Teamwork is for suckers

So, there’s a whole website devoted to co-op gaming, but occasionally I still feel the need to talk about it.

I had no plans to buy MLB 11: The Show. I was content to know what 10 was like and to continue playing my FIFA. But then I saw this commercial and eventually realized that there were four people in the same room playing the same game, which meant at least two of those people had to be on the same team.

I care about same-room co-op gaming, and I care about baseball games. So, I bought the game.

Then I was Charlie-after-his-first-bar-of-chocolate-doesn’t-have-a-golden-ticket sad to realize that the co-op gaming in 11 is limited exclusively to exhibition games and isn’t available in the franchise or season modes.

Something I’ve written about extensively before, game designers’ decisions to limit their games’ multiplayer options (really, in any way) is just baffling to me. In many cases, I imagine their (potentially legitimate) justifications are technical in nature: there’s too much coding, too much testing, and too much Mountain Dew and trance music necessary to make the game physically work in a particular multiplayer fashion.

With MLB 11: The Show, technical or practical problems can’t be the stumbling block. The cooperative mode already exists. There is a moment before any exhibition game (and presumably during it) that I can very easily select cooperative play. And then it happens – no problem. Bryan and I have controlled players from the same team at the same time during the same game.

So, why can’t we do the same during franchise play?

If it’s not a practical decision, that must mean it’s a philosophical decision, which means that at some point during the production of this game, some person, with the altruistic tendencies of a fox in a chicken coop, actively decided that cooperative play shouldn’t be available outside of exhibition mode because that would somehow undermine the philosophical goal of the game.

That’s a decision I just don’t understand.