Were online consoles the worst thing to happen to gaming?

For all the fun and unique options they bring to games, I can't help but think that online consoles have dragged the industry down. Before, a game HAD to be QA'd before release and once it was done, that was it. Done. Over. The devs live with what they made. And to me, it also stifled creativity. I think of something like Thief the Dark Project and what a big deal that was. That game holds up incredibly today. Great level design, gameplay, story, etc. And we used to have options with what to play. These days it's all the same thing BECAUSE of the pressure to have some sort of online component in games.

I just miss the days where, when you bought a game, you knew you were getting a whole, complete game. I'm not saying the past was perfect or that there are no good games out there, but I am saying that I believe consoles going online has ultimately hurt the industry as a whole.

What say you?

No

Yes

Agree for the most part. The entire online gaming experience has gotten ridiculous and old. It really sucks now.

Yeah I think early 360/ps3 days where the best, great games but still had the online feature without all the problems we have today. If they had dlc it was great.

I agree definitely

Yeah, it seems things really started to change in the industry after the massive success of games like Halo 3, Battlefield: Bad Company, Call of Duty 4 etc.. The budgets on so many games kept getting higher, and companies kept trying to reach a wider audience by tacking on multiplayer mode to them, often at the expense of the single player. During the 6th gen (and for a little while during the 7th gen), there used to be more of a balance between games that were focused on multiplayer and games that offered creative and fun single player gameplay.

No, because back then a shitty game was a shitty game for life. You're looking at all of this with rose colored glasses on, there were pluses and negatives pre online, and pluses and negatives for online now.

No.

I think the issues you see now are due to a combination of greed, rising development costs, and increasing game complexity.

That is, all the patches and dlc and lootcrates don't exist because of online connectivity - they just happen to take advantage of it.

Honestly, it wasn't bad back on Xbox days of glory. Playing Halo 2 online was freaking amazing, I made some cool friends at the time. When PS3/Xbox 360 arrive, online gaming was getting more fun and intense and then, after 2011, it felt more the same and now in this gen, I hardly play MP games and if I do, it'll be only on PC unless it's console exclusive.

The main problem I have with today's online is higher cost of online subs, DLC in your face, Microtranscription and loot crates solve into gamers face.

@turtlethetaffer: I know this post is old, but figured I would toss my 2 cents out there.

I had high speed internet in the early days to enjoy Quake 3 Arena on Dreamcast. Xbox Live Games such as Halo 2, and NFL Fever were a blast online.

The Last “enjoyable” time I had playing online was the first half of the 360. PGR 3, Gears of War, and Halo 3 saw heavy gameplay at my house.

Gradually I noticed apps being introduced, then “required” DLC, and then I had to login to play (parts, if not all) of my game. I knew and have seen online gaming become a $$$ hub and taking over more and more, where physical games will no longer exist.

Another topic hardly mentioned is Xbox lives party chat. This was a huge downfall in my eyes to online gaming.

Xbox Live went from my friends and i getting together to play Gears or Halo, and buying similar games, to each of us playing a different game and talking while playing different games or just watching tv. This also led to teamwork issues if you were on a game and your team mates are in party chat. This is a minor gripe, and party chat helped in “many other” ways; but, I for one believe it put a massive blow to Xbox Live and gaming, in a subtle way.

The worst thing to ever happen to gaming was Skylanders.

I remember when you used to have to unlock characters if you wanted to play as them, now you just pop down the shops and buy them instead.

The worst thing to happen to gaming is probably EA.

I hate online mp gaming, invariably it's filled with mouthylittle kids spitting racial abuse and generally being obnoxious because of the anonymity.

Sitting around with a bunch of friends playing 4 player Goldeneye, F Zero, MK64 and many more are some of my golden memories from gaming but that just doesn't exist anymore.

A faceless opponent from 'somewhere' talking into a mic is all very impersonal and not sociable in any way I don't think.

No, I was. Just kidding guys.

I'm kinda half and half. On one hand, It's brought me an outstanding game in War Thunder, and Steam allows me to find and play a large amount of PC game that I might have not known about before. (Before steam I used Direct 2 drive). Also, developers could patch a game if they just so happened to miss a bug or glitch.

On the other hand, microtransactions, swatting incidents, and an ever increasing number of those so called missed Bugs and Glitches at a high suspicious rate. I'm aiming my lazer right at Bethesda and EA when I refer to the last one by the way.

I agree to some extent, but more on the quality side. I love multiplayer. Not so much public games where you have to deal with immature 13-year-olds, but LAN gaming is where it's at for me. League of Legends, Torchlight 2...plus an occasional game of Broodwar.

As to quality, I've seen some real bombs lately. The 2017 update of Dragon's Lair on Steam is terrible. The timing of the moves is completely different from the original, and a real slap in the face to those who grew up with the arcade version. Luckily Steam allows you to roll back to the good version (at least for now).

I don't know for sure if it was a cost-cutting measure to align PC/consoles/mobile, or cater to online platforms like Steam and GOG Galaxy, but it's what I strongly suspect. I can't imagine why else they'd ruin a good thing. In the end, I feel like the small niche of old school gamers gets hurt more than the industry or the masses. It's frustrating.

