I’m a very old school gamer that started on an Atari 2600, went to the local arcade at the mall, had a Commodore 64 and other devices prior to the internet evolution. On top of that, I used to play table top games like Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, Shadowrun, Paranoia, etc. I was used to packaged software and have no issue paying for something if it’s worth the money. These days online games have been creating new paths that are somewhat beneficial but also have engendered a toxic environment that has been slowly driving me away from gaming.
The always online mode of games in truth at the core are mechanisms for companies to protect their IP (intellectual property) against piracy and to a lesser extent modification. Some games which do not require the always online mode such as Sim City (I think that’s the one) have created their own controversy as companies might not anticipate load and improperly prepare servers for the load or that the disturbingly increasing frequency of DDoS attacks can bring an online game to a screeching halt. In that sense, the always online mechanism ends up working against the game as customers who have paid or continuously pay for a subscription service (e.g. World of Warcraft) might perceive the fault to be on the fault of the game publisher, which just builds up a negative relationship with the customer base.
There’s always situations which are what I believe are a latent, hidden fear in all gamers that a system might be shut down. I read recently that Asheron’s Call will be pulling the plug on its servers. I knew someone who was pretty devoted to the game years ago. While other MMORPGs have come to supplant Asheron’s Call (e.g. World of Warcraft), the situation does not settle well with me at all. Effectively, all the money and time you pour into a game can be snuffed out on the whim of a company for a variety of reasons. You basically give up all rights to what you do in these situations and hand away your work and your money at the same time. In the end, you have nothing to show.
What’s worse in the case of a game like Asheron’s Call (or any game that depends upon an always online mode) is that if suddenly you want to start it up and it’s gone, you won’t have any opportunity. There’s no chance someone who’s never experienced it will get to play it. With older games that did not have this requirement, there’s no issue. Even if I’ve lost my progress because I might lose the disk (like with Bard’s Tale), I still can find pick it up for cheap from websites like gog.com whenever I get that nostalgic feeling. That’s because once you purchase (or pirate) that game, it’s yours. There’s no greedy company hiding your information behind a server wall.
Also, in the case of older games like a Bard’s Tale, I can play it anywhere as long as I have it installed. I can be on a plane or if my internet goes out, I can play it. There’s no internet dependency. Not to mention it lowers my network usage and thus lower my power usage on my laptop in situations where I’m not connected.
The other thing is that a lot of older games generally felt like they were shipped with higher quality in mind. Maybe not every game (* cough * Ultima 9 * cough *) but I feel as though the mentality prior to the internet was that games needed to go through some heavy quality control since you only would get one shot. Of course, the internet has allowed for patches and online games now pretty much have the unsaid benefit of expected updates. But I feel that this scenario promotes unhealthy expectations between the game publisher and player base. Like let’s say there’s a critical bug that needs to get fixed. If it’s a blocker then the publisher absolutely needs to get it out the door.
Some companies don’t even care though. Part of the reasoning is that you don’t want to promote an unhealthy development environment where your team is being overworked. In this scenario, the community can get out of hand in their demands. It’s easy to say, “Well, company XYZ has billions of dollars and can hires more developers to push out more features.”
Bzzzzzzzzz!!!!!
Go read Mythical Man Month to learn why simply adding more developers doesn’t solve software related problems. Unfortunately, almost all the wrong people (the developers themselves) are those that read this book and can appreciate/understand what I’m saying. But the always online aspect makes people take the situation for granted on a whole.
The other major issue I have with online gaming is that I just feel it’s inefficient all around. First, you need server side code on top of a client. As someone who programs the web, I can tell you that client-server computing is NOT fun and pretty lame brained overall. With the web, you have things like form validation. That means, when a user submits data, you need to check to make sure it adheres to certain rules. Examples might be usernames, passwords, age, etc. With the developments of client heavy technologies like React, Angular, etc., you’re effectively doing double the work since validation must occur both on the front end and backend in order to store data. It might not seem like a lot of work but it is redundant.
