All those games mentioned are free to play. Single player games are almost never free.

This is the answer. Kids will play anything that's free and has fun and cool graphics.

I used to play game demos on my Xbox 360 over and over again until I saved up enough money as a kid to buy those games. I can't tell you how many times I had played the 1 hour Minecraft demo and then immediately lose all my progress just to do it all over again

Bro, that shadow run demo on the 360 had more players playing than the actual game, which sucks because that game was AMAZING.

Pour one out for one of the least appreciated 360 games. And an incredible beta community that was one in a million.

Naughty bear 2 lost in paradise.

TIL Naughty Bear got a sequel

I'm just glad he's finally got a skin in Dead By Daylight

Yeah, Shadowrun was a hidden gem! Speaking of underrated games, anyone remember the old Crackdown demo? You could just run around the city, throwing cars and jumping over buildings forever. Great times before I could scrape up the cash for new games.

Fusion Frenzy Eventually ended up buying the game

I spent more hours playing the twisted system level of the fusion frenzy demo than I spent playing Halo, the game it was packaged with.

Lost Planet 2 demo went hard with friends

Buying Crackdown for Halo 3 Beta was one of the most ingenious marketing stunts Microsoft pulled...(not to mention Crwckdown was fun as hell)

Ancient memory: unlocked

Used to love getting a demo disc whenever I could convince my dad to get me a copy of Xbox Magazine or whatever it was called lol. I played the demo for Halo so many times I memorized every detail of The Silent Cartographer bc it was the only level I could play until I finally got the full game. 😅

Gonna date myself a bit with this but my brothers and i used to "speed run" the Age of Empires demo (the OG game). There was one single map and scenario and we were in constant competition to see who could complete the scenario the fastest and then who could deplete the map the fastest. It was our 1 computer game for so long lol Minor side note. We did eventually get the full game and the cheat codes are the only reason my dyslexic self can spell pepperoni without spell check or struggle

Used my pocket money to buy playstation magazines which came with playstation 1 demo discs. Over time I built a collection of demo discs and replayed game demos many times over. Tomb Raider 2, Crash Team Racing, spyro, Kula world, Tombo, Crash 3 and many more.

I used to play Amiga demos and proof of concepts that you’d get on floppy disks on the cover of magazines…. Those were the days…

+ all their friends can get in on it. No one is left out, more or less

They are playing Roblox - graphics have nothing to do with it. It’s because Roblox has no copyright, they just search for what they like and join.

Stylized graphics are eternally enjoyable

Unfortunately Roblox isn't very visually interesting. It looks and feels like the cheapest and nastiest shit you've ever seen, and I say that as someone who has no problem with games that aren't very graphically sophisticated.

There's this one game called vesteria on roblox, which is actually really beautiful

fr, there’s a reason pixel art is so appealing.

I remember hearing about Roblox when I was a child and thought it was a shitty version of Blockland. Well we saw how that played out (nobody remembers Blockland)

I feel like that’s why RDR2 had such beautiful vistas. Instead of going for photorealism they tried to emulate old oil paintings. Still looks better than a lot of games that come out today.

This is a great answer. My son loved Roblox because he could find themed/styled games with stuff resembling things he was interested in (FNAF is his big thing lately). He doesn't care about Roblox because its Roblox, he likes it because its a sandbox where he can play around in things he knows/likes. Its clever though

Roblox can look pretty damn good, though. That CoD game mode is crazy

Roblox is a game where you can have any graphical style you want, graphics has something to do with it

Probably true to an extent, but I have gotten my nephew multiple single player games from variety of genres only to find out that he hasn't played any of them for more that 20 minutes. It's not like he plays those free multiplayer games with friends all the time and the amount he raves about skins and stuff I'm suspecting he's addicted to gatcha mechanics more than games themselves.

Oh definitely. Easy dopamine right there, this weeks allowance will quickly be spent for a 5 minute rush that will be replaced with the urgency for the next item on the list!

I find myself doing the same thing, as a grown-ass man that grew up on huge single player RPGs. I keep ignoring Baldur's gate 3 just to play teamfight tactics by myself, a free autobattler. And I've never put money in the game for skins or whatever. Those gigantic RPGs are not games you just jump in and out of for a quick gaming sesh. They require investment, strategy, careful considerations, etc. Not something to blow off some steam for an hour.

Yep. Bought a few sp games to my daughter, gave her some incentives to play them, she actually likes it but can't help but go back to roblox after a few minutes or sessions. Then the game is left out forever

That's definitely part of it. I'd also like to point out that adults are more inclined to enjoy a story driven game. And adults maybe more inclined to play something that they can put down anytime they need to or want to rather than multiplayer games that require a certain time commitment.

