This feature was my first major piece for the magazine since our redesign back in October. And it took quite some time to put together. Being a major fan of cooperative play I always get irked when co-op titles are lacking major elements such as split screen or are full of bugs such as interface problems. So I decided to conduct a poll (over 8000 readers responded) to prove that there are still legions of us out there that want to park it on the couch with a friend and play.

The magazine piece (Issue #201) was a two page spread that detailed the results from the poll, and the web piece tied in interviews with developers from prominent co-op dev houses. They explained away most of my co-op qualms, and shed some light on the difficulties of perfecting cooperative play. The entire endeavor was a TON of work, but well worth it in the end. Let me know what you think!!

In our January issue of Game Informer we examined the current co-op condition, asking vocal gamers what they want to see in future cooperative titles. And what they don’t. We surveyed nearly 8,000 readers to find out if social or solo gaming is paramount, if split-screen play is DOA or if there is hope for multi-gamer households. We even asked if they would be willing to pay a premium to play single-player franchises with their buddies. Co-op God of War perhaps? The results of our poll were interesting, to say the least.

Utilizing the infinite space the online format affords us, we now expand upon our print feature, offering up insight into the industry from key staffers of influential co-op development houses. These experts present their definitions of cooperative play, expand upon the co-op pipeline for their particular products and attempt to explain away some of our co-op qualms. They’ve got reasons as to why split screen is such a technological burden or why couch co-op doesn’t play nice with the web.

Read on for an insider’s look into the current state of co-op affairs, interspersed with results from our recent reader poll.

Click here to read the full article.