Why do game lobbies suck so bad?
The arcade classic Outrun was released on XBox Live Arcade this week and I just had to buy it. As a fan of the game the $10 was a sweet spot. The game is exactly what I expected with the added bonus of racing against others on-line. But as I connected to race others I was faced with something I’m finding games just can’t seem to get right: the lobby.
The game lobby is the place where you wait before your game starts. It’s the place where you find out who you’ll be playing with while maybe also getting a minute to chat with them before you start playing the game together. Ideally, the game lobby should be a quick stop on your way to gaming bliss. It should be a mere formality, an intermission. But the more games I play on-line the more I’m finding game lobbies are the worst designed part of the game. They make you wait and wait and wait.
When I connected with Outrun it quickly added me to a session with four other players. I picked my car settings and checked out the other gamers I was up against, then I was ready to play. Wondering why we weren’t racing through the hills of Hollywood, I then noticed the status bar said, “Other race in progress, waiting.”
What?
I have to wait for others to finish playing first? What is this, an elevator?
Why should you have to wait to play a digital game? That would be like having to wait to use the internet because someone was already using it…oh wait, that’s EXACTLY what this is. We have to wait for others to finish before we can play, as though there’s only one road in Outrun to race on. It took so long that all of us waiting to play gave up and left the session.
And it’s not just Outrun. Street Fighter IV and Soul Calibur IV (both fighting games) have equally shitty lobby systems that make you wait before you can play. Just let us play. It’s just so ridiculous that you have to wait to use digital resources. I don’t want to watch two other people fight while waiting for myself to fight. I want to get in, play, and get out (or play again) with as little thought as possible. Gaming isn’t about waiting, it’s about playing.
Call of Duty 4 is a game that does it right. The game lobby lasts about 30 seconds between sessions. Just long enough for your to let new players join and others leave. Time to change your settings, time to scout your opponent, it’s just right. And better yet, you we’re not forced to wait for a battlefield to open up. You won’t find any, “sorry there’s another war in progress” message slowing you down. The people that run CoD4 have enough smarts to know that we want to get it, shoot people, leave, and then do it all over again.
The whole point of digital resources is there are few limits. We stand in line at the grocery store because there are only so many check outs. We don’t stand in line on the internet because it can support (essentially) infinitely more people. Just think if Amazon could only serve one or two people checking out at a time. What then is the advantage? I might as well go the store, at that point Amazon saves me nothing.
At a time when many games rely on the on-line multiplayer experience to sell units, I would like to think they would put effort into making that experience the best it could be. We should be way past the point where just having multiplayer is enough. That was great three years ago, it was enough then, but now we’re all used to it. We expect on-line play. So how about they start putting just as much effort into the on-line portion of the game as they do the building, selling, and local player modes.
Games like CoD4 prove it is possible and is no doubt a large reason why CoD4 is still a kick ass game almost two years after its release. Crappy game lobbies are really making me lose faith in on-line play for games. If I’m buying games because of on-line play, I want to play, not wait. If I want to wait, I’ll just go to Walmart (for free).
My guess is the ‘Game Lobbies’ are at the bottom of the rung in terms of where to spend development time. If the game play is really good people will play, regardless if the lobby sucks. Also, if a game is only so-so but has a great lobby, nobody cares because the games sucks and no-one buys a game because of it’s on-line lobby.
All so, your comparing a $10 arcade hame to a $60 best-seller. The budget’s, both for development and system support, are orders of magnatude different. This is why you wait to play a $10 arcade game and don’t wait to play the $60 bestseller.
The apples-to-apples argument works for Outrun, but Street Fighter and Soul Calibur are both big, current $50 games and they stink too. In fact, the on-line experience is perhaps the one big reason I sold my SC4. Turns out that might have been a bad deal, but still…proof that the on-line portion of games are important. Don’t ignore them.
However, I have discovered that the half-solution to the Outrun wait is to create your own game (host) instead of searching for existing ones. That way I’m always playing regardless who else comes and goes.