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I took an unintended break from PC gaming in the early 2000s, during a period when I could only afford a laptop that threatened to go nuclear if I so much as looked at C&C Generals.
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The downside, for me at least, is that matchmaking misses out on a key component of what felt like such an important part of the PC gaming ecosystem throughout the '90s and '00s. It's a relatively benign way to keep a game feeling populated, even after its initial popularity has waned. Matchmaking also lets developers tailor playlists based on the size of the playerbase. Stomping newbies may be fun for a while, but it's destructive to the long term health of a game. It's easier for new players to get to grips with a game, for one, but also gives those with more experience a more interesting challenge. There are obvious benefits to matching players based on their level of skill.
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The systems designed to keep players coming back into multiplayer-many of which were popularised in the early 2010s in response to the perceived threat of pre-owned sales of console games-don't work if players have all the control. And it's hard to make players care about your persistent progression system if player-run servers can offer decentralised leaderboards.
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After all, it's harder to sell map packs when players can download an endless stream of player-made alternatives. Perhaps this sidelining of custom servers was inevitable. Where once the server browser was front-and-centre, now it's buried below a suite of matchmaking options. You just need to look at Team Fortress 2's menu to see how much things have changed. With only limited configuration options, it exists simply as lip service to player expectations. Battlefield 5 is perhaps the only game I've played this year that offers one, and it's a shadow of what was once a major feature of of the series. Gradually, over the last 10 years, the server browser has fallen out of fashion. Today, a game releasing without custom server support is just business as usual. Back in 2015, the announcement that Star Wars: Battlefront would launch with skill-based matchmaking instead of a server browser felt newsworthy.