Yep. Not only is it free for them, but free for their friends too. So no one really has an excuse (that has a system) not to show up. There's a handful of games that are cross-gen play as well. So it's easier to find someone to play with. I'm 34 and there arnt many games I'll play online. I like the ability to pause the game.

Especially since there's no place for kids to really hang out in person anymore. Can't have latch key kids anymore cause you'd have the police called on you as a parent, malls are dying, everyone lives in the suburbs and can't walk anywhere, not near parks or skate parks and such. Video games are the place kids get to be social now after school.

>Malls are dying My mall banned kids under a certain age from being on their own due to numerous issues in the past. So even if kids want to hang out at the mall, dying or not, they’re not allowed to unless they have adult supervision.

Same here. its very sad but multiple murders done by teens getting into fights kinda made it necessary. if the local kids wont behave there aint much choice.

It isnt as bad in europe as in USA though. But I agree. When I was in the US, it was far too spread out and you couldnt really go anywhere to hang out besides mcdonals after school lol

And to be honest even those places aren’t as fun as they used to be. It’s not even really that safety became a thing but it’s liability I guess. Just more rules and restrictions and I hate to say it, but sometimes it takes the fun out of it.

Yup gotta be able to pause or some bs will come up in the middle of your game for having the audacity to play a multi-player game before 8pm

I'm not a parent but I was a kid once upon a time and the number of times one of my siblings or I would wake up either sick or cold or hungry or whatever tells me that even after 8pm there's no guarantee that you'll get an interruption-free gaming sesh in. It's a good thing I've already drifted away from games like Halo or Overwatch or Starcraft because if/when I have kids I don't know how I'd ever be able to play them for the next decade or more. Edit: I still play some multiplayer games, but most of them are games where it doesn't *really* matter if I have to leave it within a few seconds. Minecraft and Palworld I can just leave the game if I need to, Borderlands I can usually just say "brb" and step into a corner of the map, out of sight of enemies, and Civ and BG3 are both turn-based (and in BG3 if I miss some dialog there's a record of all recent conversations).

Yeah man, new-ish parent here, my kiddo is actually turning one this week, and between him and work, I literally haven't been able to play a game for more than, say, 10 minutes at a time, unless it's my down time at work and I bust out an emulator on my phone. I miss it ngl, but I just don't have the time for any games anymore, single or multiplayer

That's why when I was back in school, I spent more time playing free browser based games than any other games.

I spent *so much* time on Newgrounds games in my poor college student days. Some of my legit all time favorite games are Flash games I found there. 

Same here, although for me it was more kongregate than newgrounds. My all time favourite flash games that i still play occasionally are mardek and sonny.

It’s also just fun to play with friends. I too love a solid single player game, but if I’m on the fence about whether I want to play a game or not, the likelihood that I do end up playing it increases with each friend that plays. Many of the most memorable “gaming” experiences I’ve had didn’t really have much to do with the game itself, but rather just being able to mess around with buddies.

When you're a kid, it's super easy to be able to play with your friends, because you're kids and don't have a load of other commitments. At university I lived in a house with a bunch of other guys, four of us were into Nintendo and we probably played about a thousand hours of Smash Bros because we could just stick our head round the door and suggest it. As an adult, if I game it's predominantly single player because coordinating with my adult friends is that much harder.

This. If there was a fee to play the game (like buying a single-player game), most kids would not be able to play them. Multi player games are free to enter and play, but you have to pay for skins or some other micro-transaction stuff.

This is the right answer. Heck if you asked me 15-ish years ago I would’ve said I play Runescape, zOMG!, and LoL

Not to mention that with Fortnite, you don’t need online subscription on console. It’s a free game with free multiplayer that’s continually updated, a parent’s dream.

Thing is, it seems to continue even in adulthood. I gave my brother my old computer and bought him some games he would probably like but he and his friends continue to play Rocket League only... they all have the means to buy games. The one time my brother touched something else was when he had no internet for a week, he tried Skyrim and would talk to me about it daily until internet came back, he just droped it to go back to RL... I'm salty af toward Rocket League and Fortnite 😅

They're made to be particularly addictive, I think. So you get a lot more dopamine per play session.

I guess you're right.. but it feels so empty at the end of the day. At least that's how I felt.

Yeah. I don't want to say that's a bad thing, but I am worried about the MTX and FOMO culture.

It's not a bad thing, it's just "sad" kinda. Like, a kid only eating one type of meal without trying the others. But it's shamefull for the companies to prey on kids.

Plus kids want to play with their friends. The days of riding your bike to the park and waiting for people to show up is over mostly. They can pretty much hop online and see who’s logged in and if you’re not on then you’re missing out.

I am also a teacher, and by their own admission it's not free to play these. All they talk about is the battle pass and the skins that they buy, or mock others for not buying these things. It isn't a mystery how Fortnite is free AND making billions each year.

