:
"The worth of single-player comes in the form of narrative. As with any good novel, or a finely crafted film. It is the equivalent to literature. While multiplayer is an ill-informed argument. It has no direction, no beginning nor end, no meaning." [weird sentence structure errors are his of course]
When film was first starting out, movies often amounted to not much more than filmed stage plays. As the cinema developed, filmmakers realized that there were tools available to them with film that cannot exist in the written word or on stage. The camera, editing, close-ups, montage, special effects, etc. Film developed its own language and in most cases it no longer resembles stage plays.
Video games are now at the same stage that early film was at. The end-all be-all, say Walker and his ilk, is to make games that are "cinematic" (or "literary") experiences, experiences that have a beginning and an end, experiences that have "meaning". But games are not movies, nor are they books. Suggesting that multiplayer games have "no meaning" is stuck in the mindset of those older media. Games can do things that those media cannot. What are those things exactly? Hell, I don't know - in terms of realizing their full potential, games are just getting started. But I can provide some ideas.
Tom Bissell, in his book "Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter" (which anybody who is interested enough to engage in serious debates like this should read), writes about an experience playing Left 4 Dead in which he displayed cowardice that he eventually turned around into a triumphal sacrifice. Was that authored by the game developers? No. Does the fact that his powerful and memorable experience was not specifically intended by the developers make any difference? No. Walker (along with numerous RPG and adventure game players) apparently thinks it does matter, and that's incorrect.
Walker enjoys his tongue-in-cheek snobbery and superiority complex to those brainless morons who sit around picking their noses playing multiplayer all day, but in a sense they are more advanced than Walker is in terms of experiencing games in meaningful ways that aren't trying to ape the conventions of other media. Walker wants to guide a character through a pre-set routine with a beginning and an end that the developer has plastered "meaning" onto (generally in a clumsy manner), where character deaths and intended "emotional experiences" are pre-determined and The Hero's Journey is neatly laid out. But those multiplayer imbeciles are creating their own heartbreaks and triumphs, and those triumphs feel far more "real" and meaningful than most games with rigid stories could ever hope to feel.
My criticisms by no means apply to all single-player games, nor does my praise apply only to multiplayer games. I am speaking more to the core of Walker's argument, which is that meaningful gaming experiences come from single-player narratives.
Walker, and those of you who agree with him, should read "Extra Lives", read the following discussion between Bissell and Simon Ferrari, and especially read this excellent blog post by the Brainy Gamer, in which Michael Abbott explains why the heavily authored Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was far less meaningful to him than another RPG he played at the same time which was "old school" and provided very little story structure.
You should also keep an eye on this blog, as I've been planning on writing a simple introduction to thinking about video games more intelligently.
