Multiplayer has been a main stay in the Japanese mobile gaming market for years. It’s considered that, ‘No’ game will ever reach the top rankings if they the game doesn’t support some form of multiplayer. China’s has already made this leap where their Top Grossing game Honor of Kings (moba) has over 50 Million active users and doesn’t look like it’s going to slow down.
This week Supercell looks to release their new 2v2 mode for their hit pvp game, Clash Royale. This news was picked up buy many publicists and gaming blogs, sending a loud message to the West that Multiplayer has finally arrived. Although this concept has been around for quite sometime, Clash Royale will be the first top grossing game that ventures into this space versus your traditional asynchronous multiplayer type system.
What this means for designing games in the West.
Sooner or later, the West is going to realize how boring it is to play asynchronous multiplayer games and raise the bar for games to demand multiplayer or not deserve a download. Game developers have been able to create a multiplayer experience for a long time but providing a rich multiplayer experience is a different story. And Clash Royales 2v2’s release well have many eye balls on the effectiveness of this feature. Not only fun factor but the bottom line as well.
Players Expectations going forward
Whether or not Clash Royales finds success in this feature. A top grossing game releasing this type of feature sends a precedents for all the other game developers that, if they are looking to enter the Top Grossing discussion they are going to have to cross the multiplayer bridge and implementing a fun experience at it as well.
Digital Space was and will always be a sink or swim industry whether you can keep up with the latest trends in technology or drown with all the other conservative digital companies that didn’t feel the need to pivot to new technology.
In this space, once you spoil players with a better alternative, it’s ‘very’ hard to scale back their expectations. Clash Royale just crossed this line which will send a ripple effect to every other developer in the West to pick up their game and play with the big boys or go home crying.
This space just got a bit more serious.