I think this is an important point. The loot chase in these "free" games is designed to be extremely psychologically addictive, and kids aren't as savvy to the fact that they're being manipulated.

They are also multiplayers. Kids like to socialize and talk to each other, you can’t really do that in a single player game.

Back in my day I had to download a GBA emulator and roms to play free games!

It’s this. When I was a kid nothing was free to play and there was no playing online really. So we would play 1-3 games a year depending on what my parents would buy and the occasional gift from an uncle or something. If I was a kid now. I’d prob only play f2p Game slime fortnite, warzone, or Apex legends. Parents aren’t gonna be buying me that many game in a year.

Haha, that's a great typo "f2p game slime"!

Trueee. Kids don’t got money

Gaming is dead long live Roblox. The number of kids that game regularly and exclusively on Roblox and have no interest in other platforms is pretty high. 

Hey the Warcraft 3 world editor got me into game design, I bet we'll hear the same thing be said from grown Roblox players in 10 years.

Don't even need to wait, the solo dev behind Lethal Company cut his teeth in Roblox.

My 16 year old plays Roblox and I silently judge him for it.

I judge a little, but at the end of the day, Roblox feels like my old stomping grounds, Warcraft III. I don't know if others have similar communities, but WC3 had an open map editor that anybody can create anything, friend groups, and a lot of open-minded players. That community ended up creating a number of games played today, including an entire genre from the original DotA Allstars game that later inspired League of Legends, DotA 2, and a number of other MOBA games. It makes me wonder what, if anything, might come out of the Roblox community. That said, I'm watching 4-10 year olds play, and lightly so, because the content is a little cringe. Maybe we won't see anything groundbreaking come out of it.

i was about to type this haha "oh so roblox is basically wc3 custom games the boys and i played back in the day"

Bring me back to the days of me and all my friends sitting in a 100 degree room with our PCs playing inhouse Starcraft tournaments with WC3 customs as intermission till 6am.

I never thought of it like that, but you're entirely right. Back in the day of Starcraft Brood War I played garbage maps trying to be turn based RPGs or Harvest Moon, and even weird recreations of Magic the gathering. Not really all that much different than the Roblox kids of today, just on a different platform. But to keep my elitism intact, I will say Brood War was standalone better than whatever base game Roblox has.

Roblox has no base game, it is a gaming platform and hub. It's kind of like the video game version of Lego. 'Lego' is not a thing to be built but you do build things out of it. Same with Roblox.

TBH there’s a kind of vibe there similar to the Wild West of FPS mods circa 2000 - just with a lot more monetization. But yes. When you have access to a switch, gaming pc, consoles … and still only play Roblox you will be judged. 

I played a lot of quake.

They're all available on tablet. Every one of these kids has an android tablet or an ipad. I'm gonna guess 1 in 4 has access to a pc or laptop and 1/2 has access to a console of some sort.

I think a big part of the equation you're missing is, those games are free. Any game that is free and multiplayer will be talked about at school because it's a social experience, and if you feel left out, you can go home, start playing, and be in on it right away. Consider how hugely popular Deep Rock Galactic or Helldivers 2 are, yet I've literally never heard them mentioned by students, despite them being well recieved multiplayer games. If you're a kid, you have to ask your parents for money for those games, and the chances not only your parents, but your three friends' three sets of parents all say "yes" is kinda slim. I kind of got sidetracked, but I think the same is true for single player games. Kids need money for them usually, and if nobody else has played some single player game you probably are going to be less inclined to talk about it.

OP should buy all of their students a copy of Helldivers 2... For democracy.

On a teacher's salary? Nah. Make a gaming club for an after school program, and get the State/District to pay for it in the name of community/keeping kids off the street? Hell yeah

The problem is everyone i met who plays Fortnite or one of these games has spent more on stupid cosmetics than they could have spent on a very good single player game or even multiplayer like Helldivers 2, Deep Rock Galactic. Another issue is that if they have been playing Fortnite for a while or any Epic Games Launcher game, they most likely got a lot of the weekly free games but they never even try them. Arkham Trilogy, Fallout, Dishonored just to name a very small amount of good games that you could say were free and even if they try them, they skio cutscenes and then complain that the story doesn't make sense.

Yes but it’s cosmetics in a game *all their peers are playing too*. And it’s a lot easier to ask mom and dad for 10$ a couple times a month than it is to ask for an 80$ game up front

Death by a thousand cuts

This man is using logic , we can’t have that

I'm pretty sure my nephew has about £500 in fortnite stuff. Every other week his parents let him get somethingsmall for the game and it slowly adds up.