I’m almost certain that with online games you have a similar situation. You can never trust a client which may imply that data that gets entered on the client side will be validated on the backend. It doesn’t matter if you attempt to encrypt the data in some manner. There’s always going to be that person or group who figures out how to decrypt the data and send back results that can trick the server. Just grab a packet sniffer and log everything that goes back and forth between your router.
The other thing is that server technology is just unbelievably costly. You’re just putting layers upon layers of cost by adding a server requirement. You need DevOps, security people, networking, data centers, hardware, power. On top of that, you become prone to single points of failure where an outage to a critical piece of infrastructure can mean the whole game failing. It’s a huge amount of loss for little gain in my opinion not to mention taxing on the developers and everyone in between.
Many online games tend to go this route to promote a social aspect. It’s pretty natural given that there’s really zero reason to create an online game without a some form of social activity. The essential idea behind doing this is that friends help promote the game, thus increasing the user base.
But most of these social games tend to be stressful at the same time. For instance, I think Battle.net is utter crap because these days you can no longer truly play a game “in peace.” People can see your online status. Even if you turn it off or mark yourself as away, the fact that you’re on is visible to everyone on your friends list. It’s such a retarded idea! Sometimes people don’t want to be harassed and just mind their own business. With these social games, your activities become public whether you want it or not.
You might say, “Well, why don’t you just remove the offending friend from your list?” I’ve got a better one up, how about I just get rid of all the online games altogether and just stick with old school games? I play games to relax. I don’t play games so people can have yet another means of harassing me. I certainly don’t play games because I’m required to be online in order to do activities (e.g. raiding, guild related stuff, etc.) In short, it’s just another layer of drama that’s unnecessary.
Lastly, the other thing I’ve found with most online games is that there’s a tendency to push players to constantly play. The minute you’re away or doing something else, you lose because these games often are designed with leaderboards or some mechanics that implicitly force you to play on a daily (at minimum) basis. I don’t like this formula as it leads to burn out. Instead, I prefer games that allow you to jump in and jump out. Maybe for a new game that’s highly engaging, I won’t mind spending the first few nights or even week or two really pushing the envelope. But these format is just counterproductive at some many levels. The only real people it benefits are YouTubers and streamers who require constant content for showing their viewers. But that’s a real narrow group if you ask me.
I think that along with the always online/social mode of gaming comes the vocal community majority that ends up ruining the experience for a lot of players. Granted, in many cases the vocal majority is needed to help guide a company in the right direction. But they can also cause unnecessary stress to the point where the developers go in the wrong direction.
So I’m going to pick on World of Warcraft because I see this as one of the best examples of poorly managed resources. World of Warcraft suffers from class imbalance and instability. You would think that after the number of years it’s been around that they could nail down core abilities. Nope. Part of the problem is the division between PVP and PVE. PVP players might be more vocal on this end as it can directly impact competitive arenas. A single percentage or second of a CC can make all the difference in the world for a win.
As someone who tries to design games (or had dealt with this scenario in the past), it utterly frustrates me to see every patch showing constant class balancing. It just feels like an absolute waste of resources. Worse than that is if you’ve managed to find a sweet spot in the game, it’s not guaranteed forever. Take for instance how survival hunters are melee. I was a huge fan of survival back in Mist of Pandaria. Can’t play it the same way anymore nor would I want to. Or Gladiator Warriors in Warlords of Draenor. It was actually quite fun but it got stripped because the developers did not want to spend additional time doing yet even more class balancing. Maybe some people felt that neither were worth much and moved the community towards a different direction. But I won’t ever get to have that chance, especially since they refuse to have legacy servers for whatever reason. The cycle simply does not end because of these constant changes.
In the end, I just find the overall atmosphere of online gaming to be frustrating. I doubt we’ll see an end to it and it’s sad for me. A lot of it is just unnecessary and there really hasn’t been an online game in a while that really has gripped me due to it being online. I don’t think the social aspect is that great either. I do miss the table top experience but it really boils down to time commitment for any of this.