Overhaul the Multiplayer Tags

[A Friendly Dog]

I'm sure this issue has been raised before, but Steam's multiplayer tag system is a mess. As of now, Steam offers developers the following ways to categorize the multiplayer functionality of a game (with their common interpretations in parentheses):

Multi-player (competitive online multiplayer)
Cross-Platform Multiplayer (some manner of multiplayer is available cross-platform)
Co-op (cooperative online multiplayer)
Local Co-op (any local multiplayer)

This system frequently causes confusion, and more than once I've seen a user threaten to report a game for false advertising because of these ambiguous tags. The main problems are that 'Multi-player' should, logically speaking, include all the other categories, and that the only way you can indicate a local multiplayer mode is to tag a game as having 'Local Co-op'. Under this system, Samurai Gunn, a game about slicing your friends to pieces with swords, is labeled 'Local Co-op' but not 'Multi-player'. This makes no sense.

I propose the following fairly obvious categories:
Online Multi-player (competitive online multiplayer)
Online Co-op (cooperative online multiplayer)
Local Multi-player (competitive local multiplayer)
Local Co-op (cooperative local multiplayer)
Cross-Platform Multiplayer (some manner of multiplayer is available cross-platform)

This clearly and accurately distinguishes between local and online multiplayer, and between co-op and versus. Currently tagged games could be transitioned easily, except that accurately re-tagging current 'local co-op' games would require human intervention. Most likely, these would just languish with potentially inaccurate tags, but that would be no less accurate than the current system, and worth it to have a consistent and logical set of tags going forward. (Alternately, there are only 779 games currently tagged "Local Co-op", which is not an unfeasible number of games to eventually fix.)

[n1unu]

nice

[Совесть]

+1
Tags should be more comfortable.

[Milk]

I'd rather have the tags separated, personally. If we had one tag for "online", one tag for "local", another for "competitive" and another for "cooperative", you could search for ALL games that had online play at the same time. The system proposed in the top post would only let you search for "online co-op" or "online versus" individually rather than getting those results combined.

[Hextravert]

Great suggestions.

Developers who release their very first game on Steam often mix up the tags.

And Cross-Platform apparently just means Windows and Mac users can play together.

[vertigo]

+1

This has bugged me for a long time. I wonder how many games I've bought two copies of so my friend and I can play online that are actually only local multiplayer, or vice-versa. I often find myself searching through the game description and sometimes even the discussions to see what type of multiplayer games actually are. The current setup is ridiculous and I wish I could say it was astonishing the Steam devs haven't realized it by now.

That's also good to know about cross-platform. I always thought that meant Steam/GOG/XBOX/PS, because, you know, those are actually platforms. If it's just cross-OS, then that's what the tag should say.

[vertigo]

I disagree about having them separate. This is only an issue because the search/filter functions don't allow selection of more than one tag. If they did, you could just select "local co-op" and "online co-op" if you want all co-op games. The problem with separate tags is that a game just labeled as "co-op" leaves you wondering whether it's local, online, or both. Granted, it would be ideal for it to also be labeled "online" and/or "local," but often they're not, and even if they are, it can still lead to confusion. If it's labeled "co-op" and "online," does that also mean it's online vs? Having the four main categories be very specific (online vs, online co-op, local vs, local co-op) would prevent any confusion, and if you wanted to find, for example, all co-op games, you would just search/filter for online co-op and local co-op. Or the search/filter could be smart enough to include online and local games if you look for just "co-op." I don't even think it's a good idea to use "online MP" and "local MP," because those tags could, and almost certainly would, be used incorrectly for a co-op game (co-op is MP). So I think "vs" or something similar should be used instead. In any event, I would really like to see Valve take some initiative and join the discussion or host their own and then implement some changes to this very confusing system. I feel it is their responsibility and obligation to do so as the way it currently is leads to a lot of misinformed purchases and probably also people not purchasing games because they're not showing up properly.