one huge reason why the communities that form around multiplayer games all suck worse now is the transition away from the publisher just distributing the client and server binaries, towards the model we have now in which the publisher is also responsible for hosting the servers.
it’s definitely true that there has always been problematic anti-social behaviors on display in these communities. when i was younger i regrettably tolerated some of it myself. but just semi-casually getting back into quake again after having been mostly out of touch with the competitive fps scene for a decade has made it obvious just how much worse the social norms of these communities are now. and they’re all fairly homogeneous in this regard, which didn’t used to be the case either.
the more i queue up in the matchmaking systems of contemporary shooters, the more i start to paradoxically resent how easy it is to just hop into a game now. it’s certainly a great convenience to be able to find a game guaranteed to be against opponents near your skill level in just a few minutes, but limiting players to play that way exclusively (or even primarily) has severe negative implications for how the communities around these games can form and grow.
in the days of player-hosted servers, each server was something of a community unto itself. not every server was like this, but most were. the ability to run server-side mods to add DIY customization elements to the gameplay incentivized this kind of thinking. as a player, when picking a server you’d have a lot of different competing priorities affecting your decision. you wanted to play on the server that has the lowest ping to your house, with the kind of mods and maps you liked, that had players who were both friendly and around your skill level (or at least willing to give you some pointers). requiring players to balance all these factors themselves had two important effects.
firstly, it meant that players tended to frequent the same stable handful of servers. each server had their own set of regulars, their own rules, and their own atmosphere. in UT2004, most players stuck to either casual (”vanilla”) server settings, or standard competition settings (with the UTComp mod). but if you were willing to scroll through the complete server list, you’d find everything on offer from hyperspeed instagib with low-gravity and infinite air dodge on maps filled with low-rez textures of gnarly porn (i wish i were joking), to co-operative modes against AI-controlled monsters with RPG-style character classes and level-up mechanics. whatever kind of servers you frequented, seeing the same names on the scoreboard every time you played, even when those names belonged to complete strangers, went a long way toward building the kind of ambient familiarity that leads to friendly acquaintance, and a casual feeling of community. if you saw the same five or six people playing on your favorite server almost every night, remarking on the absence of another regular was an easy way to strike up a conversation. it also meant that, over time, you tended to get a sense for those players’ unique playstyles and personalities, even if you never even spoke to them much. when you know you’re going to be running into the same players again and again, it disincentivizes anti-social behavior. and since each server is run by at most a handful of admins (many of whom actively and regularly shared ban lists with each other), you had even more reason to be courteous and well-behaved. a rude outburst could mean losing permanent access to your favorite server, or even several of your favorite servers (or at least forcing you to buy a new CD key).
secondly and most importantly, finding the best available servers meant that players were forced to compromise in some way, and were left to decide for themselves how to balance their priorities when picking a server. it was often worth playing under less-than-100%-favorable latency conditions in order to play with people you liked to play with. contrast that with contemporary matchmaking systems, in which players are basically guaranteed opponents on demand. as a player in these systems, you are basically taught to expect that you will have a fresh set of faces on tap whenever you want. as a result, the perceived negative consequences of being rude or anti-social to any particular person you meet almost disappear, and hurling consequence-free abuse at people by toxic players who feel they are entitled to human opponents no matter what becomes a common sight. personal matchmaking blocklist features (like Overwatch’s, for example) do help in preventing repeat exposure to toxic players, but by the time anyone’s been added to a blocklist they’ve already caused harm and contributed to lowering the social standards of the singular, monolithic community.
and that’s the real problem with matchmaking systems: they replaced the constellations of self-maintained server communities, with one massive monolithic community for each game, and with each of these monoliths under the absolute control of whichever corporation(s) developed and published it. it’s not surprising to me that self-identified Gamers™ are happy to fill half of youtube (and their own diapers) with angry screeds at every game publisher out there. when your only option to play online is a toxic rage-filled, slur-filled environment, and your only way of trying to affect change is by interacting with a multibillion dollar corporation’s customer service department, it’s going to be very difficult not to feel frustrated and powerless. over time, repeated exposure to toxic behavior can leave players numb to it, and create a feedback loop of otherwise reasonable people taking their anger out on each other.
i long for the old days, but there’s far too much money to be made, in dozens of ways, off running these “live services” for the capitalists at the helm of the publishers to ever want to hand control of the communities back to the people who actually love their games the most. and i think that’s just sad.