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
Older millennials and Gen X were the ones that organized a lot of the multiplayer groups on old MMOs and other multiplayer games. In a lot of communities they’re the ones that seem to reel the most whenever games make changes that break up content to make it cooperation less encouraged.
As a younger millennial who hit 30 recently, I understand the feeling of wanting to step away from multiplayer games due to toxicity. I have played games where having someone cuss at you on voice was the least of your worries due to doxxing and irl harrassment including people having their families and work places called.
Younger Gen X here, sounds more like older Millennials to me, too. Multiplayer was fun when it was usually LAN parties of people you knew personally (or split screen), but once it became standard to play with strangers and/or people you’ve never met in real life I wasn’t interested.
younger millennials grew up on multiplayer and online games, which were widespread and extremely normalized by the time we were old enough
I think that one part of that shift was VoIP. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, if you were playing, say, Quake or similar online, you communicated via text chat. Subsequent to that, a lot of games acquired VoIP support, which I think helped make communication in online games more accessible to a broader audience.
But another factor that I think affects playing multiplayer games for a number of people is having kids. Like, you’re 18, you don’t have that many immediate responsibilities, maybe. But if your kid’s diaper needs to be changed or they produce some other emergency, getting an period where you can play realtime games with other people is maybe harder to get an uninterrupted time block for. Maybe slow turn-based games, like play-by-email type strategy games or something, stuff that doesn’t have the same time constraints, would be more-viable.
Younger millennial (wish me happy 30th in a few months) coming in. I had my niche group of PC nerds who played CS:S, WoW and L4D basically on release. We all knew we were dumb ass kids coming into a scene. We got verbally destroyed in Vent and TS servers when doing ESEL CSS and dunked on while learning boss mechanics in MMOs.
I was always one to just want to have fun (shout out to surf_, aim_ag, and mg_ CSS maps). But I was in the trench as a plus one in a bunch of junk. I always felt like my other group of friends were out of the loop of gaming when they would just Autoaim headshot everything in sight on console COD4 and WAW, but I never got that group to try PC
After I graduated high school I just played dota 2 for two years until I was drained from comp play, then I just started queueing/playing games without caring about my rank. I’ll check meta of what I’m playing and know a tad beforehand, but I can’t be arsed to care about a winding down activity.
Tldr: Squeakers that played Source and/or 1.6 are adults now and are tired of comp play imo. One of my core group is still a Wow head and coaches raid clears, but we are just a bunch of tired adult stoners who dick around with FGs or rogue likes now.
im pretty close to your age and even i will admit that a good single player game hits better than any multiplayer arena shooter out there
But there’s a few “silent co-op” games i really enjoy. Games where i can join a stranger, help them with a quest or boss and then leave. Im the oldest of 3 and i miss beating levels for my little brothers. Elden Ring, Dark Souls , Nioh, Monster Hunter, these all scratch the itch pretty well
When many people hear “multiplayer videogame” they think mmos or cod/quake/Unreal tournament clones
i would never start playing multiplayer halo if it came out today. But theres still LOTS of multiplayer games out there that i find very appealing.
The co-op is silent. no chat, no text. You communicate via animations and gestures
you use an item to let people know youre interested in playing together, and if another player walks by the spot, they can see and interact with your “sign” and summon you to their game
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
Older millennials and Gen X were the ones that organized a lot of the multiplayer groups on old MMOs and other multiplayer games. In a lot of communities they’re the ones that seem to reel the most whenever games make changes that break up content to make it cooperation less encouraged.
As a younger millennial who hit 30 recently, I understand the feeling of wanting to step away from multiplayer games due to toxicity. I have played games where having someone cuss at you on voice was the least of your worries due to doxxing and irl harrassment including people having their families and work places called.
Younger Gen X here, sounds more like older Millennials to me, too. Multiplayer was fun when it was usually LAN parties of people you knew personally (or split screen), but once it became standard to play with strangers and/or people you’ve never met in real life I wasn’t interested.
I think that one part of that shift was VoIP. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, if you were playing, say, Quake or similar online, you communicated via text chat. Subsequent to that, a lot of games acquired VoIP support, which I think helped make communication in online games more accessible to a broader audience.
But another factor that I think affects playing multiplayer games for a number of people is having kids. Like, you’re 18, you don’t have that many immediate responsibilities, maybe. But if your kid’s diaper needs to be changed or they produce some other emergency, getting an period where you can play realtime games with other people is maybe harder to get an uninterrupted time block for. Maybe slow turn-based games, like play-by-email type strategy games or something, stuff that doesn’t have the same time constraints, would be more-viable.
Younger millennial (wish me happy 30th in a few months) coming in. I had my niche group of PC nerds who played CS:S, WoW and L4D basically on release. We all knew we were dumb ass kids coming into a scene. We got verbally destroyed in Vent and TS servers when doing ESEL CSS and dunked on while learning boss mechanics in MMOs.
I was always one to just want to have fun (shout out to surf_, aim_ag, and mg_ CSS maps). But I was in the trench as a plus one in a bunch of junk. I always felt like my other group of friends were out of the loop of gaming when they would just Autoaim headshot everything in sight on console COD4 and WAW, but I never got that group to try PC
After I graduated high school I just played dota 2 for two years until I was drained from comp play, then I just started queueing/playing games without caring about my rank. I’ll check meta of what I’m playing and know a tad beforehand, but I can’t be arsed to care about a winding down activity.
Tldr: Squeakers that played Source and/or 1.6 are adults now and are tired of comp play imo. One of my core group is still a Wow head and coaches raid clears, but we are just a bunch of tired adult stoners who dick around with FGs or rogue likes now.
that’s actually a really good point too
im pretty close to your age and even i will admit that a good single player game hits better than any multiplayer arena shooter out there
But there’s a few “silent co-op” games i really enjoy. Games where i can join a stranger, help them with a quest or boss and then leave. Im the oldest of 3 and i miss beating levels for my little brothers. Elden Ring, Dark Souls , Nioh, Monster Hunter, these all scratch the itch pretty well
When many people hear “multiplayer videogame” they think mmos or cod/quake/Unreal tournament clones
i would never start playing multiplayer halo if it came out today. But theres still LOTS of multiplayer games out there that i find very appealing.
Monster Hunter World was really the last game I really got into for that reason. If soulborne games are like that I might pick up the next one.
id happily play with you. my favorite franchise.
The co-op is silent. no chat, no text. You communicate via animations and gestures
you use an item to let people know youre interested in playing together, and if another player walks by the spot, they can see and interact with your “sign” and summon you to their game
Need to get my PC running again, or get a steam deck. Seems like the latter is more realistic at this point. I’ll keep it in mind!
open invitation if you ever want to :)
also lemme know if you need another handful of tired adult stoners who dick around with roguelikes
(idk what an FG is…fighting game? like mortal Kombat and street fighter?)
We are stuck on Forza right now but 3 of us have adhd so it wont be l9ng before we get bored and move to another game
The disrespect to SOCOM
listen bro i cant just sit here and name every multiplayer game from 2005
i played socom on psp and i was convinced this was the future, peak gaming