Hate to be that guy and all... but you guys aren't pointing out the tremendous expense involved in supporting online play. Even peer-to-peer systems that simply marry up two devices across the web to play against each other require a client/server style configuration. And in order for any of it to work the system would need to be able to scale up to the potential for 40 or 50 thousand users. So everyone wants more online multiplayer action. Question is how much would you be willing to pay for it? Usage fees? Monthly fees?
I addressed this issue in the first post, and frankly it is a none issue. look at a eurocentre, they have online multiplayer for most of their games and their games dont cost that much. Thus i'm forced to believe that if smaller companies like eurocentre and the makers of FAST can make games with online multiplayer and maintain their prices rather low, i see no reason why EA a huge company with a lot of resources cannot do the same!
Ultimately, guys & girls, vote with your spending - or lack of. It's tempting to buy the latest board game adaptation from EA - heck, I bought Scrabble and Monopoly in a heartbeat soon as I had the credit. But I think if there's a feature you feel the game should have and it doesn't, send them feedback and don't make the purchase. If you can't resist, score the game appropriately and while you'd happily increase the rating, the game really is the lesser for not having multiplayer. As consumers, you have the power. I think it's easy to say EA won't care, well, there is such a thing as people power and as the person above this post said so well that if a small dev can do multiplayer then the bigger fish can and should too.
I guess the problem is that adding online multiplayer functionality is meaning additional costs over the long term, so a lot of companies see it bad for business. It's easier for business to just finish a product, release and go on to the next one. If you are not already managing a server backend structure for other products (like we do) then it's hard to convince a product manager to add online multiplayer functionality. From my personal point of view multiplayer is a must. I play multiplayer games most of the time and even when playing single player games half of the fun is to talk with other people about it, like on toucharcade.com.
You're right, there's no doubt that established companies can afford the hundreds or thousands of dollars a month for dedicated hosting. But I think a majority of current apps on the app store are from indie developers who cannot afford the cost without some sort of additional fee from players. So to expect a ton of upcoming games to come out with multiplayer is a little unrealistic, imo. Agree with the sentiment though. Online makes the difference. Would be nice to see it done more often.
