Do small time online only games have a place in retail?

So with TitanFall hitting shelves pretty recently, there was a surprising amount of hate popping up for it despite the past insane hype train it was getting. Some of this was just anti-hype, trying to defuse the ludicrous expectations and dreams being set on it and of course trying to dismiss it as revolutionary when it really was just a military shooter with mechs. I myself was on this side because as a long time shooter fan who's been begging for something to take us out of the genre's decline, TitanFall certainly was far from hitting that mark. However you also had the typical anti-EA bandwagon, and fanboys against Microsoft jumping onboard, but after all of this one of the guys to truly make an interesting fuss were those that questioned its price and aim as a whole. Several people began popping out to suggest they could not buy an online only triple A retail game. Before you knew it this was in pretty much every article, every discussion, and felt weird clashing with the many that were thrilled for this big market release. It did make me think a bit more though.... its not honestly as easy to dismiss as the statement that a single player game has no place. Of course it does... but then again we could technically be talking about something as massive as Skyrim, not to mention its highly traditional with a long and proven history in our entertainment, meanwhile Multiplayer has sort of always been that thing off to the side as an extra treat or for a weird sportsman side of gaming that takes itself too seriously. Its kind of funny really, as we have publishers that think the opposite and that you have to have a form of online gaming in everything, yet its not until a big $60 multiplayer only title releasing that gets people fussy... and even funnier is that this is done in an age where so many military shooters release such terrible campaigns that only the multiplayer stays relevant, but they get a pass because it still technically has a campaign for offline play. So it appears its ok to tack on a bad campaign to a multiplayer driven game, but terrible to tack on a bad multiplayer to a single player driven game. Internet logic right there folks. So is it really a big deal to have an online only game, or does it have to have some offline service even if its crap?

Approaching the topic in general

Well alright first thing is first, lets get some clarity out of the way. Things that have a much more foreign and weirder use of the sense of online compared to the usual competitive shooter do not count here. That means MMOs, Free to play games, and to those of similar effect. We're talking about traditional smaller multiplayer modes done in more closed grounds with limited lobbies, maps, and a beginning and end to each competitive match, and it has to be sold for a pretty solid price backed by a solid team. Something similar to the subject that sparked this, titanfall. So the upcoming Destiny, games like World of Warcraft, Dota, and Blacklight retribution do not count. Meanwhile when it comes to games that do count... I found it to be surprisingly difficult. Several valve games fit, but they all had good bot support and released for much less a bit less launch content. Then there's a game like Chivalry, but that's an indie game with no marketing, still cheaper, and has bots.... even though they're crap. So I found myself kind of scratching the bottom of the barrel for this one, and even trying to make up "what ifs" to fit. What if you only bought Call of Duty without any campaign, co-op, or bot related content. What if Timesplitters were to sell just on its multiplayer? Well wasn't Unreal Tournament online only, oh no wait.... deep modding of entire game creation and some of the best and deepest offline multiplayer features out there. I began to see why this struggle to justify Titanfall's online only position was a bit difficult to counter-argue. Even though it feels like countless games have done it for quite some time in the shooter genre there is no clear choice that matches up to what TitanFall is doing. Its always been cheaper, or always had some better more offline leaning piece to cushion the experience.

Personally I'm a bit split on this topic, but I mostly lean towards accepting online only as a very plausible option. On one hand, I believe a good game that does its focus well and prices itself according to the experience is a great offering. I can't really see multiplayer being an exception, some dreams and visions are had playing with other people in small competitive sessions, and they don't need some lonely story driven alternative to make that vision happen. I don't need TitanFall trying to be Half-life anymore than I need a deathmatch in Journey. TitanFall wasn't meant to be a giant adventure for you to play by yourself, it was meant to be a dynamic battle alongside other people. A detailed narrative and scripted adventure you play alone wasn't in TitanFall's character, and was not the soul intention of the developers. It is not necessary to sell you the game, and it shouldn't be. If it was, then where would we draw those boundries for other similar topic going on the same principle? Lets say not only TitanFall, but Strike Vector, Counter-Strike, etc all had nice 4-10 hour story lines and scripted events you could see through on your own. Now no matter how awful it is or how tacked on, off-putting, character destroying, review hurting, and recourse damaging this was you at least can no longer call it a multiplayer only game you'll skip on. Now what happens to other games if those compromises had to be made for multiplayer? Would Zelda need couch co-op because you're afraid you'll need a break from solo play? Would Street Fighter need 4 player support because your too unsure you'll get by only on 2 player fun? Does Final Fantasy have to become an FPS just in case you get tired of RPG gaming? You can go on and on, but overall the point is you can't ask that games compromise their vision just to cushion your desire that it'll meet all your potential needs. As sad as it may sound in writting, its actually kind of good that there is no all in one game. If there was we'd all just give up and go play that one big super everything game. Instead we have games with focuses, goals, sometimes some nice extras, and we get to enjoy what suits us. Sometimes something unbelievable and incredible even pops out of such a focused game. I wouldn't be enjoying Spyro so much if it was designed for buddy co-op with gimmicks all over the place, so many hate the idea of easy Dark Souls and I can agree, and honestly not a single TeamFortress2 fan has felt lacking in its multiplayer heavy routine. If you don't fit in the aimed niche of a game, don't buy it, its as simple as that. If you feel a game might be too niche, wait for a price drop. Overall neither of those are as bad if a game misses its niche and wrecks itself.

