Here in 2011 it appears that most game developers have come to the understanding that most people purchasing games don't actually like playing games but highly enjoy remotely screwing with people from a safe, secure and remote location.

So a large portion of video games nowadays are being designed to be disposable or a gamble that they may not even be useful from the start.

I'm talking about MMOs. Those games that really shine for a big six months until they've lost all popularity and everyone goes running to the next one afterwards leaving behind what can literally be called 'Abandoned ware.' Games now so useless you can't even give them away (ie; the many free MODs on Steam using the Source engine).

No single player campaign or AI bots whatsoever to save software that was just designed to rack in a big $ the first month of its release.

I"m not quite sure what others experiences have been in online games but mine generally go like this.

1. Sit for five minutes to load onto a server to get kicked because I've got DSL and not Cable.

2. Sit for another five minutes to attempt to load onto another server where in four people are playing.

The first person is just standing in a spawning area spamming an advertisement for a warez site so that it floods my chat box and I can't communicate with anyone.

The second person is hiding somewhere in the level constantly tripping an auto response over and over again.

The third person has found a way to unplug their game while in your vincinity causing a glitch which wipes your save file and crashes your game.

And if you ever make it to the fourth player, he's the server's host and a massive control freak who's gonna boot you because you're playing lone wolf without a headset.

Really man, I"m not a misanthrope but when I get a new game, I want to play it - I don't wanna waste all my gaming time that day leaping from server to server to screw around with a buncha idiots.

This is exactly what happened with Blacklight: Tango Down. Initial interest was poor so there were hardly any people online and then the vicious circle begins where new players log in, find no games to play then spread the word of mouth and it went from $49.99 to £2.49 in an Impulse sale.

I think that's partly why so many people get Call of Duty. It's the game everyone else is getting, so when I go online I know there are at least 100,000 people available for play at any particular time.

Remember the Cube and how popular Phantasy Star Online was?

I finally get the game to try it out, actually I got 2 as well (the card strategy game) but absolutely on one was playing it.

With the first one though, every time I logged into it there were only about four other people playing and three of them were hackers.

There's a really cool, free, one you can get right now called Savage. Every time I tried to log into a game, the kids running the game just dumped me into spectator mode.

The only Battlefield 2 games that were actually playable were taking the game far too seriously.

There was no happy medium.

For a short time I had fun with Star Wars Battlefront on the PS2 but people figured out how to place armies all around the last remaining spawn point for your team and shoot themselves high up on the leaderboards.

Monster Hunter was awesome but just as I was getting into it, people were leaving it for Final Fantasy Online.

This came to mind because I just bought Kabuto but there are no AI skirmishes in the game and I really don't think the multiplayer servers are still up after all these years. At least the designers for that game were sensible enough to give the game some value by including a solo campaign.

Yeah, AI bots can suck compared to human intelligence but have you played against human intelligence lately??

Have you tried playing Team Fortress 2 recently? It's still easy to get into great games.

Actually, that and Spectromancer are the only ones I go online with.

Spectromancer is no muss or fuss. There's usually others playing and it only takes a few seconds to be auto-matched with someone else waiting for a round.

You don't even have to say hello or goodbye, they pop up, play a round and then your both auto matched with someone else.

Team Fortress is pretty cool, no one's really dicking around....I don't think they can dick around even if they wanted too.

The only problems I have with TF2 is A. My GeoForce 7300 GT runs just slow enough to make the game feel like there should be a sprint button and B. The upkeep on this game is phenominal, Steam keeps downloading two extra gigs a week to it and it's not new levels or content, I think it's just data for their in-game store.

Bad Company 2 is where it's at right now. I suspect Battlefield 3 will change that, but man, I've been having a great time so far. It's a fantastic game with excellent online play.

They should call it Team Fortress Hats.

I used to love TF2 (and I guess I still do) but the powerups and hats and prizes and crap are too distracting from playing the game on many servers.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto multiplayer was always bad. The Mecs were always able to win if they'd had any practice at all.

The whole reason for that game was the really good story. Enjoy it.

This is why I never buy multiplayer-only games. I don't like to depend on others for my gaming experience, they're too... undependable ;-) "Some" value? "Including" a solo campaign? I am flabbergasted (I love that word).

Hah, poor video game developers. What a conflicted audience they're dealing with.

It's not like the hats actually get in the way of the game. They're just funny little bonuses.

No... They don't... It's just the guys who are too busy trying to achieve whatever 50 actions they need to do to do whatever... instead of trying to help the team win...

And it isn't on all servers, but it happens.

Hmm.....I see what you're saying. Even though it looks like a good idea for skirmish and multiplayer game, the three forces were a bit too unbalanced.

This would be an awesome game to revamp, this time focusing on balancing, multiplayer and solo skirmish.

But what I'm getting at by this thread is developers could ensure more release sales by offering a product that has a potential lifespan.

This whole MMO thing risks the chance of the game not selling at all.

I mean if we're all in Call of Duty, Team Fortress 2 and WoW - who's left to play Rift anyway?

A campaign mode, AI skirmish mode, and multi-player mode results in a game that is still playable even ten years later when the multi-player servers no longer exist and the campaign has been completed.

Wasn't the card one PSO III? Anyway, there were never really any players because Nintendo's online infrastructure was non-existant and the modem and/or network adaptors (here at least) were impossible to find... I got the impression it was primarily a single player game... although I don't remember much of it and didn't finish it. I should give it another go!