[casual_games] Multiplayer casual games

[Steven E. Meretzky]

>It seems to me that multiplayer games are a natural for building

community. So why don't we see more of them in the casual space?

 

Hi, Jay!

 

There are a lot of multiplayer casual games, and have been for a long
time ... What's been the #1 game on Yahoo for years? Pool. (2-player
eight-ball pool).

 

Some of the reasons we don't see more multiplayer are that it adds a lot
to development cost, in a space where keeping dev costs low is crucial;
it adds complexity to the gameplay and must therefore be handled
extremely carefully, given a complexity-averse player base; and it adds
a barrier to getting into the game (finding and waiting for a match with
one or more other players) whereas many (most?) casual players wants a
fast-in fast-out play experience.

 

And community is a lot more besides multiplayer. At Infocom, when
Activision released Shanghai around 1986, we had a Mac in the QA Lab
that was dedicated to running Shanghai. There was a mode where you could
keep serving the same tile layout for different players to play. When
this mode contained a tile layout that was "solvable but really hard",
word would spread around the Shanghai aficionados at the company, and
they'd be lining up to get at it and get their initials on the leader
board. Ditto with people sharing game numbers for particularly
challenging Freecell shuffles. Just a few incredibly simple examples of
what I would define as "community" in a single-player casual game.

 

--Steve

 

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