So recently, EA has trumpeted their record (and policy) to approve only games with a multi-player component (and yesterday we got word that Insomniac Games CEO agrees whole-heartedly with the sentiment).  This is the latest in a broad cultural trend that has been pernicious throughout American culture for the past century, and one that is largely unique and isolated to American culture alone: an all-out war on introversion.

I have been unable to find any concrete study with a definitive answer (and I spent hours trying), but depending on whom you believe, introverts make up either 25%, 33%, or 50% of the American population.  The most credible sources I found suggest that the smaller breaks may be due to suppression; because American culture frowns so greatly on introversion, people are less willing to admit to introversion, even in anonymous surveys.  Because the whole issue is a spectrum, I generally assume the 33% number to be a fair assessment of how many introverts are introverted enough as to be unable to get by functioning as extroverts; the middle ground group can “fake it” enough to not need to embrace their introversion.

Introversion is not merely shyness; an extrovert can be shy and withdrawn, and an introvert can be open and outgoing.  The dividing line between introverts and extroverts is the source of their energy.  Extroverts are like batteries – they store up a charge from an outside source.  They thrive on interaction, activity and change.  Left alone, their power will eventually wind down; without external stimulus to “give a spark”, so to speak, their reserves run dry and they feel drained and exhausted.  They require further stimulus to get them going again.

Introverts, on the other hand, are reactors.  They generate energy from within, and expend it on external activities.  A continuous draw will outpace their ability to recharge, depleting their reserves.  Extended periods of interaction and stimulus will overwhelm their systems, leading to an eventual shut down.  Only by shutting off the drain – withdrawing from external stimuli – can the introvert recharge their reserves, thus providing another pool of energy with which to feed their external engagement again.

Neither state is unnatural; both have biological bases.  The brains of introverts and extroverts work differently; they respond differently to different chemicals.  Extroverts have a much stronger reaction to dopamine than introverts – it is, in fact, easier to reward them, and they feel greater pleasure from those rewards.  Challenges in particular appeal to extroverts, who feel a much greater rush for overcoming that challenge than to introverts.

Extroverts are “doers”; they tend to tackle problems head-on, engaging in activity to do something about the issue and generally opting for the first option that comes to mind.  Society needs them – without them, stagnation occurs.  Extroverts are extremely good at meeting short-term goals and keeping things moving.  When something needs doing, extroverts are happy to get doing.   Theirs is a fast-pace, high-stake, multifaceted world.  Their way of life has become the norm of American society.

Introverts are “thinkers”; they tend to contemplate a problem before seeking a solution, looking at it from many angles and considering many approaches before deciding on one.  Society needs them – without them, recklessness abounds.  Introverts are extremely good at considering the consequences of actions and at reaching long-term goals.  They take their time, weighing options and consequences and trying to find the best, if not necessarily quickest, route to their objective.  Theirs is a steady, stolid and careful course, rarely taking any risks and reaping the more temperate rewards that come with it.  Their way of life used to be more commonly praised in America, and still enjoys wide acceptance in other cultures.

The introverted approach isn’t just out of vogue; it’s actively discouraged.  At job interviews, there are expected responses to certain questions, and those expected responses are biased towards extroverts.  Businesses wish to hire “team players” who are “friendly and outgoing”.  Those who would prefer to spend their weekends alone, reading a book or consuming some other quiet media, are considered abnormal and potentially unhealthy.   Actively socialising – going to concerts, to bars, hanging out in other crowded places – is not just considered normal, it is expected.  Those who do not do so are “wasting their life”.

Now, let me be clear: introverts don’t hate people.  Most introverts greatly enjoy spending time with other people.  The major difference is the setting and intimacy of those settings.  Introverts are far more comfortable in small groups, one-on-one connections and close-knit groups of friends.  Introverts tend to have a much smaller circle of friends than extroverts, but also tend to be much closer with those friends.  Extroverts are happy to pick up activities with anyone around, to include relative strangers and acquaintances in their everyday activities, while an introvert is far more likely to keep a modicum of distance – emotional, if not personal – from people until they are better known. Introverts don’t necessarily need solitude to recharge (some absolutely do, though), but they are all drained by crowds.

What does this have to do with video games?  Well, as luck would have it,  a review was posted just today illustrating my points.  You may already be familiar with this article, a review of Borderlands 2 posted on the Wall Street Journal’s online entertainment blog, Speakeasy.  Written by Adam Najberg, the author opines quite earnestly that Borderlands 2 is cheap, easy fun, and well worth the $30 price tag – oh no, wait, it’s a $60 game (as are all new release AAA games, regardless of genre), so clearly it fails because it does not have a robust competitive multi-player to justify its price point.

This is indicative of my initial premise: there is a war on introversion.  Extroversion is the norm.  Challenge, conflict, and large multi-player efforts are the norm and expected values.  Everyone is expected to be on social media, sharing their lives with complete strangers.  Access to that media is expected in many job interviews.  Discussing popular media is an expected social activity.  Gathering in large groups, attending meetings and seminars, schmoozing and networking are regular day work occurrences.  Extroversion is the norm, the expected, and introverts are instructed to adapt or die.

Of all entertainment media available today, introverts have only one real refuge: literature.  All others are driven largely by extroverts in one way or another.

The book creates a shield against the world, both mental and physical, and allows the reader to isolate themselves from others even in public settings.  Even in the digital world, there’s still great demand for books; Kindles and other e-book readers still share most of the physical properties of the printed word that makes them such an introverted appeal, and clearly there is a market for such things.  Books still sell millions, and even many extroverts enjoy losing themselves in a good book now and then.