However as I mentioned, I was a bit more split... and there's a good reason for that. Online gaming is a little weirder than just dismissing it so easily. There's certain expectations you should live up to, otherwise it feels a bit flat. That's why so many people make a big deal on single player length, there's a certain expectation of price to length ratio and likewise I believe there are certain expectations to online. For starters, online is by its nature harder to get into because it requires a consistent and decent connection for its core value. Not everyone who has and loves games has that blessing, and its a shame when they can't get into the fun. I think this is a major reason bots were invented, and honestly some games had that as practically their only multiplayer style... like TimeSplitters, which was either bots or couch co-op. It doesn't usually compromise the vision to help out the guys here with some nice offline support to simulate the best of the rest of the game. It benefits everyone though, not just those under an unlucky situation. It gives people the ability to practice, an escape from crashing lobbies and exploitative players, and it ensures that life goes on beyond the server sustainability and community. Now I can see some games like Splinter Cell merc vs spies going without it because you just can't simulate competitive stealth vs brutal guns within a calculated script or path of scripts that make up bot play. However some games that have such stupid or total lack of bots where they should be there... but its usually ok-ish because there's usually a campaign in these games to back it up as a solo experience, including splinter Cell just mentioned. You can go through that games capaign and get a good $60 worth of good stealth action entertainment out of it, so no worries on being left in the dark if your router kills itself the day you bought the game.

Moving on from that though, there are even deeper expectations that make up the core online itself that should be functional. With online, you need to have solid servers, some good deal of options to help stretch the rules of battles, a way to link up with your friends for either competition or "jolly" cooperation, and plenty of modes to supply a good variety and keep the core gameplay up and running. I also believe in being appropriately competitive. Right now there are countless of incredible and unique multiplayer driven experience on steam that launch at around $10-$30. Although the majority are indie, they have high visuals, lots of effort and care, and meet up to these previous expectations for the most part. So when people question the price of TitanFall, I can sort of see where they're coming from, it feels like its expensive just based on what its coming from... a corporation with a big name publisher rather than guys just a small group of guys doing a game for fun. Yet that is just the tip. TitanFall fails in nearly every single piece I previously mentioned.

Looking at TitanFall's execution

I've got to admit I have not played the game. How could I? Low end computer with no desire to bother attempting an origin installation, no will to spend that kind of money on this type of game, and I don't own the consoles its releasing for either. However I've been in touch with it a good bit looking onto what other have had to say, watching plenty of reviews, studying on its features and first impressions play, and observing a good bit of its gameplay. I've heard the good and the bad, and I think I've got enough to talk about it accurately for this article. Moving on now....

TitanFall is a very bare for what its trying to sell you. This seems obvious at first through just its loadouts and the focused online aim which might be subjectively good barebone pieces, but it goes much further and starts to get pretty absurd and painful to see. For starters there was that slight controversy over 6vs6, which isn't too bad if it weren't for the fact that its forced thanks to the lovely matchmaking way we play these games now. Another good example that most critics started poking at was the lack of private games, and the lack of friend and clan play features. It goes further though. There's few modes, there's few mech options, there's almost no customization beyond male/female characters, there's no server lists, there's no effort into the story, the gunplay is weak and reflex based whenever the parkour and jetpacks isn't hiding its simplicity, and don't forget mod support is a distant wish at best. The only thing it packs well is map variety... oh and there's grinding, if your into that sort of carrot on a stick facade that keeps you away from the content you just paid for as if it had it were full of micro-transactions.

