How Gaming 2.0 Took Over Can Be Bad

Gaming 2.0 was coined by Sony during their E3 press conference as a reference to Tim O'Reily's "Web 2.0." Gaming 2.0 involves the creation of a unified gaming community for user interactivity. In other words, Gaming 2.0 is when a gamer plays games with other gamers online and are able to have community aspects in the game.

That sounds great: me, a gamer, being able to play great games with other gaming enthusiasts. However, the gaming industry's adoption of Gaming 2.0 failed to incorporate Gaming 1.0. Instead, the developers opted for a complete substitution of Gaming 1.0 with Gaming 2.0. What does this mean? This means that games are now much more multiplayer focused. Games can be forgiven for a poor single player game as long as the multiplayer is up to par, or even games that don't have single player all together.

Now I'm a gamer of the 2.0 era, and I love it. But sometimes I just want to sit down and enjoy something by myself. Something epic (like the Metal Gear Solid series), or something instantaneously gratifying (like Mario 64). When these moments come, there are very few games up to the task. The essence of games used to be entertainment and relaxing, like going to an interactive movie, but now, with Games 2.0, the essence becomes competition.

I'm not saying Game 2.0 is not good. I'm just hoping that developers won't forget about Game 1.0: single player, static experience. That's where games come from, and that's where games should be built upon. Instead of touting how great the multiplayer is, start designing and developing games from single player first, then attach multiplayer that best fits the single player.