Esports: are multiplayer-only games the future?

Are multiplayer-only games taking over the world? This is a question that has been raised through the gaming world, especially within the past 5 years, Olivia Kemp reports

esports has exploded in the past 5 years becoming one of the biggest societies of this generation. But when it comes down the single player games and multiplayer games, which one takes the biscuit?

Pretty much every esport related game is now multiplayer based with the multiplayer market rising to nearly $700 million. Games such as Grand Theft Auto online, Counter Strike and Mario Kart 8 has taken the lead of this multiplayer ‘boom’.

With the multiplayer market rising where does this leave the single player mode considered the most ‘superior’ type of gaming by many. Ste Curren, a senior lecturer in games design at London Southbank University said: “there will always be a future for single player games”. He believes that the mechanics in single player games tell the story more than multiplayer and there will always be a market for people who don’t enjoy that type of gaming and it’s a “different medium and a different market”.

Questions were then followed by the students of games design to see if they believe there is a future for the single player industry. One student said: “I think in the triple-A space, the budgets of millions, it’s probably going to die”. Another student said: “single play has been left by the waste side, the industry”.

Multiplayer is definitely taking over from single player. Coming from gamers who spend day in day out playing games, saying they think single player mode will eventually die out says something. It may have been a small audience but it’s definitely the beginning of a new era in the gaming world.