Spec Ops Multiplayer Is a "Cancerous Growth"

[OManoghue]

I'm glad he went on record and said this. Maybe other devs will put more effort into writing good games again.

 

[4RM3D]

"[Multiplayer] was literally a check box that the financial predictions said we needed, and 2K was relentless in making sure that it happened - even at the detriment of the overall project and the perception of the game,"...
*snip*
...but if 2K attempted to position it as a competitor to online heavyweights like Modern Warfare or Battlefield, it certainly wouldn't have done it any favors...
*snip*
...Davis gave props to 2K for green-lighting the game in the first place. "They took a hell of a risk with the project that other publishers would not have had the balls to take," he said. "I'm proud of what we were able to achieve, and it was not easy."

It seems like the publisher thought they were getting a Modern Warfare or Battlefield clone that could compete with the big guys, while the devs were more focused on making a memorable single player campaign instead of being the gazillion'd company trying to make a quick buck off a MW/BF clone.

Anyhow, either make a good multiplayer mode or don't make one at all. Because it still costs money. Money that could have been better spent improving the singleplayer.

 

[Knight Templar]

I love this man's honesty.
It is somewhat rare for devs to speak so openly about what they think.

 

[Evil mr dave]

This is what I love, when people within the game industry actually talk openly about the flaws in the system and air there frustrations with a lot of the bullshit that goes on in the buisness side of things. That probably took a lot of balls to say given that the higher ups dont want people with a negative opinion of the publisher or there practices kicking around.

Now if only we could get someone from Bioware on the line...

 

[Mirroga]

We need more guys like this. Too bad Triple A game investors will always care about the money that this guy can only do his full potential in the indie market.

 

[daibakuha]

You know, I like this guys statements. You know what I don't like? How everyone is going to use this guy as a reason for ragging on why things shouldn't have mutliplayer. Multiplayer isn't needed for every game, but it can drastically enhance the longevity and fun of others.

Yes, but what is unacceptable is that they had a vision for the single player experience and had to tweak it for the worse in order to accomodate the multiplayer part. The end result is that the single player main game is not the way it was meant to be, and for that we get yet another half-assed FPS multiplayer, in an already overflowing market which includes many free to play shooters, which do the multiplayer job much better because they are dedicated to it.

Thanks a bunch, marketing people.

Well if gamers stopped demanding multiplayer in every title, publishers wouldn't force developers to put it into the game.

Also this game is a third person shooter, not and FPS.

 

[unstabLized]

Dang.. This guy's a trooper. Props for him to spill the truth. I don't care if he's dissing his own project, its his criticism. I thought Spec Ops would be Single Player only. It's all it needs. Having multi just kind of hurts the game. Actually, I didn't even know Spec Ops had a multiplayer until now. But still, this guy's cool.

 

[theblindedhunter]

Such... colorful language.
Picked up Spec Ops just a little ago, and I'm very interested to play it, but I can't say I had a lot of interest in the multiplayer, or awareness of it at all. I definitely seems like something that didn't really warrant it, from what I've heard about the message, and I kind of felt that 2K of all companies would have understood that, what with Bioshock once upon a time.

 

[BoredWalker]

"It sheds a negative light on all of the meaningful things we did in the single-player experience. The multiplayer game's tone is entirely different, the game mechanics were raped to make it happen, and it was a waste of money," he continued.

This is what I thought when I finished the single-player and saw the "multiplayer" option on the menu. You have a game that makes the player feel like shit for having any fun while shooting things, then put in multiplayer that is just having fun shooting things? Talk about inconsistent, I'm glad that the developer agrees.

"No one is playing it"

This is the number one reason that I hate shoehorned multiplayer and multiplayer achievements in all non-big name multiplayer games. You'll only have enough people playing online for it to be worth a shit for maybe the first month, and then finding a match becomes nearly impossible, and any multiplayer achievements become unattainable.

 

[GAunderrated]

I applaud Mr.Davis for speaking the truth. I bought spec ops and supported their team and will continue to do so. They made a great product and while I hate the crap multiplayer that is required to be tagged along, I still have to salute 2K for at least giving the green light so we could experience a great single player experience.