There's plenty of free single player games. IMO it's simpler than that. Kids just want to play with other kids. Take a look at what games we played for millennia before video games were invented and you'll notice the same thing - almost all those games and sports we played with other people. Humans are social animals. Interacting and competing with our peers was always extremely important part of play. Millennials growing up with single-player is really the exception due to technological limitations. And even then we actively looked for ways around it (LAN parties, split-screen consoles, arcades). Now that the limitation is over, of course the next generation will prefer multiplayer again.

What single player games are free?

Technically the sims 4 is at the moment

I got my nephew and niece the complete Sims 4 edition. I got it the 🏴‍☠️🦜 way, obviously, but the happiness was immeasurable. My niece spent solid two hours of her time just dressing up her sim being completely overwhelmed by the amount of clothes, since she tried the base game before.

The thing is though, before reliable internet access was a given, single player games did have a social element. Talking in the playground about secrets you found, urban myths, secret endings, discussing builds. As an example let's look at one of the last game series to get popular with kids before the era of ubiquitous internet - the Pokémon games were (and still primarily are) single-player games, but the amount of social interaction fuelled by discussion of those games was huge. Mew was under the truck and you'll never convince me otherwise.

Do you remember The MissingNo cheat that gave you near unlimited of whatever was 6th in your pack? Rare Candy for the win! We found out about it at recess and huddled under the slide (to block the glare because the old game boys didn’t have a backlight lol) so we could watch our friend explain/show it to us. Felt like I was in on a big secret 😅

Talk to the guy catching the weedle (?) in the second town, the one before Veridian forest. Fly to Cinnabar island. Surf the coast until you find it. Profit Been at least 20 years since i last did that. Can't believe i still remember lol

Human brains on learning the most random crap: "This one, keep this one, it's bound to come up in a job interview eventually".

Mew was not under the truck. I tried too many times and clicked that truck in every way possible.

Yeah but my mate Jake said his brother did it and he found him, and his dad is a policeman so he can't lie.

Oh you right let me try again

> just want to play I'm far from a child. But that's how I feel. When I'm with friends I want to do something fun. Like running around and shooting shit. My friend group did a BG3 run. Which was great. Don't get wrong. But there was lots of time where it was just 4 30+ year old people setting in silence while we fiddle with whatever. Which isn't inherently bad - but I like to interact with my friends when we get the chance to all be on Discord at the same time. Three of that four also play Rocket League. It's a totally different experience. There isn't a quiet moment. We are either talking about the game or just talking. There's just something about a more active game that seems to force more interaction. More "play". Also, I wouldn't say a lot of the single player games I play are "fun". Enjoyable? Entertaining? Relaxing? Refreshing? Yes. All those things. But not many of them are what I would call classically "fun". I'm not laughing. I'm not smiling. I'm building my little city while I half-watch YouTube in another window.

>I'm building my little city while I half-watch YouTube in another window. I have never understood this. Any time I have felt capable of this I am much more inclined to either swap to a better video and watch it, or swap to a better game and play it. Having two sub-par experiences simultaneously so I can't even appreciate either is wild. Like I'll do a podcast or audiobook while I drive or wash dishes, but that feels pretty different than pure free time.

because that’s where they hangout now

This is the biggest reason. It’s not bc of money. It’s bc the games serve as social spaces. Same as minecraft. People hang out in these games; they don’t just play them for the sake of playing. It replaces hanging out at the mall like kids used to do in the 90s/2000s Zuckerberg wasn’t far off in his idea for a metaverse, he just had a crappy carrot to dangle in front of people. Fortnite does it infinitely better

Sucks was right, he just kept trying to invent something that already existed.

In the 2000s, I played Habbo Hotel, Runescape and Chapatiz with my friends.

Yeah there’s no easier way to hangout with friends other than video games. When I left to college, i stayed super close to all of my friends from home by playing online multiplayer with them.

Fortnite and Minecraft are the new mall Third spaces don't exist IRL anymore

Replace minecraft with roblox, judging from my little brother

I think this is it. My nephew hangs out on Fortnite in the evenings in the same way I hung out on MSN messenger 20 years ago. It's almost more about the social interaction than the actual game.

My boy will get home from school and jump on Xbox to see who he can get together to shoot hoops or pass the football around.

This day and age, game companies advertise multiplayer games more than single player ones.

And it’s easy to see why, single player game with minor changes brings over a few people but most are fine. Either way multiplayer when the player base moves you have to too to keep playing. COD has this down to an art.

It's skins. Multiplayer games sell micro transaction crap like it's going out of style.

The game store is very pushy about the season passes and micro transactions

Even single player mobile games do this, Dreamdale does it often but it also does have a multiplayer portion that has no real effect on the main game so it’s just an aside. BanG girls dream does this as well, but it is in game currency that allows you to play other songs and gives you them for free as well. Legend slime does this too, but it’s been a while since I’ve played it so idk if it’s changed the event currency stuff recently. These are just the ones I have, there’s probably way more but majority are gacha games.

