Bleszinski: Japanese Devs Need To Stop Ignoring Multiplayer

[80Maxwell08]

LOL @ every single response so far talking about tacked on multiplayer when the man clearly states he's not interested in tacked on multiplayer.

Here's an idea. How about developing a great single player game that has *gasp!* a great multiplayer?

Pokemon should have gone massively multiplayer (and I don't necessarily mean MMO) a very long time ago. Not just for endgame lvl 100 vs lvl 100 competitions. There are so many opportunities to insert meaningful multiplayer into the singleplayer experience so that the two are seamlessly integrated and help each other, but no.

Dark Souls sort of has the right idea, although it's a bit too encouraging of griefing. Then again the singleplayer is all about getting griefed, too, so it's really not all that different...

Except he only says they should do it for sales. Hence tacked on. Especially since his examples were 2 games that don't need it at all. Guess what games need money and if a game is supposed to be single player focuses I don't want it to have resources wasted on some multiplayer that's only there for worthless marketing.

"For sales" doesn't have to be a bad thing. It means I want to come back to a game over and over because it has replayability.

You're approaching the problem from the wrong angle, I think. You're assuming that the developers have already come up with a concept that works flawlessly for a single player game, and then resources must be diverted at the last second to add some multiplayer mode. But that's backwards. Why not spend a few more weeks or months designing your game so that the multiplayer is a natural extension, and doesn't take all that much work?

Take Diablo 3. The multiplayer is essentially the singleplayer + other people. Except Arena PVP, which can't have been all that difficult to implement, honestly. Look how much replayability and fun they added to the game by doing absolutely nothing except adding multiplayer. Now, did it help that they knew they were going to do this, and so created battle systems that worked for singleplayer/multiplayer interchangeably? Absolutely.

All games don't need multiplayer and it's still only wasting resources. Especially if the game turns out worse in the end like games listed here. You say why not spend more time but I'm guessing you probably haven't heard all of the complaints about the Japanese game industry.

One of the complaints they said is incredibly strict budgets and time limits. So if they tried to put multiplayer in then it's basically assured the single player will suffer to some extent. Also considering the devs had to come out and say they were designing it with multiplayer in mind rather than people knowing this I would say your last example is a bit false.

This still doesn't change that not everyone wants some random multiplayer in there just because. Plenty of people buy single player only games if the single player is good.

 

[pure.Wasted]

One of the complaints they said is incredibly strict budgets and time limits. So if they tried to put multiplayer in then it's basically assured the single player will suffer to some extent. Also considering the devs had to come out and say they were designing it with multiplayer in mind rather than people knowing this I would say your last example is a bit false.

This still doesn't change that not everyone wants some random multiplayer in there just because. Plenty of people buy single player only games if the single player is good.

captcha: hold your horses. Because I edited a little bit into my last post to say that perchance I agree with you more than I've let on! And I'm definitely one of those single-player people you're talking about. Of the 20-odd games I've played on the PS3, 5 had any multiplayer capabilities at all, and that includes ME3, MK9, and LBP.

Having said that, the "strict budgets and time limits" -- I think that "Japan, you're doing it wrong" was kind of an underlying theme in his argument. If he's saying "change your industry in way X" and the industry says "but that's impossible because of Y" I'm guessing he'd be perfectly OK with saying "okay change Y, too."

 

[80Maxwell08]

One of the complaints they said is incredibly strict budgets and time limits. So if they tried to put multiplayer in then it's basically assured the single player will suffer to some extent. Also considering the devs had to come out and say they were designing it with multiplayer in mind rather than people knowing this I would say your last example is a bit false.

This still doesn't change that not everyone wants some random multiplayer in there just because. Plenty of people buy single player only games if the single player is good.

captcha: hold your horses. Because I edited a little bit into my last post to say that perchance I agree with you more than I've let on! And I'm definitely one of those single-player people you're talking about. Of the 20-odd games I've played on the PS3, 5 had any multiplayer capabilities at all, and that includes ME3, MK9, and LBP.

