As long as a game's main focus isn't its online features, I really don't care if they put it in. But see lately I have become very ill equipped for playing online games. Living in the sticks will do that for you, what with no broadband and all. But I have at least had some online gaming experience this generation with the Dreamcast. And I think this magical little Sega-box holds the dark, dirty truth about the fate of all online-centric games. They all have expiration dates.
Anybody up for a rousing game of OutTrigger? Unfamiliar? OutTrigger was a DC game made by Sega specifically to be played online with their spiffy new BBA. Of course it still worked with 56k. I wish I could tell you how I fared against Broadbanders, but by the time I got it, it was too late. Sega had already started stripping off Sega.net and OutTrigger was one of the victims. Of course, I didn't know that OutTrigger was online centric until I got it. But upon realization that the main single player was uber-repetitive junk and the manual pretty much indicated that OutTrig was meant for online play, I realized I owned an essentially broken game.
Trust me, in 4 years, more than possibly sooner, many of the MMORPGs, MMOFPSs, and MMO anythings that are popular right now will be gone as if they never existed. FFXI? I bet that'll be Gone. Planetside? Gone. RE Outbreak? Despite the popularity, I think people will lose interest. World of Warcraft will probably come and go in this period. SW Galaxies? Even THAT novelty will get old. Earth and Beyond is already gone. And not just gone as in discontinued and hard-to-find like Panzer Dragoon Saga. Even if you found a copy of Earth and Beyond, you can't play it.
The worst part about this wholesale erasure is that not only are the games lost to me, they are also lost to the next generation as well. These discs and the bits of data printed on them become worthless. It's hard for an online game to be a classic because of the inherent subjectiveness in "having to had been there" to experience it. The mere suggestion that a company like Nintendo or Namco or whoever "should" make "Super Mario Online" or "Zelda Online" or "Tales of Internetivity"or whatever game with "online" tacked onto the end is totally absurd.
I really have no problems with online features so long as it doesn't encroach the core game design. Because when it does, games have a tendency to disappear for no reason other than some players lost interest or the company that published it wants to pull the plug.
Oh and on a side note, I agree with mouse_clicker lots, so at least now he's just against the World - 1.