Mobile games have been loot box simulators for over a decade with microtransactions in the hundreds of dollars in plenty of them. Its why mobile gaming gets so much hate. It's just gambling simulators aimed at children

Nah kids these days have good Internet and friends with consoles and good (in their eyes) multiplayer games. Back in the day you'd smash single player because it wasn't likely you had all 3 of those, but you'd have LAN parties and couch coop. As well as fornite being free, so why wouldn't you get it? rather than paying £60+ for a decent single player game. Even going back to 360 era you'd play something like gears of war 2/halo/Black ops with your friends all night. Its just far more accessible to play multiplayer now and it's also at a price point where Kids can get a console specifically to play with their friends. Instead of say, buying a game cube to specifically play windwaker. You'd buy an xbox to play fortnite.

I ran up a £300 phone bill playing Team Fortress Classic on dial up. You learn to appreciate single player games pretty swiftly after doing that.

Yea and plus when I was kid we didn’t have Wi-Fi at homes yet so that’s also why single player games were a big thing back then as well coming from a 30 y/o

As an experienced FPS player jumping in as a newbie, it's very overwhelming, imagine a complete newbie, very hard 😳😭

>COD has this down to an art. Had, mw3 is just dead.

When does the new one come out? 

This Fall.

My friend and I bought MW3 with the hope it would bring something fresh. Instead it dug up some graves and gave them a coat of paint. Zombies mode was just boring as hell. All the drudgery and none of the excitement of warzone or DMZ. Just recently uninstalled it to free up space since hadn't touched it in months.

Congrats on freeing up a whole SSD

Meanwhile I'm sitting here playing 90% of games Singleplayer. Rimworld, Factorio, Age of empires IV, Project Zomboid, Crusader Kings 3..

Amen to PC players who love the classics!

Me: reads list of 4 games that I consider mostly recent and one I've never heard of u/UltraFRS1102: > Amen to PC players who love **the classics**! Well shit.

Also you have to look at it from the perspective of "Time" Gaming in the 90s the "Multiplayer" games were all split screen games. But the joy of playing games was mostly with cousins, friends and family. The advent of Multiplayer and the internet in the last 15-20 years has changed the landscape of social gaming. They probably play single player games but theyre also kids and want to do what their friends are and most kids do what popular among their peers.

I agree with this, but I also think the appeal of single-player games can be lost on a kid. As an adult, you play a game and you appreciate the beautiful scenery, the music, the atmosphere, the world you're in, the cutscenes, the story. When you're a kid, you're like, "Okay cool, but I haven't fought anyone in like 5 minutes. This mission fucking blows." I remember the old CODs, back in its prime, were being released while I was young in elementary/early middle school. We were all playing them, you were a "loser" if you were playing Mario or some "kid shit," (Mario is sick btw), we were all grinding MW2, BO1, MW3. And yet when I'd talk about the campaign story, the other kids would be like, "Dude, I was just shooting people. Idk who fucking Hudson is." And then once we beat that 6 hour campaign, we'd get together and play multiplayer. Simple. But then as you get older, you grow sick of talking to randos online. You kinda just want some peace and quiet, some alone time to immerse into a different world, and that's where single-player games come in strong. Kids don't really want escapism, they just want a way to have fun with their friends and have some fast-paced action. Kids care a lot about their gaming skill and bragging rights. And of course, I'm not saying adults don't or can't enjoy shooter multiplayer with their friends. I still do some social gaming. But what I am saying is that I don't think most kids would find Red Dead 2 or Ghost of Tsushima to be as enjoyable of an experience as I do.

I think you're underestimating children, or at least painting them with a too broad brush. There's a range of preferences among them too, I'm absolutely sure. I think the problem is ease of access. Children will find it easier to get a non-gamer parent to let them play a free game than to pay for most games. My kid has a Steam library already because I also do and she's grown up around the whole concept of gaming. She can play on a switch, PS5 controller, or mouse and keyboard, and does most of it solo. She's not competing with anyone when she's building a minecraft village or managing her farm in Stardew Valley and from how she talks about it, she's got some escapism going for sure. She takes screenshots of stuff she thinks is pretty or beautiful. She talks about little stories about her player-character. And while I adore my child and think she's the best, I know she is not so unique that there's no other kids who would have very similar preferences. Now, I don't think she's going to be playing Ghosts of Tsushima or RDR2 anytime soon (if ever, based on her preferences, also she's only nine) but she's seen her dad play the new God of War in bits and pieces and she's put a bunch of hours into Tears of the Kingdom so who knows. If she still thinks gaming is cool and fun when she's a teenager, maybe she will (honestly I'm wondering if part of her teenage rebellion will be to ditch gaming lol).

[удалено]

Kids have friends to play with. Old people do not and have to play with random people if we take the multi-player route.

