That's only in multiplayer games, which are basically destined to become not fun at all. It's the competition that sucks out the fun. Players optimize for winning, cheaters optimize further more, devs optimize for getting rid of cheaters and for "maximizing engagement" of the rest.

In single-player games, given the opportunity, gamers will optimize for all kinds of cheese and hilarity never expected by the designers. Doubly so with the modern Internet, where sharing videos of your silly play confers social status in relevant on-line groups.

I can agree that multiplayer isn't forever but all of the longest lasting games are multiplayer and thriving, most because of the competition. WoW, CSGO (very competitive, ~1 million players daily), LoL (competitive).

That has little to do with fun, and everything to do with recurring revenue. Multiplayer aligns itself nicely with subscriptions, in a way singleplayer doesn't.

Don't know about current state of WoW, but the other two games you mention, and games like Overwatch or even StarCraft 2, are hollowed out and devoid of substance, because the competitive multiplayer makes everyone focused on meta.

Hey, SC2's still pretty fun. Just look at the sorts of off-meta builds uthermal gets away with: https://www.youtube.com/c/uThermal

I think this is true of all games, where you don't specifically seek out other players choosing to be purposefully weaker.

The transition from elementary school sports to middle school sports is pretty jarring. By the time you get to high school they've started weeding out anyone who enjoys the game versus dominating other people in preparation for college and the few who become pros.

Video games just make this obvious to kids who don't like sports.

Yep, 'speed runs' are all about optimizing whatever you can optimize and are mostly single-player.

The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them. This let's them pick the categories with environments that are most fun optimized which is where the hilarity comes.

But that was my point: speed runs are fun and often cheesy and score social karma. But only for people who care about them. Every other player can ignore them and focus on their own fun.

> The only real distinction between single-player games and multiplayer games in this manor is that in single-player games players can choose the 'category' they are currently playing, whereas in multiplayer it is chosen for them.

Yes. That's the distinction that matters.

> That's only in multiplayer games

Certainly not true, it's a game design issue that comes up all the time. Even in the context of casual solo play, players will generally be driven by the very human instincts of risk aversion, resource accumulation, and seeking efficiency. It takes good design to make this behaviour be in line with having fun.

If anything, it's multiplayer environments that are easier to steer towards that, and also allow room for just horsing around.

Not really; at the peak of competition, emergent mechanics and exploits are celebrated by some communities: e.g. wavedashing in Melee, K-style in GunZ, not to mention speedrunning.