Having said that, the "strict budgets and time limits" -- I think that "Japan, you're doing it wrong" was kind of an underlying theme in his argument. If he's saying "change your industry in way X" and the industry says "but that's impossible because of Y" I'm guessing he'd be perfectly OK with saying "okay change Y, too."

Well Japan does have huge problems to address this is true. However the markets there and here are still wildly different. For example like someone said handhelds are huge there hence why games like Valkyria Chronicles had their future games on the psp instead. Also I saw a study a while ago saying 55% of Japanese people are afraid of the internet. Also they basically have no real PC market so digital only games or PC games don't tend to do too well. Also the difference in culture does come into play.

My best example of the 2 different cultures is a game called Nier. Square Enix brought a developer called Cadia to make a game that appealed to western audiences. When the game went through market research in Japan they saw that almost no one really cared for the main character (who was a father protecting his daughter). So for the Japanese release they changed the main character to be about 20 years younger and to be the girl's brother instead. Also because of censorship some of the game's symbolism was removed (one of the main characters was supposed to be a hermaphrodite which was removed in the west) so a few bits of the main story were gone. On a side note I wish this would stop happening and just wish someone had the balls to not censor something like this.

Japan does have a lot of problems that need to be addressed like Nintendo basically holding up all of Japan to the point that when Shigeru Miyamoto said he was thinking of retiring the whole japanese stock market went down. Also things like Square Enix sitting on a huge amount of IPs that seriously need new installments along with them talking about developing games in 1-2 years time like the west, Namco Bandai having a somewhat racist attitude towards the west to the point where tons of their games don't get brought over because they don't like western developers, Capcom wasting absolute tons of man power on single projects (along with them basically only being sustained by Monster Hunter and Resident Evil) and other things like this. I just doubt that the one thing that needs to change is more multiplayer.

However some things are changing slowly. XSEED is having great relations with Nihon Falcom and is managing to bring over tons of their titles to the U.S. like the Ys series (Especially Ys Origins) and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. Atlus had good success with Catherine. Companies like Grasshopper and Platinum Games are making great games so far (I didn't mention Keiji Inafune's company since nothing has really come out of it yet). A japanese PSN exclusive game called Malicious is bring brought over to the rest of the world. While way more still needs to change at least a few things are happening for the better.

To be a bit back on topic I don't think multiplayer is a problem but it doesn't need to be there for everything. If a developer wants to integrate it in there fine but I don't want it thrown in there simply because it has guns.

 

[kurokenshi]

Oh gosh, someone dares to give the japanese developer advice, advice well needed because most of them seem to have a problem catering outside of consoles and their country! HOW CAN HE! WE NEED TO START TO INSULT HIM BECAUSE JAPANESE DEVELOPERS WERE THE BEST 20Y AGO!

So tell me, what justifies all those insults? The fact that he named several games that would profit from a good interaction with other players? The praise to some games? Or just the fact that you seem to hold japanese developers on such a podest that every negative comment or advice towards them is not tolerable in your worthless opinion?

So your answer is to insult everyone here, excellent!

 

[Amnestic]

Oh gosh, someone dares to give the japanese developer advice, advice well needed because most of them seem to have a problem catering outside of consoles and their country! HOW CAN HE! WE NEED TO START TO INSULT HIM BECAUSE JAPANESE DEVELOPERS WERE THE BEST 20Y AGO!

So tell me, what justifies all those insults? The fact that he named several games that would profit from a good interaction with other players? The praise to some games? Or just the fact that you seem to hold japanese developers on such a podest that every negative comment or advice towards them is not tolerable in your worthless opinion?

The fact that I'm tired of games developers splitting their budget to cater to both single and multiplayer instead of guaranteeing a really stellar experience with one or the other.

Bioshock 2 and Deadspace 2 were already mentioned. I can't speak to ME3 since I ain't played it yet but I've heard bad things.

To look at it from the other side: Battlefield 3, sporting the most pointless of all singleplayers to the point where most people told me to disregard it entirely when looking at the game.

Not every game needs both and indeed not diverting time from one can make a game better for it. Thinking that multiplayer is a catch-all solution to a problem the Japanese developers may or may not be facing is ridiculous, especially when multiplayer does not guarantee it won't be a rental title for a great number of people.

