What happened to sociable gaming?

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I've had various ponderings about this for a long time after random frustrations.

Many moons ago, and to this day for console gamers, multiplayer was a thing that could be done under the same roof. It was great to have your friends round for a game of FIFA or a battle on Mortal Kombat II, Tekken the likes (Showing my age now). You fired on the game, chose a controller and a team/player/character and went to it. It didn't matter what your login was or if you were online, you were just playing the game.

Now, on the PC at least, everything seems to be hugely restricted to your Steam account login. There are very few options for actual on the couch multi-player games.

Online gaming society is booming but real world gaming society, I feel, is absolutely at deaths door. Now, I know that Covid will have a lot to answer for with regards to society, but I feel that the gaming world was already going down that path anyway.

Is it just dying out? Would people genuinely rather sit in their own silos with a headset on rather than in the same living room sharing some beers?

Ironically, this is coming about due to me having 2 VR setups (which is an isolation option in itself). I simply want to have a PVP over LAN dual in different games, racing sims would be nice. I can't for the life of me figure out why you can't just play a 2 player, offline, simple offering of the games. Why does everything need to be convoluted and difficult to manage? Years ago most games HAD to have multiplayer/coop as an option or their games wouldn't sell. I understand that our fast broadband has untethered a lot of the limitations we had for house to house PVP but why does there need to be an exchange on player interaction in the same house?

I believe I may have found one offering that will allow a PVP game on 2 VR sets at the same time. In order to do it I need to create another STEAM family member, share with that family member and then put both that account and my own account into offline mode. I can then run the game on both systems at the same time, connect to a LAN option (somehow, not looked into that yet) and then I should be able to set up a PVP game.

Not being funny, that's absolutely ridiculous. I would be happy with an extremely cut down offering with limited options when looking to play multiplayer in Project Cars, it's not even an option with a controller. In order to play multiplayer you need 2 PCs and the game twice (officially) in order to share a bit of fun with a mate.

It's no surprise to me that we are becoming so socially inept, everything is forced to be online now.
 

Citrus_9

Expert
While I can understand what the word 'gaming' means but I can't recall knowing anything about 'social' these months... Maybe you're imagining things and they purely just don't exist? 🤪😂
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
I used to hate having to split a 'small' TV screen between 2-4 local players - probably much better now on a 80" 4k OLED, but not that good on a 32" CRT.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I used to hate having to split a 'small' TV screen between 2-4 local players - probably much better now on a 80" 4k OLED, but not that good on a 32" CRT.

Even adopting the use of a dual monitor configuration would make sense. It just doesn't seem like the done thing.

Coincidentally I've been playing a fair bit of Wii with the GF/Family. Having a rare old time with simple things like the bowling. Looking around at the current gaming trends I think it's a real shame that this approach isn't catered for.
 
D

Deleted member 41971

Guest
i do think society has become more complex and so have the people, for example in the 90s you could easily have friends round to play games in a more innocent time, now, employment has become far less in terms of quantity of jobs with no work life balance and more cut throat, and there has become a focus on e sports and youtube/twitch streamers and playing for money and ad revenue rather than for fun. coupled with the games industry and its fixation with DRM and everything needs to be connected at all times etc. also smartphones have taken very casual gamers from the console to easy tap and play games. I do feel people have become less social as we have seen with movie theaters, people would rather be cocooned in there own cyberpunk hi tech alexa driven living room than be with friends.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
i do think society has become more complex and so have the people, for example in the 90s you could easily have friends round to play games in a more innocent time, now, employment has become far less in terms of quantity of jobs with no work life balance and more cut throat, and there has become a focus on e sports and youtube/twitch streamers and playing for money and ad revenue rather than for fun. coupled with the games industry and its fixation with DRM and everything needs to be connected at all times etc. also smartphones have taken very casual gamers from the console to easy tap and play games. I do feel people have become less social as we have seen with movie theaters, people would rather be cocooned in there own cyberpunk hi tech alexa driven living room than be with friends.

I was waiting for the but 😂
 
D

Deleted member 41971

Guest
I was waiting for the but 😂

buuuuuuuuutttt, everything is going to be fine, ignore mr death in the corner here and have a carsberg with friends playing call of duty (y)(y)(y)
 

DarkPaladin

Enthusiast
I have a lot of fun memories of having friends come over after school to play video games like the old WWF/WWE wrestling games, where we'd set up some of the most horrific yet hilarious looking slams possible in the games. From what I've observed, I think the decline of social gaming is largely due to the increasing demand for convenience. Why spend the time out of your day travelling and organising a suitable time + place, when you can easily just turn on Steam/Xbox and play online together instead? It's the same concept as buying online with next-day delivery instead of spending hours looking for a product that a store may or may not even have.

I even remember when I first got online with an Xbox 360 and making friends with random people in the games just by talking to them and having many mutual interests. Still remember the old names of those guys some 10+ years later. Then Xbox introduced party chat and the need to socialise/communicate with random players online suddenly declined rapidly as well.

I sure do miss those days!
 