 

[elilupe]

Spec Ops: The Line is the most unique game I have ever played, not because it had uncommon game mechanics or some wild and imaginative story line, but because it used it's gameplay to push it's story and message forward. Reviewers and players who use "bland gameplay" as a negative point have missed the point that the game makes through having a pretty generic style of gunplay.
This game is unique because everything that made up the finished single player product was there to push the game's point about war, hubris, PTSD, alliances, the "modern warfare" genre of FPS's, and the entire medium of video games. None of it was because the developers were lazy and decided not to create amazing and extremely innovative gameplay; they were there for a reason.
And that is why the Spec Ops multiplayer really is a cancerous growth and why I am glad someone in an official position has finally pointed out what the players of Spec Ops have been thinking since they saw the main menu option of multiplayer. Whereas the singleplayer portion of Spec Ops questions exactly how the player can enjoy such violence perpetrated by themeselves, the multiplayer throws all that out and suddenly, as Cory Davis said, tosses out the creative pillars of the project. Every single idea the singleplayer campaign points out is shamelessly subverted into a Call of Duty clone that suddenly glorifies the exact thing the singleplayer was condemning.
The multiplayer in no way affects the singleplayer, and very definitely should not deter a potential buyer from buying the game, as it is hopefully one that is remembered for being the great commentary that it is.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

God, I am so happy to read this article. Publishers strong-arming multiplayer components into games is indeed a cancer.

 

[Quazimofo]

This also reminds me of a lot FPS games this generation has dead severs because no played the multi-player(FEAR,FEAR2,FE3R,The Darkness just to name a few examples)

wait, hold up... the darkness had multiplayer?

 

[Lyri]

People haven't kicked up a fuss about someone in the media using the word rape to describe the degeneration of a game they're affiliated with?

This is a new one.
Notable mention goes to people in this thread who said that this person was refreshing and honest and we need more people like him.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

I actually just started playing this game over the weekend. Due in no small part to the recommendation from some friends who's opinions I trust. I'd seen a lot of critics say that it was unexpectedly deep or surprisingly dark.

Which I assumed to mean "This one has brown people that you don't have to shoot"

So yeah I played through to the point where you...find the source of the CIA broadcast...for lack more specific terms before I had to log off to go to a BBQ.

When I logged off I noticed that there were DLC and Multiplayer options on the main menu and I couldn't for the life of me think what they were thinking with that. In most games I take it as given that there will be challenge maps and DLC skins or multiplayer or whatever.

But here it just seems vulgar.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Like everyone else in this thread, just because he said all that, I am now considering giving them money for the game.

 

[Carnagath]

Wow, look at all the fucks this guy doesn't give. I thought people like that were pretty much extinct in today's gaming industry, guess I was wrong.

....You're kidding right? What end, of what stick have you grasped to come up with that analogy? This guy genuinely cares about this game, and gives many fucks about it. He cares about it enough to speak out against his boss, saying that Mutlti-player was not needed, and he is more than happy to condemn a company that screwed up his game.

The gaming industry needs a lot more guys like this, hell, it would be good for the industry if all lead desingers were like this.

We need more like this guy. Not less.

We're saying the exact same thing, I just said it in a different way.

 

[Pegghead]

While I'm not sure of other countries, I certainly know that it's release date here in Australia a few months ago was just begging for the game to fall flat. This game was released over here in pretty much the middle of the year, not only is that just a time when the release tap is slowed to such a trickle that no buzz is generated, but it's the middle of the damn year, with school and work and everything else the games we have (usually the good ones released at the end of last year) are what we fall back on.

I'll admit I'm no publisher, and that there's probably a thousand and one reasons behind why certain games get released at certain times, but I see this trend a lot: a game which looks great and gets heaped with praise is given next to no good marketing and released at just a plain bad time of year, then the publisher responsible blames the merits of the game for poor sales! I guarantee if Spec Ops had been released in the early or later months of the year, at a time when free buzz is given to a game solely because it's the free buzz season, they could very well have had a hit on their hands.