 

[Findlebob]

Well if we are honest Japan needs more multiplayer and Western needs less.

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

Looks at demon sould people, great single player game, greatly enhanced by its multiplayer aspect, I think that's what Cliffy B is talking about, versus multiplayer, or even co-op isn't for every game, but some kind of imaginative thing like that is great.

 

[Treblaine]

While online multiplayer can be a huge creative drive in gameplay, developing balanced gameplay mechanics based on player-vs-player instead of player vs cheating-AI... there is still the issue that this isn't playing to Japan's strengths.

It is a strength of non-Japanese developers to more successfully implement a multiplayer, they would be playing Second-Fiddle to American and South Korean developers.

Contrary to what MovieBob claims, video Games did not "come from Japan" they were very much invented in America. It was the 1983 Video Games Industry crash that gave companies like Nintendo and Sega an opportunity to surge in with very "active" business practices that crushed the fledgling American industry that was run by long haired hippies who balked at the idea of a Software + Hardware super-corporation that Nintendo would be so successful with.

But Nintendo's strict market control that only secured their position, they had to EARN their way to the top with very VERY good games. What were those good games? They were games you could sink many many hours into perfecting, they were HARD! Took a long time to master and complete.

What else is hard? Multiplayer. Because you are going against human opponents with well matched capability it is a real challenge to win. And there is a great sense of enjoyment in going against a challenging human opponent as you defeat them by figuring out their human thought processes. But fighting an AI controlled opponent, you can't fathom their thought process as programming AI I don't know even the first thing.

Take Team Fortress 2, how the spy can disguise as one of the enemy team, PERFECTLY. The only way you can tell who is a spy is how they act, you think about how a spy would act. You can be a more effective spy by thinking how the enemy would act and try to mimic that. That doesn't work with AI as their machine though process is incomprehensible.

Japanese developers need to get back to that challenge, that mastery over opponents that pose an intellectual challenge of how to outsmart them, not just how to hammer away at them because they "cheat" with higher HP.

Dark Souls I think is a step in that direction, it's very challenging but rewarding.

The latest Mario, Zelda and Metroid, they just aren't challenging. Japan needs to start making challenging and rewarding single-player games with great replay value.

 

[pure.Wasted]

snippity snip snip

Thanks for the information, you obviously know a thing or three on the subject and I respect that. The Nier story is bizarre. I agree that the censorship is terrible, but at least that's understandable. It's a hot button issue. If they had the balls to make a statement, that would be great, but it's not shocking that they chose not to. But father protecting his daughter not resonating with Japanese audiences? Wow. Can you imagine Western audiences saying they don't care about a character because he has to protect his sister instead of his daughter?

This is so bizarre, I'm actually tempted to do some digging and find out more about this story.

Back to the topic: perhaps I should stop beating around the bush and just use a couple of examples. I really, really, really want to buy a new Pokemon game. Unfortunately, Nintendo keeps trying to sell me Pokemon Blue 10.0, and I'm just not interested. I've already played it three times, that's more than enough. Serious multiplayer would be a GREAT way (but not necessarily the only way!) to bring this series into the 21st century, but at this rate, I'll be lucky to have that game in my lifetime.

Same goes for a lot of the turn-based RPGs as well. The combat is either boring (say, Persona 3 which I'm playing currently) or unnecessarily complicated (say, the Junction crap in the mid Final Fantasy games), or both. Although multiplayer isn't necessarily a "solution," I think that approaching the game from a different direction might help them get some new ideas.

I really wouldn't be surprised to find out that Mass Effect 3's widely hailed singleplayer combat mecahnics and customization options were a direct result of the need to make multiplayer combat feel great, and reward players with lots of attachments. And even if the resulting multiplayer mode was pretty forgettable in itself (I played an hour before putting it down forever), it still had a hugely positive impact on my experience with the game.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

While I agree with the previously mentioned point that if nothing else Pokemon should have gone massive multiplayer by now, I haven't seen many games from Japan aside from the fighters in which a multiplayer would make sense or even work.

