Why is a group of four players the standard for the majority of games?

Question

Be it TTRPGs, board games or video games, a group of four players is the standard size.

DnD and adjacent systems balance their challenges around a party of four. Most boardgames come with four colours for players to choose from. Most video game consoles only can connect four controllers and most video games like Smash Bros and Mario Kart only have four slots? Why is that?

In: Other

Answer 1

The “roll up” board game TL;DR: **the game manufacturers did their research and determined that four players (with downsized play options for two or three) was the best demographic choice**, and this number extended into the evolution of other forms of gameplay.

Here are some of the reasons for four being the number.

* It’s the right “family” number. The standard customer’s family back in the last century when board games were originally popular was two parents and two or more kids, so parents could play with their children, or kids could play with their friends. Two adult couples also made for four players when company was over.
* Board games copied the card game model. Bridge, cribbage, pinochle, and many other card games that involve a scoring or a multi-hand element supported four players as the default, but not six because the cards would run out unless you shuffled 2 decks together.
* There is more depth of strategy with four players than two. Temporary allegiances that gang up on the player with the best position are not possible in a 2-player game. Conversely, things can take too long and get too complex with six. Too many players means more it takes more time to get to your round, and in games where you can do a fair bit during your moves, you could be waiting forever for your turn.

It’s not always been that way for video games, by the way. The majority of PvP or co-op older video games were at most two-player. Reasons for this are that screen real estate was precious and most gaming consoles of the time came boxed with two joysticks and you had to buy more if you wanted to play a 4-player game. Even now a six-player split screen would be cramped, and six active players running about on a single screen could get confusing. Yes, there’s tons of exceptions to this.