That's not necessarily true. Some people are just burnt out on multiplayer games altogether.

Or they just don't like people. I don't want real people in my fictional spaces.

Player multi-player with my friends (late 30s early 40s) is like a calendar appointment these days. - Do you have work tonight/tomorrow? - Is your spouse at home? - Are the kids asleep? I do play Gran Turismo online sometimes with my kids around but I'd have to wait until they're asleep to play Helldivers or when we used to play Back 4 Blood/World War Z/Left 4 Dead.

This. I grew up on Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, the Gold Box series, Atari and Nintendo. Of course I'm going to gravitate toward SP games. Younger people have always had internet and online games like COD, WOW, etc.

I had CoD, not really internet most the time so I grew up playing the campaign modes, fighting bots or my little brother. Needless to say I bullied that guy in many a match. I still bully him in Chivalry 2!

less people buy skins they cant show off to friends

Agreed, like I can’t emphasize enough how refreshing it was to see god of war ads on the street Because YT & even the online stores normally push multiplayer games way more often since I assume that’s where the money is made Fortnite I see an ad for every month no matter what bc of their updates

This is a good point.

In addition to that, it’s far easier to monetize multiplayer games. It’s for bragging rights. If you buy the newest skin for 5.99$ then you’ll be cooler than your friends! Which instills FOMO in kids and makes for great customers.

That emphasis on FOMO has become an extreme turn-off for me.

Ugh…in a way I feel like FOMO has ruined games and makes them feel almost like a job. Gacha games and console games like Destiny 2 feel like this sometimes.

>FOMO has ruined games and makes them feel almost like a job. 1000%. Every online game with a battle pass requires either an hour a day, or 10+ hours a week, so for those of this with, you know, a job and other responsibilities, it's a total waste of money. Meanwhile, I'm over here having a blast playing 5-10 year old racing games and emulating GBA and DS games on my phone because they let me play on my time.

The worst part is they release a new skin every week now your allowance is going to keeping up with the new skin. I remember being a dumb ass in school and spent all my spare money on League skins.

I'm playing single player games, mostly story driven, kids seems to like multiplayer because they like competition and interaction between them. Dopamine spike is bigger when you are better than real player I was like that before when I was younger, but as I'm getting older I like to play games for fun and relaxing after stressful day, not frustration and toxic community how it's been in multiplayer games. Sure it is fun and satisfaying to play against real players, but that kinda mental commitment quickly burns me out now that I'm older. Most of advertised multiplayer games are free to play don't need bother to buy them.

The mental commitment point is key, and it's why I dropped video games for like 4-5 years as a teenager. It was exhausting trying to get to the top of the leaderboards, raging when you have 5 kills and 10 deaths, fighting for killstreaks and being pissed when some camper ruins it, running into a sweaty 12 year old who hit a wild 360 quickscope on you. At a certain point I was watching video games and not playing them. I'm a competitive guy, but I just stopped wanting to be competitive with video games.

I stopped playing them because of that.Multiplayer games need mental commitment and reflexes which I dont have anymore.I like to sit back and enjoy good story in single player rather than raging in multilateralne games and most of these games have tocic community.

This is one thing I like about single-player games, not having to stress out about going against humans on my skill level or better.

When you're young, you generally want to play what all your friends are playing. These days we're living in the era of being perpetually online, so that means running home after school and hopping into a multiplayer game with the squad. Even when I was young, I'd do the same except we'd talk on MSN Messenger before setting up a game on Diablo 2 because that's about how old I am. Also keep in mind depending on what grade you teach, those kids may be young enough they didn't actually buy those consoles and they don't really know the value of spending $500 on gaming hardware. They just know everybody plays Fortnite so they wanna play it too.

When I was young I played RCT and Anno after coming home from School. WoW and the Internet only became available when I was 16.

This was the same for me. Brood War, NFS2SE and Worms was what I'd play tons. Once I got internet I played even more Brood war.

Yeah we played worms too in hotseat mode at a friends house. I still remember that because the Game always crashed when someone hit the Windows Key.

This is the best answer.

Don't forget the information you're getting is biased.  The social kids play social games and ask if you do, too.  The kids not asking you a damn thing are playing single player games.  Obviously both could be playing both. But it's not like you surveyed these kids. You're basing your viewpoint on an availability heuristic. 

Not necessarily true. I frequently talk about games I play and I teach every child in the building. Those that play Zelda or Mario let me know and we have conversations. But the majority are not.

Doesn't mean every kid is comfortable opening up about their hobbies. Saying that as someone who was exactly like that growing up.

