No split-screen co-op: is it just greed?

[FieryTrainwreck]

My absolute best gaming memories involve local co-op. Playing together with a friend in the same room is just the best way to game, in my opinion - and my friends agree. In fact, we've played a lot of admittedly average games just because they were smart enough to include local co-op.

Great example: Borderlands. Simplistic graphics, repetitive gameplay, nonexistent AI, horrendous balance... and we played the shit out of it because it has split-screen co-op.

So in a time when every dev is trying to shoe-horn some kind of multiplayer into their game, and more games feature computer controlled allies throughout, why do we seem to have fewer quality local co-op experiences than ever?

A big part of me thinks it's pure greed. If your game allows 2-4 friends to play together using one disc, you've just sold one copy to four people. You'd certainly rather those 1-3 additional players purchased their own discs - even if the end result is four friends playing "together" from their separate homes.

Might sound strange, but it feels like gaming is becoming more reclusive *despite* all the networks and connectivity. I liken it to the texting/twitter/facebook revolution, which purports to keep everyone connected while frequently replacing real, face-to-face communication.

Long story, short: greed + technology = the irreversible destruction of our humanity.

Edit: just a hunch, but I'm betting the majority of folks who disagree with me on this one cannot legally purchase alcohol.

 

[Ekonk]

I don't know what the reason is for the death of split-screen, I just know that it makes me a sad panda.

 

[Snork Maiden]

I absolutely *hate* it when split-screen co-op is removed whereas online co-op is kept in. I'm sure there are some technical difficulties involved in scaling a game to play four screens (does it render the same thing 4 times over and over?) but it always smacks of cheapness. Its not so bad when 4 way online is possible yet you can only have 2 player local (like in L4D), although thats possibly only because L4D is pretty cheap so a system link *would* be viable, if I really wanted too.

Whats not viable is having 4 consoles and 4 copies of the game - its beyond frustrating that I can do MW2 4 way local (which is a lot of fun) but its near impossible to do MW2 8 way local with just two copies. In this case I'm fairly sure there aren't any technical difficulties, just bullshit.

 

[Cherry Cola]

I believe you completely miss the point of something you actually mention in your post.

It's not greed, it's the fact that it's more popular to play multiplayer online than doing it split-screen, therefore no developers care about split-screen anymore. It's an effect of that "revolution" you mentioned at the end, not an effect of corporate greed.

 

[King of the Sandbox]

Agree with op.

Some of my best multiplayer experiences haven't been on an online service that required money to support after buying the game and system.

Goldeneye, Smash Bros Melee, SmashTV, Secret of Mana, Streets of Rage, etc, etc, etc.

 

[JEBWrench]

(does it render the same thing 4 times over and over?)

Yes, yes it does.

 

[JokerCrowe]

I agree. i'm not really sure what your point was but I agree. Local co-op multiplayer is one of the best inventions in gaming. That is ome of the reasons why TimeSplitters 2 and future Perfcet are two of my favoirite games of all time. And yeah, i also think it's greed. Which I really don't think should exist in the games industry. bit naïve maybe, but I really think games should be a pure source of entertainment. And people should make them becase it's fun. but agian naïve.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I find it funny that you didn't keep reading to discover that I think online multiplayer is actually bullshit. It's NOT more fun to me than actually playing games in the same room as my friend. In fact, the idea that I might be hanging out with friends and, when we decide to play a game, we all have to fucking go home is beyond stupid.

They could easily implement local co-op for just about every major multiplayer release. They don't. I think it's because they'd rather sell more copies of the game, but I suppose there are some people who enjoy playing "with" their friends as opposed to with their friends.

Edit: my bad, Hubilub. You're 17. You have no idea what I'm talking about.

Some of my best multiplayer experiences haven't been on an online service that required money to support after buying the game and system.

Goldeneye, Smash Bros Melee, SmashTV, Secret of Mana, Streets of Rage, etc, etc, etc.

This exactly. When I think back on gaming experiences that were uproariously entertaining, I always come back to local co-op. Then again, I sincerely believe a headset is a very, very poor substitute for a person.

 

[TheSeventhLoneWolf]

I don't know what the reason is for the death of split-screen, I just know that it makes me a sad panda.

Indeed.

I blame Goldeneye and Medal of Honor Underground for making me love Splitscreen so much.

 

[Snork Maiden]

(does it render the same thing 4 times over and over?)

Yes, yes it does.

I thought as much. Either way, its annoying (*especially* in system link shaftery like with MW2). I never play online, yet I play 4 way splitscreen games *all the time*. Its in this section that the Wii is actually a lot of fun compared to t'other consoles.

