The increasingly rare times I get to play online games with friends happen solely because of me, because of my efforts alone, no thanks to the other members of my friends group who usually refuse to abandon the latest Helldivers 2 Major Order to play one of my weird co-op horror games or Sea of Thieves, even for a few precious moments with their old pal Jordan. Multiplayer games these days, particularly those of the live-service variety, have a way of pulling players in and making them feel like nothing else is worth playing, and that's precisely why so many new ones fail, according to one of the foremost authorities on the matter, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney.
I can't imagine the amount of people who can relate to my experience with an analog of their own that replaces Helldivers 2 with Fortnite, one of the most enduring live-service games of the last decade. How could you ask your friends to play the criminally underrated co-op horror game Devour when they've almost got the new John Wick skin from Fortnite's latest battle pass? Well, maybe you should get yourself some more adventurous friends, because maybe if more people were willing to try new things, games like Highguard and Concord wouldn't be rotting in the dirt.
