2025-02-21The Biggest Example Of Corporate Greed: Split-Screen on PC
Okay so, When I was younger, i absolutely LOVED the shit out of all forms of multiplayer.
I would mostly spend my time on the Xbox 360 playing Halo Reach and COD MW2, among other things...
but I was also a heavy PC gay-mer. (Get it? Because I'm gay? Hahaha.) It was all Minecraft, TF2, and whatever other free games i could snag on Steam or elsewhere.
However, there was one thing I noticed on the PC.
Where the actual FUCK is local multiplayer? Splitscreen?
It's not really something you think about often. You just kind of assume it's a technical problem but, it isn't.
Digging Into The Splitscreen Hole: Lies You've been Fed About Local Multiplayer on PC
The most common thing people say or suggest is that it's "technical restraints", that PC engines or PCs in general can't handle it, but it's literally factually wrong.
Indie games The Dishwasher 2, The Binding of Isaac, Nuclear Throne, Castle Crashers ALL have local multiplayer, and you want to know the humorous part?
These were often done as a way to add online multiplayer without it being actually being coded in. The intention with these implementations was so that people could use a remote-play tool, whether it be Parsec, Remote Play Together on Steam or Teamviewer (if that would even BE FUN to play LOL) to play online without actually using online inside of the game. Online multiplayer is extremely difficult to code on a lot of engines, so it's perfectly understandable.
Additionally, PCs can be plugged into TVs normally with a regular ol' HDMI coord, displaying the entire screen, and the entire game through your PC. If you did this with your laptop, it can basically just become an extremely janky Nintendo Switch before the Switch existed. There are hundreds upon thousands of controllers which plug into the USB coord of your computer, allowing you to play games with multiple controllers, in the same context you'd do on a console. Additionally, the keyboard exists, and for 2D games, you can easily make it controlled locally with 2 players by doing the old WASD + IJKL format. Regular widescreen PCs now are also completely fine enough for the splitscreen experience as long as there are two chairs present.
So why the actual fuck did they cut them down from PC games?
As usual, Corporate greed is the killer.
Early on, because splitscreen was awkward in the 90s (it wasn't like you could just plug a controller into your PC back then, that came later), what people would do was instead LAN parties, where people would bring their computers to each others houses and play local multiplayer through that. This was extremely successful and the norm. Most 90s era games had LAN functionality, as least FPS wise (i don't know enough about the other genres to say), and this was how most people played back then. Overtime, the era of the LAN Party slowly fizzled out, but by the time local splitscreen was fully able to be functional on a PC...well...
Developers intentionally removed splitscreen functionality from their ports to keep income coming. They knew that it would likely cause them to lose some sales, and the amount of people Buying mattered more than the people Playing. It was also an easy way to make them buy the console version instead, and created an arbitrary bonus for the console instead of simply being fair. Since people were already used to not having splitscreen and local multiplayer outside of LAN, no one was around to point it out, which meant they could get away with it easily. For the same reason is why LAN games slowly fizzled out, because by the early 2010s, people were too focused on online multiplayer to really care, + a changing landscape in regards to moving your PC around (PCs were getting more expensive and rare. People didn't wanna risk chugging their massive PC around and possibly dislocating parts through that or even dropping it just for the sake of playing L4D2 together when they could easily just play online, even if playing online is slightly more saddening.)
Something you'll learn quickly is that corporate greed and the urge to make money often overshadows the urge to innovate and the urge to make things more convenient. Things were different back then was well. In the 80s - early 2000s, for the most part, buying PC games physically was the norm. It might be incredibly hard to believe now, but there was a point when you could walk into a store and come out with a copy of Call of Duty for the PC rather than buying it on Steam. Despite physical games on PC being factually way more convenient,
-you can always save it to your hard disk meaning you'll never lose it even if you lose the CD
-certain physical games came with the ability to redeem it for Steam or other DRM services meaning you got it both physically and on your service of choice
-sharing it with friends means that you can get more people to play your favorite game without issue
-no need to wait for an install, you'll always have it, and your progress is saved this way
Despite having all of these benefits, physicals for PC games were quickly stomped out due to the fact it was convenient for the player, but inconvenient for the publisher. Around the mid 2010s, big publishers had already cut down their publishing of physical PC games, and cut it down QUICK. Even though it barely made any effect on them to keep producing these CDs, they refused for the sake of digital & console games being easier to control.
This style of "monetary value over convenience and innovation" affects nearly everything in the industry, in every country. On the console end of things, things have gotten progressively worse and the convenience of many consoles is slowly being stomped out for the sake of extra funds. Many modern console releases have less expensive versions without disc drives to force you into a digital lifestyle, one that's more convenient for the console manufacturer rather than the actual end user. Consoles are being shoved into with extra features that often just get in the way to actually play the game. If you actually use a PS5 for example, you get bombarded with a bunch of bullshit related to having to make accounts, ads on the main fucking menu, among other things. These additions aren't inherently bad. Console accounts are good because they save progress and add socialite features which I like. I don't actively like when it gets in the ability to just play the goddamn games. Thankfully, it's not really that awful right now, it's still pretty simple and not that overwhelming, but it's still an example of this enshittification that companies just LOVE to do. The good news is that the PS5 still has a lot of good ass games (HELLDIVERS 2 FOR LIFE!!!) and Xbox has the absolutely legendary tool that is Gamepass, so it's not awful. Thankfully, the Wolfman is still present in Sony's studio, clearly. The NS (and likely the Switch 2 when that happens) has also been able to avoid this VERY well, being perfect for just playing games immediately and effective. You can even skip updates entirely to immediately play the game, which I love.
Another example of this is in streaming services. Before they decided to sacrifice convenience for monetary gain, most TV was located just on Netflix, with Netflix having quite literally everything you'd want on it, eliminating the need for TV's jank. However, companies decided that they wanted more by doing less and created their own streaming services. Netflix in 2014 was only €8.99. Now it is 11.99€, and this price also has to be split among a million other services in similar price. You would have to be spending like 50 fucking € to pay for all of this bullshit. This would also have to be each month, and combine that with the bills you'd have to pay for rent and electronic, wifi money etc.
It might suck to think about this ongoing war corporations are having with convenience and customer satisfaction, but don't be too sad about it. Law and already-set customer expectations prevent them from ever making it actually unbearable. Consoles are always going to be reliable and physical games will always exist. Even now, there's still some companies like CD Projekt that produce physicals for their modern games (You can get physicals for Cyberpunk 2077, I couldn't quite believe it myself). With players proceedingly getting more and more frustrated and fighting back / ignoring enshittification, things will likely slowly but surely get better. After all, Astro Bot plushes exist. Goodbye.