Load times.

If you want to play an expensive modern game you have to be prepared to wait... Ages.

On top of way too big install sizes you can end up downloading more than the disc itself before you get going.

Then add load times, boring intro movies and endless mindless tutorials and un-skippable cut scenes and you can be like an hour in before you actually start playing.

I just don't have the patience and get all riled up. Sign me out, buddy!

Not the worst thing, but for every advantage it brought to the table there seems to be an equal or greater drawback.

It’s not a terrible idea in itself. Unfortunately sometimes it takes a world of its own.

Video games benefit from being connected to the Internet. They can receive updates containing bug fixes and product improvements, etc. Many games are funner played online with other people. Some games are better single-player, others better online multiplayer. But overall, being connected to the Internet benefits the game.

Consoles were cool back then when we didn't need the internet. Now that we have the internet, I'd rather play on the PC.

Yes and no.

Yes because games now get minimal testing and release in unfinished states making the early bird's the bugtesters. It's especially unfair to people who don't have unlimited internet and/or a slow connection. And even if a game does have a bug that was missed due to improper pre-release testing, there's no guarantee it's ever going to be fixed. Secondly a lot of physical games are utterly pointless as there's barely anything on-disc and the majority of the game is on a server somewhere which is a mandatory download in order to even play. And now people think it's normal to pay monthly for online gaming, they seem to forget that internet play goes back to ~1996 when only online RPG's had monthly fees. Connecting to and playing with people from other countries was something anyone (who had bought a retail copy) could do.

-

No because in the cases where a console game from prior generations did have a bug missed by testing, it would go unpatched until a re-release of the game; but that wouldn't help people who already owned the game who'd then have to buy another copy.

I can't think of any other reasons why not, it's mostly yes.

No, up til the mid-7th generation.

Online PC multiplayer has almost always been a pleasant experience, as up until recently, requiring an internet connection to play offline games was seen as a big slap in the face. You just didn't do it.

When the Dreamcast came out, online was in it's infancy, but Phantasy Star Online proved it could work. PS2 online was also fun where it applied and when it lasted. The OG Xbox Live was revolutionary, and although the introduction of a monthly fee was questionable, the service still respected the gamer, and bonus goodies and game patches for all these systems, in the rare cases they were even needed, could also be obtained without a subscription in the form of demo discs, which even GameStop sold individually.

Then the Xbox 360 came. It started out great, and even if you didn't have a Gold Live account, you still had easy access to demos and Live Arcade trials. Almost no one cares about free playable demos these days, but they were always a treat for me.

Somewhere during the second half of the 7th generation - not right when the PS3 came out, but a couple years after - publishers started trying to see how they could more easily take advantage of consumers' wallets. DLC became an unnecessary evil and it wasn't long until fully featured games became less and less common in favor of it. Game dev studios have also become more corrupt than even Hollywood. Devs get fired before release dates so they don't have to be paid, crunch time is borderline slavery, and publishers like EA are forcing their developers to include law-breaking mechanics into their games (Chance based loot boxes are literally online gambling. It wouldn't be if you knew exactly what you were paying for.)

This all needs to be fixed, but it won't be until national governments start putting restrictions on gaming - and not restrictions on the gamers, but restrictions on what shady practices Game publishers and developers are allowed to do. Heck, even after that happens, they probably still won't follow it.

Can't believe consoles get away with charging people to play online it's one of the biggest scams in my opinion I got a PS4 and I will never give them a cent for online.

I (perhaps unfairly) blame World of Warcraft for this. Down to the popularity of the game, it convinced consumers that it was normal to pay monthly to play online. And so eventually other games followed suit, and then the practice migrated to other platforms who wanted a piece of the "People are willing to pay us for no reason" pie.

I don't fully understand all the pricing structure nowadays so i just avoid all big publisher modern games. There are often 5 different versions of the same game and not a single one has ALL the content. What's a "Season Pass" get you if it doesn't give you all the DLC? Why do some games have a SP as an extra purchase, while other have it as part of the base game? Why are the extras so tiny and pointless?

Not every game used to get expansion packs, but when they did they were usually worthwhile. Can't say the same for "unlock packs" which as far as i can tell just make available stuff that's already in the game for a fee.

It's very tired that is for sure.

I do miss buying a game that had everything on the disc or cartridge. Now, you buy a game and they put most of the game behind a pay wall. Oh, buy this season pass for more garbage, buy this buy that. Can we just get everything to be released on the disc without having to pay extra?

Well in the late 80's, folks at home didn't always like driving to the arcades just to play Donkey Kong or Ms. Pac-Man, let alone spend 5$ worth of quarters to keep playing it. Having a line-up of players waiting for you to finish playing was annoying. So, the market found a solution, now we have consoles. Remember the N64 expansion pak? the rumble pak? All online gaming did was brought the world closer to each other see Facebook. It's like saying why buy peanut butter and jelly separately, when you purchase both in one jar?