pondering... why are classics only 2 player?

gwarble

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 18, 2011
Messages
2,465
Reaction score
222
Location
Petaluma, California
when video games were coming to be, i wonder why they went with two player

i'm talking "alternating" games here... ie Pac-man... pinballs were and still are 4 player with a single button...

of course there are exceptions, but to be honest Video Pinball is the only video game i have or can think of that allows 4 players to join in... and its a bad example since its trying to be like a pinball machine

reasons could be financial... less people waiting to play means they can be playing other nearby games...

would be nice now that these are in collections to be able to get more people in on a game

- gwarble
 
The average cabinet is 25" wide. That's alot of people crowding around 2 feet of space.
 
Rampage was 3 player. but 3 controls....

it does seem odd that the ones with only one control would just be 2 player, why not switch between 3 or 4?
 
Rampage was 3 player. but 3 controls....

it does seem odd that the ones with only one control would just be 2 player, why not switch between 3 or 4?

Because then more people could play at one machine in unison. But if you limit it to two people at a time, you'll have to buy more cabs to keep all the other patrons happy. :D
 
yeah i'm talking golden era games which usually alternate between players... not simultaneous multiplayer cabs

i mean when space invaders was being made, didn't anyone think that 4 players might want to compete for scores?
 
Because then more people could play at one machine in unison. But if you limit it to two people at a time, you'll have to buy more cabs to keep all the other patrons happy. :D

+1 Agreed :)

That and your other comment about size... it does matter.
 
Alternating with more than 2 players would create some hellacious wait times between player turns. Its bad enough waiting for your turn in a 2 player alternating game. And as mentioned, having 2 or 3 extra dudes hanging out in the player's personal space waiting their turn would not be very comfortable.
 
there were several early b&w cocktail games that allowed for more than 2 players simultaneously including a 4-player Pong variation called "Doubles" and racing games like Indy 800.
 
Alternating with more than 2 players would create some hellacious wait times between player turns. Its bad enough waiting for your turn in a 2 player alternating game. And as mentioned, having 2 or 3 extra dudes hanging out in the player's personal space waiting their turn would not be very comfortable.

Yeah, but there are also longer wait times between players with a 4-player game in pinball. I like your last point. A pinball machine is big enough for 3 other people fairly easily WATCH the current player; whereas on a video game it's a little more difficult for the non-players to watch the action. There's also the issue of screen real-estate, but I don't think that's a particularly major problem.

OP: Interesting observation. 1, 2 and 4-player pins were common at the dawn of video games, but video games (with very few execptions) only got designed in 1 and 2-player (alternating) varieties.
 
Video games were made to make the makers money, not to give your pack of buddies something to do. The lesser the number of players, the more money they made for each "new game" started.

It wasn't until they got into the "continue" games that they really learned that multiple players + continues equaled bigger profits.

But if you really want the reason why a lot of the older games didn't have more than 2-players - it's most likely because budgets and technology were limited back then and programmers had to make do with what they could...
 
Back
Top Bottom