This is their personal preference and has nothing to do with their generation
As an "elder Millennial," who do you think drove traffic on WoW, Half Life, Halo, COD, etc?
that sounds like older millennials to me, tbh
younger millennials grew up on multiplayer and online games, which were widespread and extremely normalized by the time we were old enough
remember, the youngest millenials were 4 to 6 years old in 2000 and the mid 2000s was the big multiplayer boom for the industry
Halo, COD, Gears of War, Counter Strike: Source, Garrysmod, Minecraft, Trackmania, Everquest, World of Warcraft, Left4Dead, Diablo 2, all of these games came out while we were 6 to 14 years old
That’s fine and all but I’m technically an elder Millenial, and we definitely played online pvp games when I was in high school. I was there for the first counterstrike alpha/beta. My brother and I spent an entire week playing CS one time while my parents were in a trip, 10 hours a day with breaks for pizza. We had a system for sharing play because we only had the one desktop… lol.
We had quake lan parties and even did a quake tourney in our school computer lab because this was before they really sorted out locking the computers down. I feel like tribes and unreal tournament were out pretty quick as well. Quake arena. Half life multiplayer and then CS, day of defeat, etc.
Super toxic online was sorta a thing, but I feel like that didnt mainstream until COD lobbies on consoles, and the advent of voice chat. Or rather most of the servers I played on were specific servers, hosted by people with admins, and while people would misbehave, you generally wanted to not get banned and keep coming back—you knew the other names and such, so that had an ok moderating effect.
Even in Classic WoW I prefer to run solo. I enjoy the presence of other people in the world and in cities, but I have no interested in becoming involved with them unless we need each other to complete a dungeon.
I also like to imagine joining guilds, but my idea of a guild died twenty years ago with the classic era of MMOs. Now being in a guild just means your immersion is forever ruined because you're not allowed to play anymore without participating in the giant fuckfest that is the guild Discord server. Fuck Discord.
If I ever go back I should create a guild of casual loners with kids. We all respect each other's space, provide support as often as we're able, and stay the fuck off of Discord. You get kicked out of the guild if you even mention it. You have to use code if you want to communicate during a dungeon. "My, how the swallows doth fly..", and then quietly log on with four companions and never speak a word of it again. Instant officer status if you have a private Ventrilo server.
My number one Gen X trait is having to wear reading glasses to play video games on my PC
Lol I'm currently playing GTA v online solo. I liked it when it was fresh for PS3 and everyone had low grade weapons and cars and was having drive bys. Now people are flying around in flying cars and clown costumes with jetpacks. It's Saints row at that point.
So I decided to give gtao another chance but I'm all by myself just doing taxi missions, pizza deliveries and being a vigilante who attacks drug houses and gangsters but doesn't go after regular folk.
TIL that millenials are just Gen X nerds.
I dont like competitive games anymore because Markov broke me long before that infamous video came out. People cheat. If the computer cheats at least its doing it to make the game better. People just cheat to be assholes.
Markov... dayz.... cod... just people cheating because they are not playing to have fun. They are ruining peoples games to have fun because they are broken.
I want to do more than win a match, I want to beat the game. You can't beat multiplayer.
Also, singleplayer exists to entertain me personally. I can pause, quit, restart, mod, cheat, and engage in completely counterproductive nonsense whenever I like. I don't have to worry about game balance, fairness and making sure the computer has fun.
Also, while I'm sure a majority of people in multiplayer aren't assholes, it can seem that way when the assholes are the only ones who do anything but silently play the game.
Do all the shit-ass logistics I have to do to get people together for a night out, and then not go out? Or, play with a bunch of strangers, more than a few of whom are insufferable dicks? Hey, gfy on both counts.
I like playing online because single player generally becomes too easy. But I also don't play online much anymore because the methods of getting online in a game fucking suck now. Random matchmaking being the only option is so, so, so fucking lame. It makes many people even more toxic than it was in the past. Being banned doesn't mean jack shit since you'll only be permanently banned for cheating (and even that's iffy), so nobody gives two fucks about being civil. Not like you'll ever see any of those players again anyway.
One of the coolest arcade moments I can personally recall was in the arcade at Penn Station in New York City. White, 20-something exec in a suit and tie playing Tetris head to head against a little Asian girl.
I don’t play a lot of multiplayer, but I love co-op. That’s why my favorite game to play online is Monster Hunter. Lets beef at the computer together
Yeah ngl sometimes I just get sad when the game offers only multiplayer or the single player mode was designed clearly as an afterthought
doesnt help that they make them insufferable and toxic
I'm born in the 80s and play competitive PC games every day. It's just a question if you like competitive games. I also have to emphasize that there are round based competitive games, you don't need to have quick reflexes.
I'm an elder millennial and I've spent maybe 3 or 4 hours playing a game on the internet. I have played probably several days worth of games on an intranet with friends. I'm not interested in playing against people I don't know.
I also have really old hardware so I haven't played online with a friend in maybe 15 years. I'm too busy adulting and newer gear isn't a priority.
Counterstrike and Starcraft used to be my jam. I'm less invested in the more modern games, where everything feels too frenetic and I don't know any of the maps anymore. But I'm also deeply psychologically scared by the old TV show Reboot. You're telling me every time I win a game of Mario Kart, a small neighborhood in the Computer World gets nullified? That's horrible! I would never!
Are you me????
This is also Gen-X trait but only if you got bullied for not eating paint chips back in the day.
My problem is that the computer is pretty stupid in most games, especially in strategy or similar genres. In more difficult settings the computer usually only have more resources or some buffs but is not a better player. Even in 2024, they can't manage to program a decent AI. It often kills the fun for me.
Maybe around the same age as this person and we played the shit out of HL, Quake and Unreal T online. Then Phantasy Star Online.
This is kinda why Bloodborn is the best game I’ve played since NES times
For me, always has been
I like to play online to Get Good™, but I highly prefer playing with my friends. Each of my friends is good enough at a different game to be ranked regionally or globally.
For me this is because I had dialup until 07
I'm gen z but I honestly suck at most online competitive games so I can really relate
Gen X and I like real opponents to shoot virtually so I don't have to do it IRL. The first real multi-player FPS I played was the original Doom circa 1993. Those are some of my fondest gaming memories.
You do you though. Don't cave to peer pressure. If you don't want to play multi-player, don't. I understand- the toxicity can be excessive. People who don't sound like they're having fun. Weird to me.
Older millennial, I was a teenager when Xbox live started and I spent thousands of hours in various multiplayer lobbies. I don't play online really anymore because of I'm burnt out on either supremely toxic mother fuckers or just try hards that only want to win and not enjoy the challenge and competition of a good match. So I'll just go where I can have fun my way, which happens to be alone, or being yelled at by best friend as he runs from a monster either one.
This person never did lan parties?