Music is slightly more social – many audiophiles love to share their music with others and dance clubs and concerts operate to make the enjoyment of music a group experience.  But the prevalence of iPods and other personal music players and the near omnipresence of ear phones and ear buds still make love of music something of an introverted love; music does not always have to be shared, and,for some, doing so is something highly personal and intimate (mix tapes, anyone?)

Film exists in an odd world.  The prime film-viewing experience is meant to be in a theatre, with a large screen, surround sound speakers, and a full audience.  And yet, while the experience generally demands a social setting, the culture requires introverted enjoyment, silence and restraint.  In many theatres, audience engagement is actively discouraged; one should keep any thoughts on the film to oneself, or at worst quietly spoken only to immediate companions.  But one must still experience film in a theatre, with an audience (and that audience’s reactions), to “truly” experience the film.

Television is much like film, though the audience tends to be smaller.  Television has always been billed as a “family activity”, however, one not to be partaken alone but with a group.  Of late, the “water cooler conversation” of the last night’s shows has also become a social norm (and more recently, the even more social “live blogging/tweeting” phenomenon has emerged).  We may view television alone or in small groups, but the consumption of it is meant to be a group activity, one we discuss with peers and colleagues.

So once again, back to video games.  The first video games were, much like their board game predecessors, meant to pit one player against another in a contest of skill.  Both Pong and Space War (I don’t think anyone has decided which one is truly the “first video game”) worked off this model, making them in many ways not dissimilar to checkers or chess.  One-on-one is, with variations on setting excluded, largely and traditionally an introverted play style.

Later video games removed the second player.  As programming and processing became more sophisticated, the need for a second set of input diminished.  Instead of having to pit players against other players, video games could now pit players against the program, against the machine.  Video games were, for the better part of two decades, largely an introverted activity, enjoyed alone or, at best, with a few friends in cooperative play.

The rise of the internet changed this.  No longer restricted from such by technological limitations, video games became as social as any other media.  Multi-player became far more common, even expected in most cases.  So the announcement by EA that it would no longer look at publishing games without multi-player, it was not very surprising.  In this extroverted world, the idea that one might not wish to engage with others, that one might wish to be alone and solitary, is completely unthinkable.

This idea is wrong, however.  Not only because extroversion should not be the norm; not only because repressing introverts is harmful to both them and society; not only because there is equal value in cultivating both introverted and extroverted solutions; but also because, much of the time, it’s fiscally unsound and unnecessarily cuts your potential customer base by a third, or more.

Shamus Young has touched a bit on this topic before, especially in his article talking about the price point of games and the “long tail” theory.  One point he never touched on, however, was that the growing importance of multi-player play was a major factor in this trend of price point; by its inherent social nature, multi-player games cannot have long tails.  Having a long tail requires an experience that is essentially unchanged whether you play it now, two weeks from now, or two years from now, after everyone else has already moved on to other experiences.  Multi-player games, by their very nature, require large, active communities.  Rarely can a game hold such an audience for an extended period of time, and even fewer that do can do so without a constant development cost to create new content.  Only the most fantastically successful game can justify such a cost – and generally there can only be one of those every couple of years.  Betting on becoming the next multiplayer wonder is a losing gamble; even when it pays off, the return is so small as to be unable to match the losses on all the failed bets.

Of late, it has become nearly impossible to find a game of the role-playing genre that did not come in one of two extroverted flavours – either the massively multi-player online game, or the “action” RPG.  Turn-based game play, a staple favourite of slow, deep thinking introverts, has become a thing of the past (with a small saving grace recently coming in the form of various Kickstarter projects).  Because extroversion is considered the norm, companies seeking to appeal to the “masses” – and almost all do, driven by short-term profit motives – lean increasingly towards extroverted forms of game play.

In doing so, however, they not only alienate themselves from at least a third of the potential market – the 33% of introverts so inclined as to be unable to “fake” life as an extrovert – they also run the risk of disappointing and divorcing the large portion of those in the middle of the spectrum who, while able to live a “normal” extroverted life, still enjoy introverted diversions from time to time.  In reality, in trying to cater to the extroverted “masses”, these companies are only satisfying perhaps a third of the market, made up of those extroverts naturally disinclined to all introverted diversion.

Now, obviously, a market directed only towards introverts would serve the market no better.  But I have never heard a push for no multi-player at all; in fact, all advocates of single-player play allow for the existence of multi-player games.  The only issue here is that, increasingly, all games are being made with multi-player as either a primary or major secondary focus, even when doing so is a complete detriment to the overall experience.  No one is trying to exclude extroverts from the market; the same cannot be said of introverts, however.

Gambling on becoming the next hot social hangout – which is what multi-player game play essentially relies upon – is an overwhelmingly losing proposition.  Once in a while a winner emerges and enjoys their position for a time (World of Warcraft is in only its eighth year in such a position, and is perhaps the most extreme outlier of such to ever exist), but overwhelmingly all such attempts are failures.  The market can bear a few such failures without collapse, but when every single foray into the market is such a gamble, failure is the only possible end state.

The world cannot be build solely on gambles.  It needs to the steady, stolid support of the sure thing as well.  The gambles need a framework upon which to rest, not merely the ephemera of false promises and lofty sales projections.  Single-player, with its long tail and lower maintenance, provides that framework, but it is one that game companies are slowly dismantling from beneath themselves in their pursuit for the stars.

We need to look up and aspire, yes – but we also need to watch where we plant our feet, lest we walk off the cliff.