The Dumbest Thing I Read Today

You know, I realize that people feel the need to hyperbolize in order to make a point, but at some point you’re just destroying your own credibility.  Today’s example is Phil Harrison, who has made a number of comments that might fall into this category during his tenure at Sony.  Harrison states:

“I think the single-player, disconnected console game is probably in its dotage.  Now, that doesn’t mean that those games aren’t relevant going forwards, but they will be enhanced by community features being embedded in them, or downloadable content becoming an inherent part of the experience, or some kind of user-generated content will be part of the experience.”

I see two possible ways of reading this.  First, Harrison can be read broadly enough to include the possibility that he simply thinks that offline games that offer no online component whatsoever (co-op, deathmatch, some combination) are no longer viable at a corporate level.  But that seems so obvious as to be not worth the breath it would take to say.  Games have routinely featured some basic online connectivity for at least a decade, maybe longer, on PCs, and they’ve been increasing in frequency on consoles ever since the Dreamcast began offering it - and maybe earlier.  Plenty of games that include, say, an online leaderboard, but nothing else, would qualify by Harrison’s criterion.  In short, since it’s been technically feasible, online connectivity has been incorporated wherever possible.  The second and less charitable possibility is simply that Harrison is arguing that primarily offline games are doomed, which is absurd.

But neither of these observations negates the basic fact that offline gameplay is still extremely important, and that online play represents only one facet of an extremely diverse gaming landscape.  I still buy single-player only games, and I’ll continue to do so in the future.  I play online sometimes, but there are a lot of benefits to offline play, leaving aside offline multiplayer entirely. Unfortunately, the industry seems compelled to label new trends “the next big thing,” even when there’s little of merit to be observed.