Co-Op Gaming Trend Continues to Grow in Popularity
It's always nice to see when the mainstream press picks up on a growing trend in the games industry. Yes, that's right, the San Francisco Chronicle has written a great article on cooperative gaming, and how it's increasing in popularity? Sound familiar? Of course it does! We've been saying the same thing around Co-Optimus HQ for months now. I mean, just look at this genius quote.
"Competition is fun, but it's just as fun to do teamwork," said Nick Puleo, founder of Co-Optimus, a Web site devoted to cooperative gaming. "Co-op is more of a positive thing than going around and killing the other team. It's built around a story or an objective that you can accomplish together."
Oh...hey...that's me! Ok, so that's not the only great quote in the article. In fact there are quotes from the likes of Greg LoPiccolo, vice president of product development at Harmonix Music, as well as Reid Schneider, senior producer for Army of Two at Electronic Arts. Both talk about the importance of the cooperative experience in their product.
Finally the Chronicle talks to the man, Mr. Peter Moore who is currently serving as president of EA Sports. What does he have to say?
He said the co-op play was one of the nice features of Gears of War, a title published by Microsoft when he was vice president of Microsoft's gaming business.
"In Gears, you had each other's back and you took care of each other," Moore said. "Even if you were weaker, you could last longer and have more fun."
Microsoft really has led the way in the co-op revolution. It all started with Halo on Xbox 1. And with the ever growing user base of Xbox Live developers have really found a way to connect more people to enjoy the co-op experience. Just look at our games database, specifically the Xbox 360. There are more co-op games available for Xbox Live Arcade and the Xbox 360 than most of the other systems combined.
co-optimus
co-op gaming
I'm changing on that one. I rarely play anything single player now days. I don't even look twice at an upcoming title if it doesn't have multiplayer/co-op. Turok, for example, is not even on my radar.
I don't know if it's age, or changing priorities, or what, but if the game doesn't offer online co-op or a really strong multiplayer, I'm just not interested.
Turok wasn't even on my radar right after finishing the demo. WTF is that game...shooting dinosaurs with machine guns. Yeah...ok.
Well, you're quoted in the same article as Peter Moore and a dude from Harmonix I guess Co-optimus will get more popularity from this, very cool
I think they're pretty right about co-op with the Xbox, and Xbox Live =D
But Sony won't stay behind, Resistance 2 for example. Nintendo, well, I dunno what to say. Played Mario Galaxy today, and has sort of a little bit co-op like addition where a 2nd player can pick up enemies or stop fireballs from Bowser :p
I agree 100% with Bap and Spigot. My friend and I are trying to find some descent coop games for the Wii and PS3, but unfortunately there are very few options.
MS has definitely put a huge emphasis on coop gaming this generation. Especially, with Live Arcade games.
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Rainbow Six: Vegas 2 on Playstation 3
Super Smash Bros. Brawl on Wii
Gears of War (Windows) on PC
Castle Crashers on Xbox Live Arcade
Pixel Junk Monsters on Playstation Network
View the top Co-Op Games on Each Platform including our family friendly list!
It is nice to see Co-Op mode making its way into more games these days. I'm more of a single-player gamer at heart but I'd much rather play a co-op game with some friends than the usual head-to-head deathmatch competition that usually defines multiplayer components in games.
I always wondered about the pile of 360/XBLA games in our listings here and worried that someone would call us out for having a MS bias but it's just a representation of the fact that MS has really put an emphasis on co-op games.