Why online gaming sucks (Part 1)

Welcome to the Gabro Games blog; articles about a lifetime of online gaming and a desire to make things better.

Ever since I was a kid, I've played online games - going to LAN parties, using VPNs, dial up, downloading dodgy software... I did anything I could to access more games.

It was worth every minute. I've made real-life friends in Guild Wars and Counter-Strike: Source; I've built entire towns in Rust and Valheim; I've sewn chaos and hilarity in games like Streets of Rogue. I've lived a second life in these worlds and it has been a life filled with comradery, fear, excitement and above all, joy.

So if I love online games, then why the title? Why do I think online gaming inevitably breaks down into frustration?

Well there's lots of reasons but a lot of it comes down to stability. A singleplayer game will (mostly) maintain it's qualities over time - if you can still boot up the game (not always the case; we'll talk about this in another article...) then you can expect to find the same characters, the same plot, the same mechanics. Good or bad, they are there to be enjoyed and if you enjoyed them before, chances are you will again.

Not so with multiplayer games because the experience is determined by factors that change over time. For example, an online game only lives as long as its servers. Sometimes those servers go away, sometimes they degrade, sometimes those servers change in a way that destroys the original experience. What's here today might not be there tomorrow.

Add to this the level and nature of publisher support, balance changes, moderation policies, bugs, meta changes, coordination challenges, cheating, toxicity, skill gaps, accessibility and of course, the players themselves and we have a lot to complain about! Don't worry we'll get to those another day for now let's just talk about accessing these games to begin with.

Terror in the Stargate bunker

When multiplayer works it provides some of the most shocking and exciting experiences in gaming. The creativity and unpredictability of players means you can see things you've NEVER seen before. I remember as a kid playing a game of Deus Ex multiplayer where a mod had added a Stargate to the game that could teleport you around the map, including to the inside of a small bunker. Me and my friend decided to defend this bunker. We spent ages running back and forth across the map, picking up every metal box we could find, bringing it to the bunker and using it to wall up the Stargate from the inside. Then we got behind our box-wall in the bunker, lined the remaining walls with LAMs (proximity explosives), hid at the back of the bunker and waited for the enemy...

A sudden flash from the Stargate and before the light had even faded I see two rockets fly between two tiny gaps in our box-wall. They flew right past my head, hit the back wall of the bunker setting off a chain-reaction that blows up all the LAMs in the bunker, exploding my buddy to bits in the process... and then, for reasons that I still do not understand... the lights went out. I was in an exposed bunker in the pitch black, alone, listening to the clang and shuffle of our box-wall being torn apart, scared out of my wits and thinking... THIS IS FREAKING AWESOME.

It was a perfect set of circumstances that lead to a genuinly thrilling experience. The sad part is though that this experience essentially no longer exists. If I jump on to Deus Ex today and click Multiplayer, nothing shows up. That means not only my experience is gone but every opportunity for similar experiences in future. All the mods, all that creativity and all we have to show for it is an empty server list.

Well we had a good time; nice while it lasted but it's gone now. Right?

Wrong.

Believe it or not, these games actually still exist, they have just been made inaccessible to most people. The reality is a small group of players still enjoy this game online today (Check out the Deus Ex Community HQ) but they've had to work for it. Creating unofficial patches, hosting servers, forwarding ports, organising games, it's a lot of work! And let's face it, more work than most people have time to put in. Especially when they don't know if it will work for them and especially when each of our friends has to repeat the process too. If you've played online you know the pains of waiting around for your friend to fix their setup. Multiply the potential issues by 10 and see how far you get. It's awesome that these experiences still exist but it sucks that so few ever get to try them.

All hope is not lost

So what can we do? Well gaming communities like Deus Ex HQ are already doing all they can to keep these games alive. What can we do to help?

Step 1 - Celebrate them. There are communities who have dedicated lifetimes worth of energy to ressurecting games and not just making them playable but fun and exciting for a whole new generation of people. These are not just fans but game preservationists, working tirelessly to keep games alive. Celebrate them.

Step 2 - Support them any way we can. If someone needs help accessing the game, then help them. If you find a fix for a problem or create something cool that might be useful then share it so you can help them keep their favorite games great. A community is just a bunch of people who care enough to do something, so whenever you get a chance, be one of those people.

Step 3- Improve access to their work. That's where we come in. We are building Gabro, the first desktop platform dedicated to improving access to niche, out-of-support, hard-to-run and inaccessible game experiences. We will provide top-of-the-line servers and connection tools for every game we can support along with automated patching and configuration so players can enjoy these experiences with their friends in a secure way without any technical knowledge or complex walkthroughs. In the same way the Gabbro rock helps binds our earth's crust together, I want Gabro to be a glue that ties these game experiences together so they can flourish and grow to new heights.

To be clear, Gabro will never replace gaming communities who love their chosen games the most, nor should it. No one entity can replace that kind of community passion. But what we can do is introduce a unified platform that will allow these lost game experiences to be enjoyed by everybody, from the most passively interested to the most passionate fans. This will help communities grow and let great games thrive, no matter how old or poorly supported they are.

Chances are, if you ever play with the Deus Ex Stargate mod you won't have the same peak experience I had... but as it stands you might never know... and it's not the only experience you'll never know about. There are thousands of games that have been made inaccessible over the years and countless more experiences within those games that are just waiting to be rediscovered.

If you care about changing things for the better then let me know and if you're just here for a rant about the state of online games then fear not - things are gonna get spicy! For now, take care and keep playing.