Quality not withstanding, most Japanese games tend to have a strong focus on the narrative, and rather narrow path of progression. Although Vanquish looks like it could have had a fun multiplayer being a shooter of sorts.

Also I saw a study a while ago saying 55% of Japanese people are afraid of the internet.

What the fuck does this even mean?

 

[zefiris]

I cannot disagree more.Some japanese companies have problems, but multiplayer is not one of those.

Not every game needs shoehorned multiplayer aspects.

I don't hate multiplayer. Two of my favorite games on the SNES (Secret of Mana and Mystical Ninja 1 (sadly 3 isn't... T_T) are CO-OP multiplayer games. I would absolutely LOVE an action game that plays like a modern version of Secret of Mana, with a great CO-OP story.

Do all or even most games need this? No.

 

[Infernai]

snippity snip snip

Thanks for the information, you obviously know a thing or three on the subject and I respect that. The Nier story is bizarre. I agree that the censorship is terrible, but at least that's understandable. It's a hot button issue. If they had the balls to make a statement, that would be great, but it's not shocking that they chose not to. But father protecting his daughter not resonating with Japanese audiences? Wow. Can you imagine Western audiences saying they don't care about a character because he has to protect his sister instead of his daughter?

This is so bizarre, I'm actually tempted to do some digging and find out more about this story.

Well....here's the thing. The people who made Nier also made that games prequel (a loose term in this scenario): Drakengard (Which, i'd like to point out Square Enix has gone to it's absolute limit to try and pretend never existed ala George Lucas and the Star Wars holiday special).
This game was incredibly dark and brutal and had to undergo censorship to enter into the western market. Alot of character traits, personalities and even motivations were removed or changed to be able to release it (One of the main characters was a pedophile in the original jap version, and that was edited out in the western release).

Unfortunately, unlike in Nier, this censorship made some parts of the Drakengard game and story VERY difficult to understand. I guess i'm saying this to basically point out that it isn't the first time that a Cavia game had to be changed to get to western audiences.

 

[Terminate421]

He is right,

Japanese Developers cannot 'ignore' multiplayer. Lost Planet 2 is successful in this aspect and it practically relied on multiplayer.

Its just something that must be known to all developers as an option, not to be tacked onto a game but to be implemented if there is no harm done.

 

[The_Merchant]

I think Platinum games with Anarchy reigns would like to have a word with that guy.
Besides there are a good bunch of multiplayer games from japan,sure they dont have the 32 player mark like most of the god forsaken shooters.
Fighters,games with coop mode etc etc.
They are out there so its wrong to say that the japanese are ignoring it
And multiplayer is not always needed,i dont want japanese games to become bland because more focus is set on the multiplayer,and like many western developers trying to be as successfull as CoD

 

[hooksashands]

What exactly is Cliff B.'s job at Epic anyway? Overpaid consultant?

People get bored of multiplayer games the same way they eventually get bored of single player ones. It's bound to happen sooner or later. If the heaps of BulletSnore cases at my local Gamestop are any indication of multiplayer's inability to withstand the test of time, then I don't know what is.

We're overdue for a multiplayer Fallout/Elder Scrolls though.

 

[Surpheal]

I must say that I played through Vanquish, multiple times in fact, and to add to that and comment on what the article said, I did in fact buy it for $60 and it was worth it. As for adding multiplayer to it, there was no room for it, if it was added on it would feel like someone just super glued a few shiny bits and bobbles to it. It would add nothing to the fun that the game was, and more than likely have dragged it down from fun single player game to mediocre filler game.

Plus they tried to add multiplayer to its successor, Binary Domain. And if there is any justice in this universe, multiplayer like that will never happen again. The multiplayer in short was terrible, there were only three playable maps, winning could be determined just by which side of the map you spawned at, the guns you used seemed to be weakened compared to those shooting at you, and was just terrible to the core.

No Cliffy B., not every single game needs multiplayer.

 

[Mister K]

Because I don't want to have god damn multiplayer in ANY game besides Team Fortress 2 and fighting games.