Look I'm not trying to hate on the game as it looks fun. I've heard great things from some trustable people with good taste in shooters, I hear it being considered a step in the good direction of arena shooter gameplay, the 15 map thing sounds fantastic and the map designs seem like FPS bliss, and I want to shake their hands for being brave enough to leave guns down to a barer more focused selection rather than falling for the trap of pure numbers. The gameplay itself looks like something a lot of people would enjoy and play for quite some time, despite my wish that they did better in gunplay. Yet at the end of the day this is kind of pitiful for an online shooter, never the less a $60 one that was hyped as a killer title. Its an all new low for the lack of shooter customization and user freedom, and its just sad it had to happen with a good game that had to rely on these sort of options and stability. The game is very inaccessible despite its low learning curve. It has no customization, and barely even a way to enjoy it with your friends. It was marketed to pull in and give the COD crowd something new while also trying to trick COD haters into thinking its something for them to, but instead just builds off of the lacking options and leaves some people out in the cold and its charging you the same price for much less.

TitanFall doesn't even live up to its own vision. Of many things it wanted to do and market, there was a campaign done through its multiplayer and its clear by how much it was discussed as something new and how it is required to unlock your mechs that you really should have been excited and buying the game to see this. However it flopped.... hard. Its kind of sad to because its in the way you used to expect when hearing of a multiplayer game with a multiplayer "story" tacked in there. It just slaps a special voice-over on top of deathmatch and territory themed battles, exactly like what you could have in multiplayer.  Even the slightest attempts at unique scripting, set-pieces, and character development seem to be so rushed and slapped in as a bare minimal market point that it just feels like the most primitive and least desired form of a campaign. Its actually even worse than that though.... back when these used to happen, it was in offline with bots and had a one way trip through it that just lead to credits and then you could do whatever you wanted. Ignoring it was just as fine. Here.... its mandatory if you want to enjoy the mechs, a very key function to enjoying this game for what it is. Next its online only, and nobody so far seems to be enjoying it, leading this to become a bad combination where you have to pray that someone out there in the community will keep coming back to make sure you get to play this to unlock those mechs. Oh, and then you have to do each mission twice at least because of that online bit leading to the need for both factions to use real players. This is just terrible and cruel design. This is not a smart move, this does not live up to the advertised ideas, and it does not have any soul or heart put into it whatsoever. So much for a great solo campaign. People moan and groan through it so they can enjoy the real intent of big mech and infantry mixed combat across competitive online.

So different, yet oddly familiar situation here...

Again I'm going to have to say the game isn't as bad as I'm probably making it sound. It kind of reminds me of brink (and not because of its campaing/MP hype), a fun game that falls on its face because of issues surrounding it and way overpriced because of it. TitanFall might be subjectively better because it covers brinks mistake a little by having more flexible battles and some mode variety, however it also lacks bots... so make of it what you will. Either way both games should come off as a disappointment to those sucked into the hype, and are terrible examples on how to go about an online focused title. Brink desperately needed more maps or more modes to support itself. As it stood, you had to do the same mission objectives on the same 8 maps over and over again and that was the entire game, $60. TitanFall is an online game stripped of all expected structure to it and doesn't trust its own fans to know how to have any will power or fun on their own. It also feels partially rushed according to many players and critics, and its actually kind of surprising they even bothered to make time for the ridiculous XP padding when they couldn't even get proper clans or private matches in. Oh and I just remembered that insane file size problem they had out of laziness... hope you have 50GB free because they didn't have the time to fix their files for a small game. Its as if someone made a Mario game with a terrible level design, the core ideas might be fun but one of the key expectations to getting it to suit its standards is crippled. To add it all up though, the extra pain is that its overpriced by competitive market standards even without these problems.

