You can make a drinking game out of playing video games. Each time someone wins, that person needs to take a swig of something more than mildly alcoholic. After a while, the person who used to be able to beat everyone will have a hard time playing the game, and other people will start to win. It works great for Mario Kart & Bomberman.

I feel the same way as you. When I play multi-player, I prefer to play locally with friends. I remember a thread not too long ago (I'm pretty sure it was about Starcraft 2) where the excuse for making online gaming the focus was that no one played locally anymore. Judging by this thread, I'd hardly come to the same conclusion and I don't know how anyone else could come to that conclusion unless they have access to spy cameras in everyone's homes. I doubt that most people who prefer local multi-player or offline single-player games are online posting on forums either.

Im with you. They want to squeeze more $$ and put less effort and time into SP parts of a game ie COD 2 and 3 etc --- look at the shrinking number of hours taken into playing and completing a game; money pumped into the sideshows around the actual game (FMV/cutscenes etc)
And MMO's are a fad imho. Everyone wants to be the next WOW and make heaps of $$ (despite falling numbers...)

I can assure you that the SP campaign of SC 2 is 100% free of multiplayer aspects. Half of the SP units and upgrades don't even show up in MP. I bought it full price on release only for the SP and it delivered better than many games that get released without MP altogether.

Edit:
And on the topic. I also don't play videogames with my "real life friends". But nowadays, only 80% (currently 99% again, but I did play a lot of ME multiplayer recently ) is singleplayer. I actually got quite fond of cooperative MP shooters (L4D/ME 3 and Team Deathmatch games like Section 9). But for me MP is only a quick fix. I never played an MMORPG and I don't play strategy games in MP because they take to long, imo.

And you can play them with random people very well, if they aren't too complex.

Where do you find humans that actually bother trying to follow orders? From my experience, the best you can hope for is for them to do so accidentally (and depending on how many options the game gives you [such as run forwards, run backwards, shoot enemies, shoot teammates... that's a lot to keep straight], the odds may not be very high).

Nope, you're not, strictly SP gamer here.

I usually play with people I know. Strangers are very hit or miss, some understand how to play games cooperatively, don't ignore mission objectives, don't rush ahead without looking and so on... some don't. And it is those that don't that makes me dread playing co-op games with people I don't know, because in a team of 4,t here is a good chance that one will be the kind of person who lacks any form of patience/can't hit the broad side of a barn/thinks that mage==tank.

it has its place, but it should not be the norm in games

For some people the winning is fun and nothing else but I have too much of a laid back approach to gaming to play competitively online.

Speaking just about MMORPGs, the thing that I hate most are the builds - "Hey, you're level 5 and have just 8 in STR? You're f*cked, n00b!!!". Yeah, every game has a "right way" to be played, but in single player it is a matter of experimentation and finding what are your own tastes. The same is not true about MMOs, if you don't follow the exact recipe of your class you won't have chance in the higher levels and nobody will like to form parties with you.

And that brings the second part: the NEED to form parties. I like to play MMOs like a play an Elder Scrolls game: going from city to city doing quests (even the stupid ones like "bring me 15 wolf pelts"), but I always get to the level where I can't go on without help. So I stand there, alone with my sh*tty equipment and my broken build and no one will help me because I'll probably doom us all - that's not fun :P

I avoid competitive online multiplayer because I tend to suck at it, and then people will swear at me - that's not fun :P

Anyway I understand the gains of a multiplayer game from the developer point of view, it only saddens me when some major singleplayer developer starts to spend money with a unnecessary multiplayer mode/game (I'm looking at you two Bioware and Bethesda).

Definitely disagreeing with you.

Perhaps the MP is there because players want it? You might not, but millions do.
And I disagree with this being a new fad, MP has been around for a very long time. I'm not that old, but still have fond memories of playing Duke Nukem 3D and Doom II deathmatch well over a decade ago. New technologies and improved infrastructure has simply helped to bring MP to the masses and the masses want it.

If you're a SP type of person then suit yourself and stick to that, but don't castigate people for liking the MP aspect. It doesn't take anything away from your experience.

I'm with the OP and most of those in this thread. Even when I *do* play multiplayer, it's with people I know intimately -- and usually am in the same room with them anyway.

A multiplayer core design a great way to ruin otherwise good games.

I used to be a pure single player kind of gamer, until I met a friend of my brother's who also likes gaming, has a similar mindset regarding playing (very casual, don't care much about victories and we gloat in jest when we win), skills are pretty level where I win some and lose some and I find playing with or against him to be pretty entertaining. We voice chat throughout the games and we've been playing Starcraft 2 and currently Portal 2.

So if a game is fun and you have a friend or friends you can play it with, multiplayer is a bonus. Playing against strangers is geared towards a competitive mindset, where winning is everything, but co-op games or even versus games against friends, regardless that they're each at their own homes, can be a blast. Publishers know this and if they can implement it, they know they can get more sales, catering to the competitive players, the casual ones and the single player loners, all with one game.

It doesn't always work though. Sometimes what works in single doesn't work in multi and viceversa.

Maybe so, but already in the trial version the starting menu and screen seemed to be more geared to competitive online aspects than in the original Starcraft, where multiplayer felt more tacked-on extra feature. In SC2 (trial) the single-player feels to be the part that was tacked on.

I always played TF games only on public servers, and didn't have much problems even though many people said it is sooo much better when you are in a "clan" and play with other clans, and people you know. To me that sounds more like gaming becoming a way of life, rather than just a hobby. I just want to jump in and out even the multiplayer online games when I feel like it, not having to make schedules and arrangements with my "clan friends".

In that sense I want to treat multiplayer games like I treat single-player games.

Hey, that doesn't sound too bad! But you know us Finns, we'd probably end up stabbing each others if we lose intoxicated...