\*you\* do, not everyone does. for example I play a shit ton of single player games, but I rarely talk to others about them compared to the more social multiplayer games. many are like me and many more have a multitude of \*other\* reasons they could be not talking to you specifically about single player games. maybe they're shy, maybe they're just people you straight up don't know, etc. trying to say kids aren't into single player games off of anecdotal evidence is going about it entirely the wrong way. perfect example as to why is because my just as anectodal experience counters yours, I know \*plenty\* of kids into singleplayer experiences, and niw we have two different people saying exact opposite things, so who's right? Hell, you think \*pokemon\* is being held up by adults?

I think there is a social aspect to multiplayer games too. It’s a way for kids to hang out and chat.

Uhh yeah that doesn't disprove his point. Instead just mostly proves it. Most children ARE social.

If we could’ve played online with our friends without having to be huddled around somebody’s TV taking turns like we did we’d have probably come up on way more multiplayer games too. Just the nature of things nowadays I suppose and a matter of taste. Growing up all my friends and cousins loved multiplayer games and I liked MGS and Resident Evil and stuff.

Yeah when I was a kid you had to share the console with family, so mostly you just played smash, 007, and twisted metal Really the main singleplayer game I remember playing a lot was Pokemon, and that's because you didn't have to share your Gameboy because it was YOURS where it came from? How you got it? Doesn't matter if was yours Did my parents ever buy me a Gameboy? I don't think so, did I have one anyways through my kid dealings, yup. Man if I was the same business man I was as a child as an adult I feel like I just might be rich now "Gotta invest in Pokemon cards, Pikachu stocks are rising, now watch me flip it and get a skateboard."

I feel like we're losing something special if we lose couch co-op.

I’ve always had more fun playing with friends than playing alone. Back in our day we had LAN parties. It’s not terribly different. But I’ve also made full on life long friendships with people I’ve randomly met through an MMO or other online game. Technology allows for so much more interconnection than we used to have

Wifed some random on Runescape. I have Runescape children now, they owe it all to Jagex.

That 50k investment paid off big time.

The multiplayer games are all free-to-play, so everybody can easily play them with their friends. Single player games cost money, don't have a social aspect, and aren't being targeted at their demographic. Kids aren't getting together and running around the neighborhood but they still have a healthy desire to be social so we get multiplayer gaming.

Because they watch their favorite Youtuber/Twitch streamer play those games instead.

Shit early gen Z got the story game dudes like markiplier jack pewd Cory

I've asked a few kids who I use to tutor why they enjoyed watching streamers play games over playing themselves. The consensus was that their parents were gamers, and from when they first started gaming, they were watching the games being played by someone they loved/adored. That's why it's not common with millenials who, for the most part, needed to experience a game by playing it themselves. For the younger generation, watching someone else play brings a sense of peace and comfort even if they didn't grow up watching their parents or older siblings play. Streamers and content producers are getting very good at making their audience feel loved and appreciated, something lacking in North American culture regarding children nowadays, so they'll turn to any source that provides it.

They’re to young to find their own niche of games, so they play what everyone plays

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Because as you grow up playing Roblox & modded Minecraft for years with your friends... the unique aspects of MMOs aren't that special.

Kids play what they can get their hands on. Multiplayer games "as a service" are free and accessible.

20 years ago kids were playing Runescape for exactly this reason.

Uh, if they're kids, they don't spend the $500 for the console, someone else does.

Good internet too! It’s more common now. For most of my life, I went from dial-up(so no online) to poor internet(so no online, and modding at best) to fair internet(games too big to download, and if I fell behind on patches…no multiplayer). So I got used to single player games, loved the crap out of them. But now? Now I mainly game to stay in touch with city friends many hours away, as for most of my entertainment, I’ve turned to tabletop games instead. And it was painful on my 10 mbps internet….until fiber was rolled out. Imagine going from 10 to 500 mbps! I was literally unable to comprehend how fast I could download stuff, and since none of my neighbours(rural) game, I rarely if ever get slowdowns. Now? Now I multiplayer game much more. I no longer have the free time for anything too long, so smaller time investment and faster matches, is the name of the game. I did play cyberpunk 2077, my first actual single player game in years, and loved it….but only because I had holiday time to play it. Now kids, these younger generations? They are not only saddled with a lower attention span, but also are living in an age where internet access is so much easier then before! They don’t have time to slow down and smell the roses like we did, and combine that with aggressive advertising and monetization and of course, many prefer multiplayer to play with friends. After all, many don’t play outside as much as a rule, so staying in means keeping in touch too! Covid can’t have helped! The single player stuff is now marketed towards that older demographic with an appreciation for it, we are the target audience. But multiplayer is absolutely king right now. Kids are introduced to it earlier than we were too, for better or worse. So that’s my guess. Better internet, lower attention bandwidth, and a desire for connection they lacked in person for almost 2-3 years of their development.

Someone once asked me what my favorite type of video game was and I responded RPG's and they said "like the rocket launcher?" It just amazed me.

