Cooperative Gaming

Perhaps it’s a bias stemming from my taste in games over recent years, but there seems to be a major rise in the cooperative game scene, and I’m in for it.  Although some of my favorite games are cooperative (Monster Hunter, Deep Rock Galactic), it wasn’t something I had thoughtfully considered until recently reading Katsuhiro Harada’s (Executive Producer for Tekken 8) comments on what he sees as a generational difference between gamers.

Recently, on the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Game Maker’s Notebook podcast, Harada postulated that younger gamers are not as interested in one-on-one fighting games compared to the previous generation(s), preferring cooperative experiences instead. 

“If you applied to a school or job, there was always a lot of competition.  Because of this, people in my generation prefer definitive outcomes, a clear winner and loser. This applies to folks in and around their 50s, but most young people nowadays are the opposite.

[...] because fighting games pit you by yourself against a single opponent, you have to accept all the responsibility if you lose. You can’t blame anyone else.  In team-based shooters, when players win, they can say that they won because of their own contributions, but when they lose, it’s because they got matched with a lousy team.”

There’s plenty to disagree with or false equivalencies to call out, but Harada’s trajectory here is more about capturing a younger audience than it is to spurn them for his perceived differences. 

Mostly, Harada’s words got me thinking about the differences between different cooperative games.  When I think of cooperative games, Rock & Sto-I mean-Deep Rock Galactic stands as the premier example of cooperative gameplay: Collected resources go to everybody, the classes complement each other while remaining unique, communication is thoughtful without the need for voice chat, the HUB world encourages camaraderie, and there’s of course the dedicated team-building “Rock & Stone!” button; and that’s all without considering the excellent community surrounding the game.  In this case, my feelings align with Harada’s relatively well.

Then there’s the other kind of cooperative games – The Overwatches, the Counter-Strikes, the… the… League of Legends… Here, the competition to be the best is still as present as a fighting game.  Think it’s fun to best one opponent?  How about five of them? How about doing so while being the commander & chief of a winning team? Participation in a team does not mean one is without their individual statistics, and therefore a measure of impact.  Although the bell of diffusing the blame but claiming the victories rings true for many in these games, I would add that letting a team down, or feeling pressure to impress them, is much more defeating than losing to one person in a duel.  It may not be the same, but it isn’t without its stakes.

The claim that one-on-one games shift the blame onto oneself also falls flat when considering my experience with fighting games:

Now I know that being unable to overcome simple spamming is a reflection of my skills and that a better player would win with ease; but the fact that it’s a one-on-one battle doesn’t magically make me accept full responsibility.  I don’t even accept responsibility against computers as I quit every Souls game I’ve ever played at some point because “That boss is total bull****.”   Looking at the drop off of earned trophies through the main plot progression indicates that many others do the same.

All that to say, I may disagree with individual points but as with all words that strike enough of a cord for me to write about: There’s a degree of truth in it.  I do prefer cooperative games, not to share the blame but to work towards a common goal.  There’s an assumption in his words that one only plays team-based games for the explicit purpose of self-preservation, but many enjoy simply sharing an experience with their friends.