If you were to say that gone are the days of popular solitary gaming, of evenings spent alone in the basement working through Super Mario, or of mastering that Mega Man boss by taking no damage, you’d be right. But is that a good thing? The death of solitary playing has crippled some of gaming’s storytelling capability, but has given birth to an enormous surge of player-versus-player (PvP) content, and has all but butchered what I fondly refer to as “the dance”. What I mean when I use that term (frequently) in argument with the most hardcore retro gamers, is the process of a game encouraging routine and pattern in a player over creativity and judgment. Take the Mega Man series, whose age-old formula is most comfortable creating structures and patterns that force a player to memorize specific movements and timing in order to succeed. When a boss jumps, I dash. When he attacks, I stand here. Mario, Samus, and almost any character of any game must perform the dance to succeed.

That’s not to say that these games aren’t fun or worth your time, but beyond hearing a worthwhile yarn, a game’s ‘campaign’ often invokes cravings for PvP content by pitting us against villains who really can’t continue to challenge us beyond their first defeat. The definition of skill is not found in repetition, but in decision making and reflexes. These are qualities that artificial intelligence simply cannot bring out in a player in the same way that an enemy human can, and here’s why: Humans are unpredictable, especially in moments of stress or exhilaration. We play dirty, and we play to win. One can argue that enemy AI design has evolved significantly since Mario’s days on the NES, and I would wholeheartedly agree, but the very nature of AI itself is bound to script and a finite series of responses to a situation when it comes to games. What this does is create a rift between players individually, who are forced to choose between two styles of gaming, and players collectively, who are forced to separate themselves from one of these two groups when it comes time to play and practice.

The problem is that PvP content was not born from the community’s need to shoot at each other after jumping on Bowser’s head for the 100th time. It existed independently from PvE (player versus environment, or the good old adventure mode) and the two have struggled to truly come together ever since. Back when some were mastering how to defeat Hydroman without taking any hits, a fraction of the crowd that now gets together to play World of Warcraft and Call of Duty competitively were gathering to knock the snot out of each other in games like Tekken, Quake, and of course, Doom. It wasn’t until games like Halo and Super Smash Bros. made their way onto the scene that younger gamers were sparked into PvP action, once they realized that they could earn the respect of their peers in new ways. That’s without mentioning Blizzard’s Starcraft, a title that spawned tournaments, television shows, television channels, and a competitive market for hardware and broadcasting that would blow the socks off of a competitive gamer from the early to mid-90s. The result was two uniquely different styles of play that could very well exist within one title, evolving separately and in their own way.

The first offspring of PvE’s uncomfortable relationship with PvP came in the form of PvE networking, or in other words, forcing two people who would rather be shooting lasers at each other into a sick boy band-esque unison just to sate the desire to see the story through. This might be great for some, making up any given gamer’s Sunday night raiding or co-op romp through Halo: Reach, but for the crowd that PvP is designed to cater to, two people performing the dance is no better than one. Even if a partner mixes up the equation a little bit, simply due to the fact that a game’s responses are still limited to a set of reactions and difficulties the thrill just isn’t there. The real challenge is in human opponents, not human allies.

Part of the reason that it has taken so long for these two styles of gameplay to successfully merge is the steeper learning curve and intimidating nature of playing against a person you know might be better than you. Where PvP often struggles to gain its footing with the skeptical horde of PvE gamers is in “fairness”. Two common thorns in the side of PvP’s rise to true power are the gadget, and experience argument. You could say for example, that hardware outclasses skill, and that an expensive peripheral designed to tip the scales in a player’s favour might lead to imbalance in PvP. This is untrue. Though highly effective in terms of comfort, gimmicks such as these will never outweigh the edge that proper communication, planning, and depth add to PvP environments, regardless of platform or genre. Intelligence is a key factor in succeeding at PvP. Anyone who prides him/herself on the skill that they’ve developed can, and will tell you that an enemy who has a hundred-dollar toy in their hands or a racial/faction benefit isn’t any more likely to dodge a bullet when properly aimed, so to speak. The trick is getting new players to experience the possibilities that PvP offers, and so far games like Halo have been leading the charge in all the right ways. What we need to see is more of it.

The experience argument is another monster entirely, but a fair one in the name of PvE’s cause. The argument itself usually sounds something frustratingly similar to “why would I ever want to play against people who do this all day?” Though I cringe at the thought of fleeing from a player whose expertise could teach me something new about the game or myself, some players simply don’t play games to be competitive in environments where others hold an advantage in skill. The truth is that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to enter a game and know that you are the master of your domain. It boils down to what kind of gamer you really are. Sometimes predictability is an attractive quality.

Predictability: one of the only real difficulties with the nature of PvP is that it’s an unpredictable environment that makes storytelling almost entirely impossible. What developers ought to shift their focus onto is the call to play through a campaign - to hear the story that’s waiting to be told - and to reward players who do so with passive (that is, not game-breaking) PvP benefits. As much as I love a gaming environment ripe with productive conflict, I shiver to think of a world devoid of storytelling in the wake of those experiences. So far, games like Starcraft II do well in rewarding players with vanity for seeing the campaign through to the end, but games like World of Warcraft, that feed the gap between PvP and PvE players by creating content that requires dedication to one or the other, will never stop frustrating me. The day that PvP content entwines itself with the storytelling aspect that makes games so worth pursuing will be the day that it reaches the peak of its potential.

What’s clear in all of this is that the gaming community is changing. For the most part, we’ve become a body that no longer favours monotony and routine, but is instead encouraged on a frequent basis to make on-the-cusp decisions that affect not only ourselves, but potentially our friends and strangers as well. Gone is the reign of “the dance”, and in its place leadership, creativity, spontaneity, and confidence have risen into power. A community was born that is often times harsh and unforgiving, but is also one that spawned gamers the likes of which have never been seen before, and have since then gone on to demand this type of content when considering a new title. The result is an aspect of playing videogames that is entirely positive, and is here to stay. The trick now, will be capitalizing on this productive mode of play in a way that leaves storytelling alive, and vibrant. Some developers are already there, but for the most part, the ball is still in their court.