Comments on: Only 23% Even Attempted To Play Multiplayer

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 10:57:30 +0000

Here’s the thing: unless I’m really really in the mood for it, I find playing against other human players simply annoying. When I spend my precious free time on a game I want to be entertained, I want a story, I want to pause and take a piss whenever I like and I certainly don’t want to deal with the bitching of someone else. Which is my even in MMOs I mostly play solo (like I’d say probably 75% of all players do). I’m not in the least bit surprised by the Stardock results. It’s just that there is usually a crosssection between hardcore players and multiplayers and those tend to be, let’s say, very outspoken. See all the fuzz about left 4 dead 2 or MW2. Because they are so outspoken it may appear to some that multiplayer is all there is and is all that it’s about. Unfortunately, no, the silent majority still prefers their single player, story driven campaign setting.
There’s also the thing that unless you play from the very first day of release, it is next to impossible to keep up with the skill level to still have fun, unless you have a regular group of friends on your level to play with.
As an example, I have gone online exactly once with Dawn of War 2, just to see what it’s like. Other than that I only played the campaign and loved it. Same for Torchlight, Diablo….
If a game has no decent single player content, chances are I will _not_ buy it at all. I bought the Orange Box for Half Life, the fact that TF2 is so much fun (although I stopped after a few weeks) was a lucky coincidence. I’d not have bought it for that.

By: dadioflex

dadioflex — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:48:32 +0000

Railick said:
Stardock themselves said that part of the problem with the MP over the first few days was pirates trying to play online. It only makes sense that if they wanted to play MP bad enough to steal the game they’re going to do it some other way rather that buying it.

And yet 23% of people who bought a primarily MP game ever tried to play it online. What makes pirates such MP fiends that they are willing to jump through hoops to play MP by faking LAN connections, when most people who actually bought the game didn’t care enough to try.

Pirates are collectors. Always have been since the floppy days. The same percentage of games would rise or fall, regardless of piracy. Pirates PLAY fewer game hours than someone who PAID for a game. They may play more games but it’s mainly sampling. If you buy a game you tend to play it, if you steal a game you play until you get pissed off and drop it.

Put even the simplest of barriers in the face of game crooks and they baulk. Faking IPs and conning your LAN is easy if you’re a hardened pirate. But it’s a major turn off for most pirates, who just want the SP experience anyway.

Unsurprisingly, most people who can pay for games want to pay for games.

I can steal milk from a doorstep or I can buy it. Which do you think I do?

By: dadioflex

dadioflex — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:39:58 +0000

90% of gamers play solo.

Well… umm…

Maybe…

99%.

Casual games, Minesweeper, Freecell included? 99.9%?

Stupid argument anyway.

Make a compelling SP game for sales, add compelling MP content for repeat sales.

Honestly though, MP gaming on a PC is virtually non-existent, even allowing for WOW. WOW wishes it had a fraction of Solitaire’s numbers.

Or we can pretend that playing card games on a computer isn’t PC gaming. But…. I’ll just pretend that assholes on COD aren’t gamers either and… well… my gamers are still 100 times more than your gamers.

By: MrSpandex

MrSpandex — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 02:01:01 +0000

I can say I generally don’t play RTS online because I get my ass kicked. I do play online with friends against bots almost exclusively. The one thing they never considered is LAN play. I often use hamachi or something to play among friends because I don’t want to have to deal with the BS of the actual multiplayer system.

By: Liquidize105

Liquidize105 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:53:42 +0000

Who was the mod that censored me? That’s some crappy moderating.

By: Liquidize105

Liquidize105 — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:51:33 +0000

Why did my last response get censored?

By: Tom Davidson

Tom Davidson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:58:43 +0000

Oh, be nice.

By: Railick

Railick — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:11:21 +0000

They would be factored into the percentage for the reason above. What I’m saying here is that a lot of the people who DO play the game online pirated and play via Hamachi or what have you. If you factored them into the percentage it would be higher (Hence by not actaully counting them since they pirated the game, it makes the percentage of people who really play the game online lower than it should be) Rather I’m saying this could be a possible factor make the percentage lower than what some peole might expect it to be. Stardock themselves said that part of the problem with the MP over the first few days was pirates trying to play online. It only makes sense that if they wanted to play MP bad enough to steal the game they’re going to do it some other way rather that buying it.

So if you factored in all these pirates who are playing it on Hamachi or whatever they’re doing (I have no idea I don’t get into that stuff) the percentage may be much higher. Maybe a lot of people pirated the game, played it online with Hamachi and decided not to buy it, I dunno alls I’m saying is the high degree of pirate activity in this case may have caused such a low number as pirates are online more, thus play multiplayer more compared to people who may have just saw this at a store and picked it up to play offline a bit.

By: Railick

Railick — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:30:40 +0000

Anonymous Coward said:
I’ve never, ever, ever played any strategy game offline. I do 3-4 missions and in go to online, but I am not a pro, I just like to play online strategy games. For me IA is not interesting.I prefer lossing 10 times streak against humans than winning 10 times streak against IA.

You just said you never ever ever played any strategy game offline then went on to say in the exact next sentence that you do 3 -4 mission offline :P How can someone that contradicts himself/herself be a reliable source of information about anything? Also what is IA? Do you mean AI or is IA a game I’m not aware of?

By: Gregzenegair

Gregzenegair — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:59:30 +0000

I’ve never, ever, ever played any strategy game offline. I do 3-4 missions and in go to online, but I am not a pro, I just like to play online strategy games. For me IA is not interesting.I prefer lossing 10 times streak against humans than winning 10 times streak against IA.

By: innociv

innociv — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:43:34 +0000

These numbers are skewed.

See, the thing is, that Demigod multiplayer sucks.
So people told their multiplayer gamer friends “OMG DONT BUY IT.”

But you see, single player gamers don’t have the same community.
They don’t have IRC channels of hundreds of active people talking about games.

It’s multiplayer gamers that have vent, AIM, MSN, IRC that they influince each other with.

Now here is the important thing, Demigod multiplayer SUCKED. So people warned their MP playing friends about it. But singleplayer gamers were ignorant to this and fell into the trap to buy it.

By: Tom Davidson

Tom Davidson — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:26:12 +0000

The problem with “aspir(ing) to get better” at something like MP StarCraft is that the skills necessary to become competitive at the game are not in fact FUN (and certainly not skills that are going to have any application in the real world). It is not FUN to play the game the way you need to play it to have a chance. It is boring beyond belief. You have to learn to find a whole other set of things enjoyable — convincing yourself that, no, there really IS some deep satisfaction to be found by playing on this “other level” — before you can appreciate the experience again. And until that happens, what’s your motivation? Only the desire to WIN — which is, as I’ve said before, not why I play games.

Again, it’s like those non-English-speaking Scrabble players who are playing to maximize points, having memorized board positions and letter combinations to make that possible. They aren’t even playing the same game as people who started playing Scrabble for the simple joy of constructing elaborate words — and if that latter group wants to compete, they’re going to have to leave behind the thing they loved about Scrabble in the first place.