Most Gamers Prefer Single-Player Games, New Research Reveals

Tsing

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MIDiA Research has published its latest gaming report, and with it comes the news that 53% of gamers prefer single-player rather than multi-player games, including those in the PVE, couch co-op, and online PVP categories.

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devastadus said:
Isn't PvE and Singleplayer the same or overlap?
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They can overlap but usually don't. Single player games are story driven games like the Mass Effect series or Jedi Fallen Order / Survivor games where there is no multiplayer component. (Mass Effect 3's MP not withstanding.) Online PVE would be Destiny 2's non-PvP modes or something like Helldivers which is an extraction shooter. An example of a game with overlap would be Ghost Recon Breakpoint which has a PvP mode, a raid and Co-Op gameplay. The latter allowing you to play through all of the game's single-player missions and story with friends.

Something like Helldivers or Warhammer: Darktide has no single-player story and requires you to play with other humans via matchmaking or you can form groups with your friends to do the content.

I think single-player games are better experiences typically. However, the industry embraced multiplayer games because they are much easier to monetize and the live service model allows you to keep adding super shallow content and entice players to invest additional money in the game through microtransactions.

Single-player games usually don't vary enough between playthroughs to have the kind of player retention that a multiplayer game usually does. The only real way to extend the life of these games is via mods but the publisher / developer usually doesn't make any money off that and it makes the games even harder to monetize as the developers literally have to do better than modders and somehow justify their paid content over the free stuff on Nexus Mods. Plus, the latter often involves free ways of unlocking stuff that was locked behind a pay-wall.

Players also very often push back hard against paid DLC's for single-player games. Very few franchises pull it off very well. At the very best it creates some ill-will between players and developers.
 
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Dan_D said:
Something like Helldivers or Warhammer: Darktide has no single-player story and requires you to play with other humans via matchmaking or you can form groups with your friends to do the content.

I think single-player games are better experiences typically. However, the industry embraced multiplayer games because they are much easier to monetize and the live service model allows you to keep adding super shallow content and entice players to invest additional money in the game through microtransactions.
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I have such buyer's remorse for Helldivers 2. That game REALLY needs a good single player campaign, it could have been awesome based on the boot camp training. But no here's a really cool looking game, now go play with a bunch of randos who also have no idea what they are doing.
 
Baulder’s gate 3 is an excellent example of a single player game (even if it has a multi player option). The voice over work is something that isn’t well done by modders either, and i would have no problem buying a BG3 expansion. Doesn’t seem like that is in the cards though.
 
Burticus said:
I have such buyer's remorse for Helldivers 2. That game REALLY needs a good single player campaign, it could have been awesome based on the boot camp training. But no here's a really cool looking game, now go play with a bunch of randos who also have no idea what they are doing.
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I got it for my Birthday and I've only played it with friends. I don't really enjoy it enough on its own, but with people I regularly play games with its an enjoyable experience.
 
More of a single player guy myself. Too many games are Multiplayer only now which I guess rakes in the bucks for the developers. The only reason I still buy COD games is because you can play offline against bots, which is hard to find in a game anymore.
 
Multiplayer can be fun, but they realy need to get rid of cheaters and that's a losing battle.
 
Multiplayer to me means LAN parties, but no game even allows to make local servers anymore so even the idea of a LAN party becomes moot.

I simply don't like online multiplayer games at all. I find other players distracting and immersion breaking and playing with people I know is a scheduling nightmare of sending messages for 4 weeks back and forth, and then half the people not even show up at the scheduled time. And quite frankly I might not show up since how would I know if I'll be in the mood for a game at a specific time a month in the future?

No, give me single player story driven OFFLINE games that I can play at my own leisure at a moments notice.
 
I prefer single-player, but with co-op online abilities games myself.

Something that I can play solo if I want, but if one of my friends is online they can join (or I can join them) and we can game together without the toxic PVP communities these days.
 
On the fence on this one.

Most single player games- I play through once, and I'm done. There are a few exceptions to that, but by and large it holds true. Most games are around 25 hours. A few extend upward of 100 hours. The few exceptions a few hundred hours.

Whereas multiplayer games (for me, it's been mostly MMOs) - if I find a crowd to run with, my playtime gets measured in weeks or years. It's not a lot of different titles, but if I can click with the community, I dig in.

Quantity vs Quality I guess
 
Brian_B said:
On the fence on this one.

Most single player games- I play through once, and I'm done. There are a few exceptions to that, but by and large it holds true. Most games are around 25 hours. A few extend upward of 100 hours. The few exceptions a few hundred hours.

Whereas multiplayer games (for me, it's been mostly MMOs) - if I find a crowd to run with, my playtime gets measured in weeks or years. It's not a lot of different titles, but if I can click with the community, I dig in.

Quantity vs Quality I guess
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I'm in the same boat. But add to that that most MMO's have a subscription cost just for that game... and your overall level of toxic stupidity drops. Either because admins are more present, idiots get tired of spending money to be idiots.. or whatever else. SOME cost to play keeps them turned down.
 
MadMummy76 said:
Multiplayer to me means LAN parties, but no game even allows to make local servers anymore so even the idea of a LAN party becomes moot.

