Tired of the social aspect of video games?

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Since I work evenings, I've been watching the E3 press conferences and more and more, game companies are emphasizing the social aspect of games.

"You can play this with 36 of your friends . . . ."

"If you get stuck, call one of your buddies over and they can immediately jump in . . ."

"Now, when you get a group of friends together you can share . . ."

Is anyone else pissed off about this? One of the things that originally drew me to video games was that it was something I could do by myself. I don't have any real friends and the acquaintances I do keep don't play video games and I hate playing with random people. Basically, if I don't know someone in real life, I don't want to play online with them. Therefore, I'm watching these conferences and it's so disheartening to see games coming out that look really good, but because of the required social nature, I won't be playing. Then it was capped when they showed the trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic. It looked absolutely amazing, but it's an MMO so I won't be playing it. I loved the Knights of the Old Republic series and only hope some day, they'll make a single player sequel to that series, but it's not looking good. It looked so awesome and pissed me off so much.

And now I'm reading that Halo 3: ODST the "expansion" that was originally not going to be priced as a full game due to its short, 4 - 6 hour campaign is now going to be priced at the full $60 because of a bunch of multiplayer crap they've added to it. As much as I enjoy the Halo series, I'm not paying $60 for a 4 - 6 hour game, now matter how much multiplayer stuff it has that I won't ever use.

I don't like those mmo-'s either. I treat rpg games as some kind of interactive books. That I could live as somebody else and explore their world. Those mmorpg just don't have the depth. A lot of them also need ppl to babysit you at some time which is a total turn off to me.

While I enjoy playing with some people, the tendency to engineer the games primarily for multi player is not something I can claim to like.

I enjoy playing games with friends, but not random people over the internet.

I'm just afraid that in a few more years, I won't be able to play anymore because they'll all be multiplayer based. I don't want to spend $60+ for a game that was developed for multiplayer and then decided to tack on a token, short, bland single player campaign.

i agree.

Hear Hear! Whatever happened to deathmatches with computer controlled drone opponents? I don't have 12 hours a day to devote to being an online Halo assassin.

Once you complete a game, there is nothing left to do. These developers want you to keep playing long after you've completed it. Why play a game for about 12 hours and nothing else left to do?
I do hate short games, I do prefer nice long games that take hours to complete. But to require type of network connection sucks. Like Steam, you have to be online to play anything that's on there...
Deathmatch has been replaced with capture the flag or team deathmatch. Bots were always a favourite of mine

Left 4 Dead is another good example, a supposedly really fun game, IF you have 3 friends who also play. The single player, with AI controlled bots just sucks.

This is part of the reason why I like older games better. Now it's crap like Guitar Hero that's popular (although that one can be done alone).

Good sig. Psychostick rocks.

Don't worry Bataar. The social aspect is mostly the Wii or MMO genre. Video games will always remain a single player experience. That probably won't change for a LONG time.

I like singe player games more as well. I have played some MMOs but they are time consuming and I do not like the dependency on other players. Luckily I have still some old adventure games lying in my cd-box to play.

i like single player games only.

once i was playing empire earth on line (i only did that 3 times) and i allied with a player who had run out of resources, and i built a string of nuclear silo's around his base and built tank factories and barracks etc and pumped out dozens of various units. he felt safe with my military presence and when i had enough muscle, i declared war on him (he can not do anything about it).

as soon as i clicked the hostile button on his name, all my units automatically went beserk and i fired off all my missiles to return immediately to the silo.
it was very funny as i did not have to do anything but sit and watch as my men (who were all on auto attack) leveled his base.
i was immediately thrown out of the game and i was banned from their forum so i like to play single player.

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the newer FPS games are much more story line based. they also do not allow for foul play or other unsavory behaviors.
for example,i am playing "brothers in arms" at the moment and it is a blasted nuisance that i can not kill soldiers on my own side (comrades).

on the older games where i had a "team", the first thing i always did set about eliminating them. that was the most fun part.
if you fire at a comrade, then suddenly all become enemies for the rest of the level. this makes it much more challenging, because they are more powerful than the enemies who are also after you. when i was finished clearing them out, i was alone (phew) and i could go at my pace and shoot all my enemies on the other side myself.

in "brothers in arms", you can not shoot anyone in your team. the cross hair turns into a red circle with a diagonal line and you can not fire.
also, when you get to some points in the level, you are unexpectedly frozen and can not walk or fire because some idiot is doing a cinematic at you telling you all about his feelings and you can not escape it. you must listen to the whole 2 or more minutes ! !!.
thankfully, after a few levels into the game, you get to command your team/s to attack etc.

so i send them on suicide missions to eliminate them.
eg: there may be a field with machine gun nests and tanks on the other side. i tell them all to attack the furthest tank away, and they all single mindedly run through the field of machine gunners to attack the tank. it is interesting to hear them screaming through their radios "sarge!! their tearing us to bits!! " etc as they are mown down.

i like to play games where it is me against every other unit.

I can definitely relate. I never play in multi-player mode. Hell, I don't even like games that involve a lot of "social interaction" with NPC's. That's why I usually don't play RPG's. I prefer the story-driven mode in FPS games, like Doom or Half-Life 1, where you're mostly on your own, fighting to survive against hordes of enemies. I was very disappointed when Quake 3 and the Unreal franchise became online-oriented. I wish that developers would pay more attention to the single-player aspects of games.

If other people enjoy multi-player, that's fine. But as with sports, it's not my cup of tea... I'm not very good at teamwork, and I don't enjoy competition either. And I can't really enjoy something if other people are judging or making fun of the way I play. Unfortunately, my younger brother watches almost every game I play, so I'm not entirely "free"...