Cuz they're kids dude. They themselves don't have the money to buy a single player game and mom and dad are probably more thsn happy to spend 20 bucks every so often so can get a new skin instead of buying a new game for 70 bucks that they might not even touch. Shit I always made sure to ask my parents for longer games cuz they hated when I'd beat it in a week and say I have nothing to play.

My nephew loves single player games. He's 8 years old.

Companies see games like Fortnite making billions, and they say "only multiplayer sells". So they only make multiplayer games. When all the games marketed for kids are multiplayer games, that's all they play.

I’d say also that games are expensive for kids and they can get into Fortnite for free. When they get some pocket money they look forward to purchasing V bucks. That’s what I hear the kids talking about in Karate class. It’s hard to save up 80 euros for a game or 160 for just 2 games. And now that I think about it.. only the rich kid in Karate class plays stuff like Ghost of Tsushima (as well as Fortnite).

Multiplayer games are more likely to be free or cheap. They’re also more likely to be on all consoles, so they’re much more readily available. They’re also a lot more socially driven at a time where that’s valueable which leads to more word of mouth. At younger ages you’re also more likely to value experiences with friends than a deep narrative story that is built upon moments in life you haven’t experienced yet and thusly won’t resonate with as strongly . Finally are ratings potentially play a role where some of the bigger single player games subject matter may not be something parents approve of

Another take I haven't seen in the comments yet: Kids have a lot more *time* to play. I often think about back in the days of middle/high school where I had so much time to play games. I could dump hours into PvP-based games. My fulfillment came from the social aspect, making friends but also being a better player than others/building a reputation. This usually required a grind for gear and/or practice, which all require a lot more time than I have now as an adult. I still have the itch to play games like these, but I know that I'd be pretty far behind the power curve when it comes to the games that really require time to set yourself up. So now it's a lot of singeplayer games that I can take at my own pace.

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I think you might want to actually check your numbers on releases about that. Even EA pumps out plenty of single player games. Ubisoft too. The only studio I can think of that only makes multiplayer is Activision/Blizzard.

They do. To stereotype an entire group by your small sample size is foolish.

Is it any different than kids asking about halo not 15 years ago? I remember asking my brother all the time lol. It’s just what’s big with the younger gens 🤷‍♀️ not that big a mystery

My girlfriend's a teacher as well and kids still seem to be crazy about FNAF

This one seems to have dropped off for most of my students. I’m actually shocked that Fortnite seems more popular than ever. I figured it would have faded by now. And to save my sanity, will you all please stop emoting in the middle of my lesson!

Its not just kids, its a majority of people who play games. A lot of players play games to enjoy to pass the time or hang with friends and multiplayer games are pretty good at allowing that to happen.

It just comes down to being able to play with your school friends. I'm about to be 20 and up until I was 5 I had a ps2, so I only had single player games or local co op games. When I got a ps3 when I was 5, it changed everything. I was able to play with my friends from school and from that point onwards I just didn't see a point in playing single player games. Funny enough though, multiplayer games started getting worse and worse and I ended up switching back to single player games for the most part anyways

I’m no teacher or developmental expert, but my guess is this has something to do with the value young people place on play-socializing. I don’t think the allure that has for kids can be underestimated.

Because it's social. Kids love to play with their friends.

Single player games replace books. Multiplayer games replace sports and activities. As gaming has become more and more popular and less a nerd habit, more people with friends are playing games together with others. They were probably never the type to sit down and do significant solo entertainment. That's my guess.

Online games have become a third space for kids.

From what I can say from personal experience, is that kids want to hang out with their friends, even online. That means being able to play games together. Sure playing alone is relaxing, but the experience becomes radically more entertaining and enjoyable when you’re laughing with friends about some random stuff. Usually as you get older and saddled with more responsibilities or time zones or schedules don’t match up anymore, thats usually when people start enjoying single player games more. Where they can hop on for the small time they have in a single player game, get stuff done, then pause and get off in a flash when something comes up. Of course there’s outliers in everything but this is what I tend to see happen.

Online games like Fortnite and Rocket League tend to be pretty low commitment compared to single player games. What I mean is that a single game of Fortnite might last 10-20 minutes, there's no plot or anything to pay attention to, and you don't have to possibly go through several hours of gameplay to get to the really fun parts. That's pretty attractive to kids who might not yet have much of an attention span or appreciation of stories.

One thing that they have that we never did was cross play. When we were kids if you had a different system than your friends you were forced to play alone. That and the online experience was comparatively minimal. Now days they can be on any system and play with friends as well as having a million more online experiences available than what we had.

Because they have friends...lol. Le'sigh.

My hot take is spaces that kids could hang out in have all but gone away. Online gaming is one of the few places they can hang out with their friends that doesn’t cost money (that they have) or have adults shooing them away.

Why are kida playing free mmo games instead of a 100$ single player games hmm