While I know the technical reasons(I've been in the industry and worked on exactly these kinds of games), I also have a certain other thought on it after getting time and distance from the trenches, which is that, on some basic first-principles level, the industry is trying too hard to market appealing falsehoods.
And online multiplayer constitutes one of the biggest falsehoods of all, since it has to pull some magic to synchronize an apparently similar, real-time experience across many computers, which leaves integral parts of the experience compromised. What's tested in competition, ordinarily, is your belief in your skills and likewise those of your opponent. When we play these games(and I still do play some of them), what's tested is more like a mixture of what you believe, what your opponents want to believe, and what the game code says you should believe.
The less authority you impose to regulate this belief - at any level, not just in the specific code for in-game results, but in terms of overall moderation, matchmaking, and QoS - the more flimsy the result is. What results from poor regulation is that player communities will behave dishonestly. Players left to their own devices are excellent at innovating new ways of gatekeeping, not just with cheating but with mutual agreements on playstyle and how to rank talent.
The industry isn't too concerned about this because, in the end, they have to make a product. I don't think it's the way to make sustainable products, though.
And online multiplayer constitutes one of the biggest falsehoods of all, since it has to pull some magic to synchronize an apparently similar, real-time experience across many computers, which leaves integral parts of the experience compromised. What's tested in competition, ordinarily, is your belief in your skills and likewise those of your opponent. When we play these games(and I still do play some of them), what's tested is more like a mixture of what you believe, what your opponents want to believe, and what the game code says you should believe.
The less authority you impose to regulate this belief - at any level, not just in the specific code for in-game results, but in terms of overall moderation, matchmaking, and QoS - the more flimsy the result is. What results from poor regulation is that player communities will behave dishonestly. Players left to their own devices are excellent at innovating new ways of gatekeeping, not just with cheating but with mutual agreements on playstyle and how to rank talent.
The industry isn't too concerned about this because, in the end, they have to make a product. I don't think it's the way to make sustainable products, though.