I miss the good old days when multiplayer was a completely SECONDARY thing. Honestly, and I know if I dont like multi I can just play single player, but when games are made with multi in mind, the single player just isnt that fun. And even worse is that the few single player-only games are getting multi added to them! Games like Mass Effect or Bioshock doesnt NEED multi AT ALL, but they did it anyways for the sake of the braindead multi addicts who need another fix.

I disagree that this is what makes multiplayer suck however. Multiplayer with strangers sucks in these false realism games because they are inherently competitive and when people find and imbalance, they exploit it and win more. Generally you are rewarded by the amount of time you play because you learn the quirks. If a developer is going to charge $60 for a multiplayer game, it should be as extremely well balanced as TF2 which is currently free. They makes some maps, poorly balance weapons and classes, and somehow they want us to believe that it’s a real game. They just give players tools and the players are the ones that create the experience. If that’s the case, why am I paying you $60 for a game I’m making? They start taking the easy way out, make some new unbalanced, easily exploitable maps and tack on single player to pretend it’s worth $60. Medal of Honor was a glaring example of this. I rolled through the dynamic, but boring shooting gallery of the single player and briefly uninstall after I realized I would be shot dead by spawn campers and snipers within 5 seconds of spawning on most maps. A fault not of mine because I “suck,” but because those who had been there loner and knew the exploits would be the gate keepers into whether I ever lived long enough to even know what they know. So with no single player to speak of, why did I just buy this game? Luckily it was on sale.

Games are about the interactive experience, which is why some devs think they can skip out on making a good game and just make playgrounds for multiplayer (and they can). It is very true that too much story can take the game away from the player, like the Metal Gear and Xenogears/saga games, but too little is just lazy. Players want interactive narrative, not too much and too little is just a rip off. Games are not movies and this is obvious in the fact that we’ve been hating cut scenes since 3D (mainly because of loading times and graphics disparity) and the fact that except for a few solid game characters, the greatest video game heroes are silent protagonists. Only characters like Shepard in Mass Effect, where you can define their personality and world to an extent will be able to get away with this in the future. After all, with characters like Shepard, the wall between your character interacting with the world they are in is taken down. The player is now put into the context of greater things. Not just some lone stranger with amnesia who can’t speak.

None of my peers seemed to have any indications of a straightforward kid to adult breakthrough.
In my high school, I had to tutor the entire football team (I kid you not) in history and english for the Alabama High School grad exams. In a classroom of about 20, not one knew who we fought in the American Revolution. It’s kind of difficult to not be a bitch to 20 large meatheads.
I’ve seen first hand what Bauerlein argues firsthand, before even hearing about this book.
All of the students just said he was a dick, and maayyybeee he had some valid points here and there, but mostly he was a dick.