AgentCooper

At Least I Have Chicken
Moderator
I miss it. Me and three mates crowded round the TV playing Goldeneye, laughing our heads off in license to kill and slappers only mode. Endless attempts at trying to complete Rainbow Islands with my sister. Winner stays on at International Superstar Soccer. Getting annoyed at my cousin playing Street Fighter 2 because all he ever did was pick E. Honda and do the hundred hand slap over and over again. Good times.
 

JzB

Bronze Level Poster
I too miss the offline split screen era of gaming. Crammed into smallest room in the house with three mates on what I believe was a 20'' TV, splitscreen on 007 nightfire, cod 4 and WaW. Then moving on to Borderlands series (one of the best coop games I've played) splitscreen with my brother on a 32 inch tv.
 
Tekken tag tournament golden eye 64 mario kart 64 and bomberman 2 on snes amazing times me and some freinds still have a good old lan party now and again .
 

Stephen M

Author Level
Nearest I got to social gaming was in the pub darts, crib and dominoes teams, great fun though. We also had quoits but was absolutely rank at that.
 

SlimCini

KC and the Sunshine BANNED
Me and my three school mates. Started at 16. 7pm round my mates for tekken 2 drinking games. Best of three rounds, whoever loses does a shot, winner stays on. Within two hours all of us are worse for wear and hilarity ensued. Then jump in a cab and go to the bars by 9pm.

We still meet up and do it every few months even now we're late 30s and all with young kids. Just it's tekken 28 or whatever the latest version is.


The other I remember is split screen two players Halo at uni. Oh the days. Me and Eoin. Serious rage at that, both of us accusing the other of looking where the other was hiding by simply looking at their half of the screen.

Good times.

Haven't played halo in years. Not sure I want to or it would have lost the magic memory.
 
Me and my three school mates. Started at 16. 7pm round my mates for tekken 2 drinking games. Best of three rounds, whoever loses does a shot, winner stays on. Within two hours all of us are worse for wear and hilarity ensued. Then jump in a cab and go to the bars by 9pm.

We still meet up and do it every few months even now we're late 30s and all with young kids. Just it's tekken 28 or whatever the latest version is.


The other I remember is split screen two players Halo at uni. Oh the days. Me and Eoin. Serious rage at that, both of us accusing the other of looking where the other was hiding by simply looking at their half of the screen.

Good times.

Haven't played halo in years. Not sure I want to or it would have lost the magic memory.
Isnt there a remasterd collection I never played past halo one so your post has inpired me to maybe see what all the fuss is about !
 

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
Nearest I got to social gaming was in the pub darts, crib and dominoes teams, great fun though. We also had quoits but was absolutely rank at that.
yep same here darts & dominoes, unfortunately there weren't any crib teams locally
 

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Do you think this trend towards 'solo' gaming is because that's what gamers want or is it a subtle marketing plan by companies like Steam to simply increase their bottom line?

I know from long experience that the best computer techies I've come across are introverts, would that be true of gamers too do you think? If so it would explain the relative ease with which Steam (and other similar companies I guess?) can lock gamers in to a solo existence. Is this trend towards solo gaming a problem? I think it could be...

As an official card-carrying member of the old gits club my youth was spent in pubs and clubs with my mates, where your social skills were finely honed through hours of (sometimes painful) experience - along with a few cuts and bruises if you got them wrong! Even in cooperative online games I don't believe you can pick up the same non-verbal clues that are so important in face-to-face communication and I do worry what sort of society the young 'uns of today are creating for themselves?

If there is one single lesson I have learned in my life (apart from not eating yellow snow!) it's that the most important life skill that anyone can develop is good inter-personal skills. We are a social species and we always achieve more as a group than as individuals, so being able to function well in a group - to be a 'team player' - is always going to be a vital life skill. I've interviewed and rejected many technically competent people because I knew they would not fit in well with the team. Excelling at what you do won't help if you don't have the necessary inter-personal skills to get past the job interview.
 

Scott

Behold The Ford Mondeo
Moderator
I think the goal is the bottom line, but unfortunately the trend is towards introvert....... the same with all social media platforms etc. I don't think it's a deliberate trend, it's just a convenience shift.

I watched Surrogates a few years back (I watched it when it was released but it felt more poignant on my last viewing) and I genuinely think we are getting towards a hybrid state of that type of existence, almost virtual.

A simple analogy for the why for me is my body clock. If I was left to my own devices, with nothing in particular to get up for, my pattern shifts to an almost nightshift. I'm a complete nighthawk and early mornings to me are like nightshifts to others. I will happily drift into a pattern where I'm up until 4-6am and then sleep to 2-4pm. As much as I'm fine in this sort of pattern, it's not great for me socially (obviously). I don't mind a little time just doing what I please but it's not good long term.

Something was said to me years ago regarding health and safety in work. Someone I was friendly with was putting himself in harms way to complete a job and I stood up and argued against him doing it. When one of the senior managers asked why I was getting involved, the most senior manager interrupted and said "because sometimes we need to protect people from themselves". Always stuck with me as it's absolutely true and goes doubly so for the youth/younger generations.

I think we are probably a little naive to the danger to be honest. We tend to protect our kids and teach things based on our experience, we haven't really had the experience of the pitfalls of these behaviours yet, although the alarm bells are certainly ringing for some of us.
 
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