Some of my most cherished childhood memories occurred in a tiny corner of a television screen. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, pretty much every game that was released contained some sort of local multiplayer aspect, even when it didnt make any sense. For example, the single-player campaign in Donkey Kong 64 revolved around the eponymous hero freeing his captive friends and saving his home. But the 4-player splitscreen multiplayer mode pitted each of the plucky primates against each other in a massive arena to fight to the death. Logical? No. Fun? Absolutely. Now that all consoles have online connectivity, the concept of local splitscreen multiplayer has largely fallen by the wayside. That's not to say that all developers have abandoned splitscreen modes, because Halo and Call of Duty have actually done a great job of keeping local multiplayer alive. I'm saying that the splitscreen multiplayer mode is slowly dying, which is sad because it's infinitely more enjoyable to have someone else in the room sharing the same experience than to listen to racist, homophobic 10-year olds rant about having sex with my mother. Companies are spending less time and effort on implementing a quality splitscreen experience and more time on maximizing profit by making players pay for services and gimmicks that weren't necessary 10 years ago. Im looking at you, Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate. I really enjoyed playing Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii. I even enjoyed the online multiplayer aspect, too. I even thought about buying a Wii U exclusively for the revamped version, since I heard it supported local multiplayer and I had a close friend who was dying to play along with me. Then I did some research, and found out that in order to play local multiplayer in a video game made in 2013, I would have to buy a Wii U, a Wii U copy of Monster Hunter, a Nintendo 3DS, and a 3DS copy of Monster Hunter. Thats an investment of over $600 just to play the same game in the same room with someone else. Not only that, but the sad sack that has to play on the 3DS cant even play on a proper TV screen. So, apparently, its more important to modern game companies to invest in new technology innovations rather than split a screen and have two friends sit next to each other on the couch and fight dinosaurs together.
Eller likes a lot of old video games, and some new video games. Follow him on Twitter (@JordanEller) for updates about articles, but mostly silly jokes.
Some of my most cherished childhood memories occurred in a tiny corner of a television screen. Back in the 90s and early 2000s, pretty much every game that was released contained some sort of local multiplayer aspect, even when it didnt make any sense. For example, the single-player campaign in Donkey Kong 64 revolved around the eponymous hero freeing his captive friends and saving his home. But the 4-player splitscreen multiplayer mode pitted each of the plucky primates against each other in a massive arena to fight to the death. Logical? No. Fun? Absolutely. Now that all consoles have online connectivity, the concept of local splitscreen multiplayer has largely fallen by the wayside. That's not to say that all developers have abandoned splitscreen modes, because Halo and Call of Duty have actually done a great job of keeping local multiplayer alive. I'm saying that the splitscreen multiplayer mode is slowly dying, which is sad because it's infinitely more enjoyable to have someone else in the room sharing the same experience than to listen to racist, homophobic 10-year olds rant about having sex with my mother. 
