When I was young, the only way to play a game
with a friend was to be sitting on the couch next to them,
or gathered with them around the table.
You had to be sharing an arcade cabinet,
or hanging out at your local game store.
You played face to face. Today, this isn't the case.
[Theme Music]
Today almost no triple-A game comes out with local multiplayer.
And even those that do often consider it an afterthought.
A secondary mode to online play and the truth is, there is a good business reason for this.
I mean, I am pro-local multiplayer but I won't sugarcoat it.
Companies long ago learned that they lose very few sales by not including local multiplayer.
First of all, very few people won't actually buy a game simply because it doesn't have local multiplayer.
But they may grumble about it,
they may be unhappy,
but if it's game you're jazzed about or a series that you love,
in general you'll probably suck it up and play over the internet with your friends.
Second, the amount of sales they lose is actually offset by the number of sales they gain.
I mean if a game has local multiplayer that often means
that two or more players only have to buy one copy of the game to play together.
But if a game doesn't have local multiplayer,
every single person who wants to play has to actually buy a copy.
So all of your friends have to buy it, if you want to play together
and the company has managed to sell two or more copies where they would have only sold one.
Now there are some counter arguments to be made to that logic.
For one, local multiplayer makes it easy to introduce new people to a game.
Local multiplayer games are also better candidates for DLC
as there will be some friendly peer pressure to pick that stuff up.
But those aren't the reasons I'm going to talk about
because I think they're less important and ultimately less convincing.
For all the business reasons to remove local multiplayer,
there's one compelling reason to keep it.
Local multiplayer made us better people.
I think some of the toxicity that we so often wrestle with today
comes from the fact that we no longer play games face-to-face.
It was a lot harder to curse somebody out or to fling racial epithets at somebody
when you were sitting right next to them.
It was harder even to be mad at the them,
much less stay that way.
When we played with each other in a real proximal sense,
we got to know each other and we had to accept each other as human beings.
Other players weren't just faceless entities on the internet,
they were people, just like you.
Empathy was practically unavoidable.
I mean, sure, there would be those times where a heated match got a little bit ragey,
but that rarely lasted long.
And more often grudging congratulations on a win or a heartfelt
"maybe next time" on a loss were readily given.
And when all was said and done, you broke bread or probably pizza,
and whatever frustrations there were
slipped away.
And some of my best friendships were formed in that environment.
Sitting around a table playing Magic or D&D,
spending hours trying to grind through Gain Ground on the Genesis.
And man, so many hours in Golden Eye.
And while I have found great people and made great friends playing online.
It's never quite as natural or as easy as it was over a game of Smash or Mario Kart.
Now sometimes when I've brought this up,
I've had people push back and say, "Dude, look at the fighting game community,
its all local play and there's a lot of toxicity there!"
And yes, there is toxicity in parts of the fighting game community and there's work that needs to be done there,
but I've also seen the fighting game community especially in local tournaments be
one of the most welcoming and open groups I've ever encountered.
I've seen old hands happily take their time to train new players.
I've seen lines of race disappear.
I've seen people from all walks of life bond over those machines.
And way back before there was a pro scene, when you had to put a quarter on a cabinet to play;
it was an even more welcoming community.
Crushing losses and frustration just melted away
in the face of our shared joy in these games.
Luckily, today's indie community has started to create more of these experiences.
Maybe out of nostalgia
or maybe out of an interest in exploring the unique type of play that comes when people play together in a room.
or maybe even just so they don't have to deal with the problem
of rendering two perspectives on a screen,
when you're already pushing a machine to its limits.
These have been great to see and I hope its leads to a resurgence in these types of games in general
But as we see local multiplayer falling out of the Triple A space,
I just wanted to take a moment and say that
for all the expense,
for all the hassle of putting in local multiplayer,
it does have a value that's not so easily quantified.
And not every game should have it, in fact most games probably shouldn't.
But for those that it's perfect for, it's worth remembering that it makes our community better as a whole.
It helps to forge friendships and create bonds.
But more than that, it helps to remind us that
we're all humans.
That on the other side of that wire is not just some faceless bot
or some outlet for meanness and frustration and rage.
It's another person who loves the same thing you do.
I'll see you all next week.
[Outro Song]