Sitting here watching the 11 hour part one of Twitch Plays Pokemon it's easy to think about all of the different kinds of multiplayer experiences games have explored. There are competitive games, cooperative games, games with only the slightest bit of interaction, and games that basically require only player to player interaction to even proceed.
When Jagoda quotes someone else about how multiplayer games make the player both an agent and a subject. It's kind of fun to see how exactly the player takes on both mantles.
In Twitch Plays Pokemon, it's having to make a Twitch account and actually typing in a command for the trainer to do something. It's knowing that a bunch of other people are watching that one input scroll by, hoping that it's the "correct" one, and not one that throws the trainer down a ditch or onto a converyor belt (two actual parts of the game where people thought it would be impossible to get through).
In Mario Kart, it's driving a kart while avoiding other people trying to hit you with shells and banana peels and lightning bolts.
In other games, the multiplayer aspect stretches beyond just playing the game. People travel to tournaments and hang out in random warehouses, organize cons and buy fanart, make mods and meet up for parties (just, like, regular parties). The multiplayer-ness of games doesn't even have to come from the game itself sometimes; "backseat gaming" (which sounds ridiculous omg) occurs with any heavily story-driven game.
Does this stretching beyond always occur? Are there any multiplayer experience which don't inherently engender a sense of community? What would that even look like?
The allure of multiplayer is the desire to create an experience that neither person could have on their own. Playing Pokemon is fun, and playing Pokemon while both players struggle to press the buttons in a certain order is fun for certain people.
A game that fails to create a multiplayer experience would be a game that cannot create a captivating single player experience. If multiplayer is supposed to add to the experience, then a game that does not improve in experience did not have a compelling experience to begin with.