How evolution of co-operative play has changed gamer attitudes.

How evolution of co-operative play has changed gamer attitudes. (For better or for worse)

Let me start off by saying that I will be talking about the jump from physical co-operative play to the online gaming of the modern day consoles. Back in the day if you wanted to play your Mario kart with a friend you'd have to bring your Nintendo DS to their house and connect them together before the red shells and fists started flying, but even further back that to beat up your friend's Charizard you'd have to physically connect your handhelds together with a cable. The evolution of games has ultimately gotten to the point where you can simply talk to your buddies while playing massive online games from the ease of your living room. This is an incredible feat that brings a lot of friends together and even gives you the opportunity to make new friends over long distances, for example I'm in a Destiny clan with a bunch of guys from America, and I've got Irish and Aussie people on my friends list. This freedom comes with a curse however, as it introduces you to the sub-sect of troll gamers who simply want to mess up your game and swear up the chat. I'm not trying to lay into a stereotype here, but from experience these trolls are all younger gamers who simply want to abuse the system. 

Now there's a very simple solution to this: don't play with them. 

However the opening for this kind of experience still exists, if your team is winning in an online PVP match you won't want to leave the game, but imagine if there's a swearing little 13 year old kid who doesn't understand mic volume? I'm not saying this is all the time in online games, but it's rare you'll go a week without encountering some kind of verbal slating, be it in-game chat or message saying "u got pwned".

I'm glad to say the majority of online gamers are helpful and polite, I've got some great memories of teams who all praise each other for doing well, or congratulate you for owning high-level armor. 

Now this brings me onto the comparison to old co-operative play. (A little side not here, I'm discussing home consoles, not arcade machines.) Early-generation home consoles typically did not offer co-op options due to technical limitations .Though consoles from the second generation of video games onward typically had controller ports for two-player games, most systems did not have the computing or graphical power for simultaneous play. The Nintendo 64 (1996, 1997) set the standard for co-operative savvy consoles by being the first to proffer 4 controller ports, a feature that nearly all consoles since have adopted. You could go to a friend's house and hook up you Gamecube controller to their system and have a great time, there was physical contact, much the same with Pokemon games cable connector. Maybe it's the physical presence of your friend being in the same room as you, but I feel that this form of gaming is much more human, as you can see all their reactions to you using Surf on their Charizard, and you'd have to make th effort to meet up and play. From times I've brought an extra controller to a friend's house to play Resident Evil, it somehow feels much more satisfying to play in person. It's a hard to describe feeling, just picture how the Jaeger pilots in Pacific Rim fuse their minds to focus on one thing. (this time it's piloting a robot though). It proves the point that gaming is social, but as a physical representation. For example I keep hosting Super Smash Bros nights at my house, and that hosts 8 players so all my friends can really meet up and have a laugh, I doubt it'd be the same if we all met up online to play. Plus none of them own a WiiU.

The attitude of an online gamer is (generally) more negative than when you're playing with real friends, but thats for obvious reasons. You know your Physical friends better, so when you have arguments about who threw that red shell in Mario kart it's all just jokey fun. On the other hand, I mentioned previously abuse of the system. Online you have the power to say what you want to strangers without consequence, and unfortunately more socially reclusive (or younger) players take this as an opportunity to vent. Now it'd be a lie if I said that physical co-op never induced rage and swearing fits (far too many Mario kart and Smash Bros matches for that) but it's done in earnest, they're your friends and you're allowed to be like that to them. It's friend code. Online players though aren't your actual friends though, imagine going up to someone with a Gameboy in the street, starting a Pokemon battle with them and then swearing like hell at them. Theres a specific gamer etiquette (which also involves mic volume), it's pretty much taboo to insult someone. This can lead to being kicked from the game and further arguments. Physical gaming still holds these kind of tense arguments, but at the end of the day its all fun and games (literally).

That being said, I've had many social occasions when all of my friends and I have been on Halo 4 multiplayer, or making huge cities in Minecraft. True you can play physical split-screen multiplayer on both of them, but it takes the quality down and makes it hard to see, especially if you have 4 players on one screen. This is where online play really benefits the player's experience, however games like Castle Crashers and other side scrolling beat-em-ups work just fine in both worlds. So overall quality and gameplay aside, this discussion really comes down to the main point: ease of access. It takes effort to go to a friends house and connect up a controller, now you can do it all at the touch of a button and a headset. You could say it's lazy, but it makes social gaming much more convenient and time-efficient. You can simply switch on the system and get started without the hassle of the setup, but I almost think that takes the charm out of it. Don't get me wrong, I love online gaming, however I feel theres' a certain nostalgia to meeting up in person and playing some games, If people don't want it why do we still do it? In conclusion, online gaming is still social but not in the old fashioned way. It is far more convenient, but it's shifted physical co-op to a much more special occasion. Now this isn't totally bad, it's just not as common or easy as regular online play.