 

[black orchid1]

i miss co-op, i bought borderlands, never saw anything about it trailer/gameplay or anything, i just bought it so me and my friend could play co-op and we played it the first day for about 25 hours straight

 

[Cody211282]

I have some of my best gaming memories from split screen(mostly co-op) and when ever I see that you can play co-op online but not on the same xbox/ps3 I get a tad pissed off, it's nothing more then greedy ass company trying to see another copy of an overpriced 10 hour game.

 

[MrDeano89]

time splitters, cod1, medal of honour rising sun, gears of war 2 and 1, left 4 dead 2, all of these games TRIPLED thier playability to me because of split screen, lets be fair, half the people you play with online you dont actually want to, so giving you the option of getting an actual friend over to play with you is so much better than leaving it up to chance online.

 

[Jordi]

They could easily implement local co-op for just about every major multiplayer release.

How do you know it's easy? I doubt that very much. If you make a game that looks as nice as possible on the given hardware, it seems entirely likely to me that while your console can run it once, it can not actually run if 2-4 times. The screens will have reduced resolution, so they might be slightly less expensive to render, but that doesn't come near to negating the fact that the scene now needs to be rendered 2-4 times.

Of course, ultimately all decisions are made based on how much money the developer thinks it will make them. But in this case I think it's not because they want all of your friends to buy their own copy, but because they have to choose between good graphics and split screen, and you might be in the minority for preferring the latter.

 

[Brotherofwill]

Might sound strange, but it feels like gaming is becoming more reclusive *despite* all the networks and connectivity. I liken it to the texting/twitter/facebook revolution, which purports to keep everyone connected while frequently replacing real, face-to-face communication.

Nice one. Very good point. The social revolution for gaming a la Xbox Live! is doing quite a lot of harm to the hobby next to the benefits, splitscreen should always be supported, no matter what.

When I game with friends and we have a local coop game all the good old times come back. Sitting in a small room with 4 people, chatting and having fun. That's what it's all about. Not sitting there with a headset, wondering where your life went.

 

[mightybozz]

I miss co-op and in a similar vein I miss bots in local multiplayer. Developers don't like the idea of spending ages creating a multiplayer system that they cannot be involved with (be it for market research or simply for DRM) so they cut it out and force you to pay and play online.

Like many people on here, some of my favourite times gaming from childhood and teenage years were loads of local multiplayer, co-op and versus, through the N64 and Gamecube days. Bots and local multiplayer are why we are still far more likely to plug in Timesplitters 2 or future perfect than we ever are to play Halo or MW.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

They could easily implement local co-op for just about every major multiplayer release.

How do you know it's easy? I doubt that very much. If you make a game that looks as nice as possible on the given hardware, it seems entirely likely to me that while your console can run it once, it can not actually run if 2-4 times. The screens will have reduced resolution, so they might be slightly less expensive to render, but that doesn't come near to negating the fact that the scene now needs to be rendered 2-4 times.

Of course, ultimately all decisions are made based on how much money the developer thinks it will make them. But in this case I think it's not because they want all of your friends to buy their own copy, but because they have to choose between good graphics and split screen, and you might be in the minority for preferring the latter.

This just doesn't wash. Older systems were no different; the devs pushed the SNES, N64, and PS2 just as hard. If local co-op required split screen, they took hits to frame rate, resolution, draw distance, etc. - whatever they had to do to make things playable in those modes. Even when there was gobs of slow down, people had fun. Because they were playing videogames with their friends instead of sitting alone in their rooms with a headset.

I can't emphasize enough how drastically my friends and I lower our collective standards to play games with local co-op. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 is a supremely average game, but we played it tons just because we could do so without fanning out to our individual man caves. That's a big fucking deal. I wish we could play more of the very best games in similar modes.

 

[JEBWrench]

How do you know it's easy? I doubt that very much. If you make a game that looks as nice as possible on the given hardware, it seems entirely likely to me that while your console can run it once, it can not actually run if 2-4 times. The screens will have reduced resolution, so they might be slightly less expensive to render, but that doesn't come near to negating the fact that the scene now needs to be rendered 2-4 times.

Not to mention running multiple input objects at the same time as well as camera objects.

Split screen is taxing on hardware. Unless people would prefer their games to look 1/4 as good as they do, it's probably going the way of the dodo soon.

 

[Pandalisk]

Co-op makes everything awesome, and because i have siblings it makes Co-op vital in the purchases i make, so they really need to start, Split screen Spec Ops was great, i respect MW2 for that.

Also, has anyone ever gotten Local multiplayer LAN to work?

 

[JEBWrench]

This just doesn't wash. Older systems were no different; the devs pushed the SNES, N64, and PS2 just as hard. If local co-op required split screen, they took hits to frame rate, resolution, draw distance, etc. - whatever they had to do to make things playable in those modes. Even when there was gobs of slow down, people had fun. Because they were playing videogames with their friends instead of sitting alone in their rooms with a headset.

Except that the games that tended to use split-screen didn't push their systems hard to begin with. Now, games are expected to push as far as possible.