I simply don't like online multiplayer games at all. I find other players distracting and immersion breaking and playing with people I know is a scheduling nightmare of sending messages for 4 weeks back and forth, and then half the people not even show up at the scheduled time. And quite frankly I might not show up since how would I know if I'll be in the mood for a game at a specific time a month in the future?

No, give me single player story driven OFFLINE games that I can play at my own leisure at a moments notice.
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All of this 100%.

I will say I have played a scant few games online, and actually had fun with them, but that was for very brief moments in time. Games like CoD4 and Hawken, and Halo MCC's Firefight mode (which is PvE). Otherwise I'm basically 99% offline single-player when it comes to games, and have been my whole life. I don't like gaming online with strangers (which is why LANParties were so important to me for a large part of my life, and were still some of the most fun I have EVER had in my life), and trying to schedule online meetups with friends is a real pain in the @ss.

Also it's important to me to be able to have the ability to pause a game, cuz life happens. You can't pause games when you're playing online. But I take my video games like I take my movies and shows: at my own f*cking pace, and on my own schedule.

I used to have a crew where we did at least 16 LANParties between 2003 and 2016 (with as many as 3 in one year at times), and most of those were f*cking awesome. That kind of sh1t got harder and harder to do as we got older, some of the homeys got married (so even though they have their own places we still can't do LANParties), hard to match up people's schedules, and honestly our bodies can't even take the abuse now. In my 20s I could game at a LANParty for 3 days with very little sleep, go home and sleep for 12-16 hours, and then be good. I would bounce right back. If I attempted to do the same thing now, I would probably die. Not to mention all the energy drinks like Vault and BAWLS we used to pump into our bodies, and all the pizza, subs, salty snacks, and sugary treats we scarfed down. No, I think that would be a death sentence today.

Sometimes we still do local PC multiplayer though. Like I'll go a friend's house and use one of his spare PCs to play a game with him. Or for example one time when my brother came to visit from the other side of the continent, he and I both used our own PCs to do some Halo MCC campaign co-op over LAN (we had to be in offline mode anyways cuz we were both using my copy of the game).
 
Yeah, I don't even remember sleeping during LAN parties, but I probably did a few hours here and there. We'd start Friday afternoon and go until Sunday midday usually. My first ever LAN party which I hosted BTW took place in my parent's garage, we only had 4 PCs but we still had a blast. Some guys weren't allowed to bring their PCs by their parents, or didn't even have powerful PCs. So we'd rotate who is playing and who is watching. The game of choice was Half Life Death Match and C&C. Which dates it quite a bit. 98 or 99 I think. We'd have them regularly sometimes more than once a year with various people hosting until 2004. I think I hosted 4 in total but I could be wrong, not counting the regular non-gaming parties.

My last LAN party was at the company offices, which was convenient, as we had relatively powerful PCs already on a LAN so why not use them? One Friday we decided to stay late and played into the night. I don't even remember what games we played outside of UT2004. I think it was 2008 or 9.
 
Its been so long since I've attended a LAN party. Back in the early 00s I used to host them at my house every couple of months. We'd generally get around 6 - 10 people over for the weekend. I was one of the only kids in school that had DSL back then so most of the people who came were those on 56k/dialup. My two little 1.5Mbps DSL connections would get worked that weekend from everyone downloading Linux ISOs haha

We would just sleep at different times. Some people would stay up late, usually to take advantage of less people hogging the bandwidth, or just to keep playing whatever game we were playing. Dominos would come to the house 4 or 5 times that weekend to deliver our food and drinks. Man, those were some good days.

Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam, Starcraft, Counter-strike, doom, quake, others I can't think of. Man, I need a time machine. Gaming was so much more fun back then.
 
LeRoy_Blanchard said:
Its been so long since I've attended a LAN party. Back in the early 00s I used to host them at my house every couple of months. We'd generally get around 6 - 10 people over for the weekend. I was one of the only kids in school that had DSL back then so most of the people who came were those on 56k/dialup. My two little 1.5Mbps DSL connections would get worked that weekend from everyone downloading Linux ISOs haha

We would just sleep at different times. Some people would stay up late, usually to take advantage of less people hogging the bandwidth, or just to keep playing whatever game we were playing. Dominos would come to the house 4 or 5 times that weekend to deliver our food and drinks. Man, those were some good days.

Unreal Tournament, Serious Sam, Starcraft, Counter-strike, doom, quake, others I can't think of. Man, I need a time machine. Gaming was so much more fun back then.
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Yeah my buddy and his roommate hosted every now and then like 20 years ago. We would always pop the breakers during heated fragging.... we each started bringing super long yardwork extension cords to plug into outlets in different parts of the house to spread the load out. Power and ethernet cables everywhere, portable tables anywhere you could find room. The occasional girlfriend or 2 in the living room watching anime or horror movies making fun of us. They were on a first name basis with the Papa Johns guy. So much Bawls and other energy drinks.

Enemy territory was always popular bc it was free.... Red Alert, Total Annihilation, Jedi Academy, Quake 3 always popular, Unreal Tournament....

And no one even blinked an eye at hauling their giant full tower PCs and CRT monitors around.

Sadly we lost him to cancer a while back, and the roommate got married. End of an era.

Typing that made me sad :(
 
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