I've gone mostly single player as I got older. Even stuff like Monster Hunter World I will struggle against Behemoth instead of just teaming up. Other people are just added complexity I don't want to deal with.

That said game design and moderation can help alleviate the toxicity. FFXIV is fairly decent for this, as raids tend to have zero setup so at worst you just waste time attempting them. Contrast with other MMOs where you have to earn entry or face significant costs to attempt, then more costs when you fail, that's understandably a recipe for toxicity even in a supposedly cooperative game.

> Deep Rock Galactic seems to be a magical game where everyone comes together.

Team Fortress 2 also comes to mind, what a beautiful community.

They're technically not forced multiplayer (though they're intended to be played as such), but games like Journey and Death Stranding seem to show that limiting actual interaction between players can really foster positive qualities in people.

Journey goes to a lot of trouble both to make the 'matchmaking' entirely seamless, and to limit player interaction to constructive/team actions.

They spent a lot of time tuning those mechanics with the stated intent of making multiplayer that was cooperative and positive.

I think what they achieved is generally quite impressive.

> Deep Rock Galactic seems to be a magical game where everyone comes together.

I do continue to see this mentioned on Reddit. I've got hundreds and hundreds of hours in DRG and it's all solo aside from literally 5-10 games I played with friends-only (but none of them play regularly). I'm so glad DRG support single player, gives you a bonus (Bosco), scales the game, and lets you pause. I'm glad the multiplayer is good, I'm happier that I don't have to deal with it at all if I don't want to.

It's been really sad to see my favorite franchises slowly go online/multiplayer (Elder Scrolls/Fallout) and I constantly worry that the games I've been playing for over a decade (like Oblivion, Skyrim, FO3, FO:LV, FO4, ME1, ME2, ME3) are the last of their breed. For me even having multiplayer/online (more specifically, a recurring revenue stream) taints a game in the same way that IAP taints mobile games (with the exception of "remove ads", "full unlock", or "unlock level pack", if I see "500 gems" I run in the other direction). It skews incentives and ruins games. No matter how much you swear up one side and down the other that it doesn't, it's not true. PvZ 2+ was ruined by IAP and EA even went back and ruined PvZ 1 (even for people who bought it). "Where's The Water?" was also a great game that was littered with IAP in the second version, Angry Birds as well has fallen. It makes me incredibly mad and sad that there are so few good single player games and the ones that do exist aren't coming from AAA studios/big names. DRG is a good example, so is something like Factorio (which does have multiplayer, but don't monetize it). Cosmetic-only DLC/IAP seems to be pretty safe overall but I still worry how much longer it can last when assholes like the CEO of Unity thinks anyone not prioritizing monetization are "Fucking Idiots" (His "apology" is meaningless, he meant what he said and fully believes it).

It just feels like we will never see something as pure, wonderful, and buggy :) as Skyrim again. Even that game has the shitty "Creation Club" or whatever they called it trying to monetize mods. ES:O/FO:76 are garbage compared to their predecessors. Indie games are great and seem to be the only place you see a real desire to create something fun, not just something that will print money, but I yearn for the kinds of games we just don't see from indies (again, ES/FO/ME to name a few I've loved, if you know of any like this please let me know).

I desperately hope I'm wrong and we see a resurgence of games that try to be fun instead of casinos in disguise. Until then I'll keep playing my old games and the few indies that make me happy instead of feeling like a second job.

Nintendo has mostly not fallen into this problem, at least on their consoles (their mobile games are a different story...). Some of them have paid DLC, but I haven't seen any Switch games with IAP or required multiplayer.

I'm actually worried about the look of the new Fire Emblem announced yesterday. Looks like it's perfectly made to be gacha, collecting the old heroes. Hopefully I'm wrong, or if it's gatcha it's in-game only (.i. you can't pay for it), with DLC just adding more heroes. But I'm worried they're taking way too much from FE Heroes, which has, apparently, outsold the rest of the series combined.

God that's depressing. I haven't touched the new Fable game (that was in beta, I stopped following it after I saw what it was like) for the same reasons. I loved FE growing up but FE Heroes had zero interest for me.

A few, that i liked recently are monster hunter world and rise.

Is more of an action rpg, but its also has very satisfying crafting system.

They have a lot of DLC's but all of them are just gestures and skins for your various npcs.

IAP ruins basically every app it touches, with the exceptions of the sort of functionality you mention. This goes far beyond games. I’m sure others have said it better but I miss the days of simple freemium models.

IMHO, Paid upgrades are better than IAP or subscription models from a user perspective. Moreover, they encourage innovation rather than revenue stream cultivation.

Out and out capitalism does not optimize for the value to the consumer - that is merely a constraint to be minimized in the name of cost control and revenue maximization, I would contend.

Greed ruins a lot of things, as does the notion that everything can be sacrificed for growth; the logical conclusion of quantity over quality is everything sucks.