Sure you could try to tell me it was heavily marketed and required EA's publishing, and was made from veteran creators of a highly successful mainstream franchise. So clearly its a major triple A game deserving of the typical Triple A price tag, right? Well no, no its not. If it wasn't for EA and the marketing, this wouldn't in any way appear to be a standard Triple A game. If it was we wouldn't even be having this discussion. The typical Triple A is a heavily marketed, over-bloated, over-staffed (disorganized staff included), and feature packed release crammed with all sorts of streamlined features and expectations on engines and voice actors that are expensive beyond reasonable measures. TitanFall is a source engine game, even most indies have abandoned that for other engines like Unreal 3 or better. Voice acting is for minimal effects and it wouldn't make sense to have them go all out, and again its a multiplayer only title taking the risk of a focused mode and function rather than trying to cater to everyone. Maybe I'll be surprised to find some hidden massive budget expenses underneath of it somewhere, but for now all I see is high marketing, a familiar logo, and a bunch of corporate contracts and typical business practices like planned DLC. You know I'm almost glad this game wasn't a triple A game and they have the sense to use an old engine when major expensive graphics aren't required, and it was cool to hear of a game that wanted to just focus on online without tacking any bad excessive modes on. However that leads to expect that it will be good at what it does, and deliver a full and successful experience in online gaming. TitanFall doesn't even bother for the minimum low, it creates a new low for online features and expects us just to deal with it because it was hyped too well to fail, and the novelty of mechs is pretty great. The game has its fun side, and deserves the fans and smiles of happy gamers enjoying their fast paced shoot-outs and stylized mechs tanking around the 15 brilliantly designed maps, but for the price of a full game I can see it hurting itself with some lacking options that should be expected for that sort of price.

For the record though, some of this is fixable (private match, woot!). I also have to say that I think I'm partially being hard on TitanFall for capitalizing on an obsession of bad features other games have had as well. Its just really bad here because TitanFall really relies and focuses on its online features, which it has little of. Nearly every recently multiplatform game has terrible clan support that is reduced to 4 letter tags at best, and Killzone Shadow Fall couldn't even do that until it was patched in recently. Of course I've never been easy on matchamaking only either. However there was more to it in most of those games, and they always had at least bots or private matches. But even if I were mad at Killzone or COD over clan systems, I had campaign to be happy with, or bots to just go carelessly destroy, and COD has that co-op game type as well to play with my friends or in split-screen. TitanFall... doesn't care about any of that stuff, and it doesn't have to if it were good with its online, but it doesn't even look like it cares about that enough. Again, the consumers deserve better for the asked price. The value for a game is always subjective, but if your going to do a game a certain way you should do it right.

To conclude...

I can see some personal opinions going with a play it safe route and relying on a game to come with plenty of options and playstyles, but you can't have it that way all the time. Besides that's why there are multiple games to begin with, just swap one out for another if your looking for something different. If you want a good game you'll have to take a little risk and play a focused strong game that specializes in something.... TitanFall tries but is hard to put under that sort of spotlight successfully. Its a brilliant game for its sense of balance, high speed awesome platforming motion, map design, and yes of course there's the novelty of mech on infantry combat (even though I don't think mechs are as big of a change personally). However there are certain expectations to making a game really live up to its dream, and there's a way to treat consumers with respect, and I think TitanFall forgets that and sets a bad example up for online focused gaming. Not only is there a strange lack of bots that caused the game to be useless across certain countries and to certain gamers, but it doesn't even have standard online practices that are to be expected for a good social and customizable experience. The game's life cycle is more dated because of this, more people will be turned off by it, and its and for the asked price people are going to feel a bit hurt over it. In addition that game isn't even free of feeling a bit tacked on with a really terrible Campaign function that much like its online functions feels like its getting away with a new low in how bad it can make something.

Personally speaking I can't say I'd buy something online only myself unless it had bot support. My connections are a bit unstable, and I want my purchase and fun to last rather than die like a fad. However that's my personal preference and I've still bought cheaper online only games... heck Chivalry comes close to being the best of online gaming in my eyes. So they do have a purpose and place in our market. However I think they need to do a good job of themselves. Give us the freedom we come to expect for the price we pay rather than seeing what you can get away with. Server lists, mods, stable connection, good social systems, etc. Its not asking for the moon or over-entitlement, its about giving users true accessibility and real ownership as well as keeping up with progress. Do that, and do it at a reasonable price, or else... as far as I know you haven't earned the respect to go making focused games when they can't even deliver a solid structure under its focus. I hope publishers, developers, and even gamers start to realize this a bit better so we don't repeat incidents like these where we have a fun active and social game we can't even share with our friends because they forgot to put in the private sessions. Selling a focused game without its good structure is like a selling an expensive recliner made out of jagged stone... its not bad because its a small recliner, its bad because it forgot the freakin' soft seating.